Scrapfly vs Spider Cloud (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 13, 2026, Scrapfly grades higher than Spider Cloud: 2.4 against 2.0 out of 4.0.
Checked Oct 23, 2026 and Nov 13, 2026 · graded Oct 24, 2026 and Nov 13, 2026 by ToolGPA
Scrapfly grades higher on features and ease of use. They get the same grade on value for money, the free plan and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Scrapfly
Web scraping API with anti-bot unblocking, browsers and AI extraction
Spider Cloud
Crawl, scrape and search API with usage or concurrency pricing
Which one is for you
Pick Scrapfly if
- Fits if you track rankings on Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yandex or Baidu from your own code
- Works for developers who want scraping, a hosted browser and screenshots on one key
Look elsewhere if
- Watch out: a request costs 1 credit plain, 5 with a browser, 25 on residential proxies and 60 for a full-page screenshot
- Tight if your usage spikes on Discovery, which stops at its quota with no pay-as-you-go overflow
- Pricey if you need a team, since Discovery and Pro are single-user and team management starts at $250 a month
- Tight if your usage swings, as credits reset at renewal and don't roll over
Pick Spider Cloud if
- Fits if you feed web pages to an AI agent or RAG pipeline as markdown
- Works for people who want a balance that never expires instead of a subscription
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you want a real free plan: the signup credit is worth $0.25
- Not for you if you cannot code, as it is an API, a CLI and agent integrations
- Watch out: failed or blocked pages are still billed, with a 0.01 credit minimum per page
- Watch out: Unlimited returns a 429 error above your concurrency and does not queue requests
- Watch out: zero data retention bills requests at 2.5 times the credits
How we grade them
| 2.4GPAScrapflyFair | 2.0GPASpider CloudFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | CDiscovery is $30 a month for 200,000 credits, this category's middle. What that buys swings with the request: 1 credit plain, 5 with a browser or the Unblocker, 25 with residential proxies, so 8,000 to 200,000 pages. Pro is $100 for 1 million. | CPay as you go from a $5 top-up at $1 per GB, or Unlimited from $40 a month for 2 concurrent requests. That is inside the usual $19 to $49 range for data APIs, and cost climbs with concurrency. |
| Free plan and trial | CNo free plan: 1,000 credits on sign-up with no card and no time limit, across every product. They don't renew, and at 25 credits on residential proxies that's 40 requests. | CNew accounts get 2,500 free credits, worth $0.25, if signup passes the vendor's checks. It is a small taste with no free plan behind it. |
| Features | BSearch results from Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yandex and Baidu with positions and SERP features as JSON or CSV, anti-bot unblocking, proxies in more than 190 countries, a cloud browser, a site crawler, AI extraction and screenshots. Nothing in the listing shows a gap in the core job. | CScrape, crawl, search, browser rendering, proxies and AI extraction. But Unlimited does not cover Google search or social automation, and failed pages are still billed. |
| Ease of use | CJudged on how fast a developer gets a first result: one flag for unblocking, SDKs for Python, TypeScript, Go, Rust and Scrapy, and a CLI. No rating on record, and the credit cost of each request changes with its options. | DNo store rating on record. It is an API with a CLI, so you code against it. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb, with an API, SDKs, a CLI and a hosted MCP server for Claude, Cursor, Cline and Windsurf, plus Zapier, Make, n8n, LangChain, LlamaIndex and CrewAI. No desktop or phone app, so B is the top. | BWeb API with an MCP server, a CLI and integrations with CrewAI, LangChain, LlamaIndex, Dify and Flowise. The crawler core is MIT-licensed on GitHub. |
| Best for | scraping protected sites and several search engines | crawling pages into markdown for AI |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Scrapfly and Spider Cloud. How we grade
Price against what you get
Scrapfly starts at $30 a month and scores 2.7 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. Spider Cloud starts at $40 a month and scores 2.0.
Scrapfly scores higher and starts $10 a month lower. Of the other SERP and SEO data APIs on the chart, none scores higher than Scrapfly for less, and 16 score higher than Spider Cloud for less.
Features, ease of use and platforms, averaged
What paid plans start at, a month (each step along is roughly double) →
- The best score at each price
- Has a free plan
- No free plan
Where they differ
- Spider Cloud is open source, according to its own site.
- Spider Cloud also covers AI agents.
At a glance
| Scrapfly | Spider Cloud | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free trial | Free trial |
| Starts at | $30 per month for 200,000 API credits | $40 per month for 2 concurrent requests, or pay as you go from $5 |
| Free plan | None | None |
| Free trial | 1,000 free API credits on sign-up, no card needed and no time limit | New accounts get 2,500 free credits (worth $0.25) if signup passes the vendor's checks |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Joam Intelligence, LLC | BAGELMEN LLC |
| Price read from | scrapfly.io | spider.cloud |
| Checked | Oct 23, 2026 | Nov 13, 2026 |
Worth knowing
Scrapfly
- A request costs 1 credit as plain HTTP on a datacenter IP, 5 with a browser or the Unblocker, 25 with residential proxies and 60 for a full-page screenshot.
- Discovery stops when its credits run out; only Pro and above continue as pay as you go.
- Credits reset at renewal and do not roll over. Failed requests are not charged.
- Discovery and Pro are single-user accounts; team management starts at Startup for $250 a month.
Spider Cloud
- Failed or blocked pages are still billed, with a 0.01 credit minimum per page.
- The Unlimited plan does not support Google search, social media automation or multi-account use; those run on pay as you go.
- Requests above your concurrency on Unlimited get a 429 error and are not queued.
- A zero data retention setting bills requests at 2.5 times the credits.
Key features
Scrapfly
- Web Scraping API with Unblocker
- One flag handles anti-bot systems, browser rendering, proxy rotation and retries, with residential and datacenter proxies in more than 190 countries.
- Search result scraping
- Send a query with a location and get positions, titles, URLs, snippets and SERP features back as JSON or CSV from Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yandex or Baidu.
- Cloud Browser and Crawler APIs
- Drive a hosted Chromium with Playwright or Puppeteer and keep sessions between calls, or crawl a whole site in one job with path filters and webhooks.
- Data Extraction API
- Turn pages into JSON with ready-made models for products, articles, reviews and jobs, with CSS or XPath templates, or with plain-language AI prompts.
- Screenshot API
- Full-page or viewport captures in PNG, JPEG or WebP, with auto-scroll and scheduled captures sent to a webhook.
- MCP server, CLI and SDKs
- A hosted MCP server for Claude, Cursor, Cline and Windsurf, a command-line tool, and SDKs for Python, TypeScript, Go, Rust and Scrapy.
Spider Cloud
- Scrape, crawl and search
- One API covers all three; whole-site crawls stream back page by page as JSONL, with markdown, HTML, text or JSON output.
- Browser rendering and proxies
- JavaScript rendering and proxy rotation are not billed as multipliers; proxies in 199 countries are listed on the site.
- AI extraction
- Sends a prompt and a URL and gets structured JSON back; AI extraction has its own price listed in the pricing details.
- Agent integrations
- The site lists an MCP server, a CLI and integrations with CrewAI, LangChain, LlamaIndex, Dify and Flowise.
- Open source core
- The crawler is published under an MIT license on GitHub, and the cloud service is the hosted version.
Plans
Scrapfly
Discovery$30
per month for 200,000 API credits
5 concurrent requests, 1 week of logs and one user. Stops at the quota, with no pay-as-you-go overflow.
Pro$100
per month for 1,000,000 API credits
20 concurrent requests, 2 weeks of logs and one user. Extra credits at $3.50 per 10,000.
Startup$250
per month for 2,500,000 API credits
50 concurrent requests, 3 weeks of logs and team management. Extra credits at $2.00 per 10,000.
Enterprise$500
per month for 5,500,000 API credits
100 concurrent requests, 4 weeks of logs, team management and premium support. Extra credits at $1.20 per 10,000.
CustomCustom
Negotiated volume above 5.5 million credits, with committed concurrency, dedicated residential IPs, a BAA and 24/7 support.
Spider Cloud
Pay as you go$5
one-time top-up, used as you go
No subscription and the balance does not expire. Billed at $1 per GB of content plus $0.0001 per CPU minute; larger top-ups of $500 or more earn a bonus.
Unlimited$40
per month for 2 concurrent requests
Unlimited requests for a flat price based on concurrency, from $20 per concurrent request falling to $13 at higher volumes, up to 1,538 concurrent.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Scrapfly or Spider Cloud?
As of Nov 13, 2026, Scrapfly is cheaper to start with: $30 a month, against $40 a month for Spider Cloud. Scrapfly starts at $30 per month for 200,000 API credits, and Spider Cloud starts at $40 per month for 2 concurrent requests, or pay as you go from $5.
Which has a free plan, Scrapfly or Spider Cloud?
As of Nov 13, 2026, neither Scrapfly nor Spider Cloud has a free plan. Both have a free trial.
More comparisons
How this page was made
- The verdict at the top follows a fixed rule. When both tools are in the same category and either is in our top three for it, the verdict follows that ranking: the higher-placed tool is our pick. The top three weigh who each tool suits as well as its grades, so a pick can go against the GPA. Otherwise the page does not pick one and says which grades higher: the higher GPA first; on a tie, the one with a free plan, then the one that starts cheaper in dollars a month, counted the same way for both; if they are still level, what the choice depends on.
- The grades are our own, from each tool’s review or report card. The GPA is their average.
- Prices, plans and platforms come from each tool’s listing. The table above says where each price was read and when.
- The differences and the answers to the questions are worked out from those listings.