ScrapingAnt vs ZenRows (2026): which should you pick?
As of Oct 24, 2026, ScrapingAnt grades higher than ZenRows: 2.6 against 2.4 out of 4.0.
Checked Oct 23, 2026 · graded Oct 24, 2026 by ToolGPA
ScrapingAnt grades higher on the free plan. They get the same grade on value for money, features, ease of use and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
ScrapingAnt
Web scraping API with headless Chrome, proxies and AI extraction
ZenRows
Web scraping API for protected sites, priced by monthly credits
Which one is for you
Pick ScrapingAnt if
- Fits if you need the search results page and the pages it links to on one key
- Works for jobs that send many requests at once, since no plan caps concurrency
Look elsewhere if
- Watch out: search pages come back as HTML, and JSON through the AI extractor costs 1 more credit per 30 characters read and written
- Watch out: other pages cost 1 to 125 credits, with residential proxies and rendering the dearest
- Tight if your usage swings, since unused credits don't carry over to the next month
- Pricey if you need standalone proxies, which are billed by GB on top of API credits
Pick ZenRows if
- Fits if you scrape protected sites and want Google results from the same credits
- Works for AI agents that need web pages as Markdown or JSON
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you want a fixed SERP format, as the result groups vary with what Google or Bing shows
- Watch out: a page costs 1 credit plain, 5 rendered, 10 on premium proxies and 25 with both
- Watch out: residential bandwidth draws 25,000 credits per GB and the Browser 5 credits a minute
- Tight if you're on Free, which stops at 5,000 credits with no top-ups until the next month
- Pricey if your volume grows, as each plan's price steps up with its credit allowance
How we grade them
| 2.6GPAScrapingAntGood | 2.4GPAZenRowsFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | BEnthusiast is $19 a month for 100,000 credits, on the line of this category's cheaper quarter. A Google request is 10 credits, so that's 10,000 result pages, $1.90 per 1,000, before any AI extraction. | BBuild is $16 a month on yearly billing, $19 monthly, inside this category's cheaper quarter, for 45,000 credits. A page is 1 credit plain and 25 with rendering and premium proxies, so that's 1,800 to 45,000 pages. |
| Free plan and trial | BA free plan for good: 10,000 credits every month with no card, about 1,000 Google result pages, and failed requests aren't charged. A side project could run on that. | CA free plan for good with no card: 5,000 credits a month with every tool except standalone residential proxies. At 25 credits for a rendered page on premium proxies that's 200 pages, and there are no top-ups. |
| Features | CHeadless Chrome, rotating proxies in 100+ countries, Markdown output and plain-English AI extraction, with Google, Bing, Yandex and DuckDuckGo pages on one key. The gap is in the listing: search pages come back as HTML, and JSON needs the AI extractor at extra credits. | CFetch past anti-bot walls, Extract to JSON with no selectors, Crawl, Batch and a real Browser. The gap is in the listing: search results come from parsing a Google or Bing results page, so the groups returned vary with what the page shows. |
| Ease of use | CJudged on how fast a developer gets a first result: one endpoint, no concurrency cap and an MCP server. No rating on record, and requests range from 1 to 125 credits by browser and proxy choice. | CJudged on how fast a developer gets a first result: Python, Node and Go SDKs, a CLI and an MCP server, all open source. No rating on record, and a request's cost changes with rendering and proxy choices. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb, with an API and an MCP server for Claude Code, Cursor and Windsurf, plus n8n, Make and GitHub Actions. No desktop or phone app, so B is the top. | BWeb, with an API, SDKs, a CLI and an MCP server for Claude, Cursor and Codex, plus Clay, Make, n8n, Zapier, LangChain and LlamaIndex. No desktop or phone app, so B is the top. |
| Best for | search pages and the pages they link to | scraping protected pages on one credit balance |
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: ScrapingAnt and ZenRows. How we grade
Price against what you get
ScrapingAnt starts at $19 a month and scores 2.3 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. ZenRows starts at $16 a month and scores 2.3.
They score the same, and ZenRows starts $3 a month lower. Of the other SERP and SEO data APIs on the chart, 1 scores higher than ScrapingAnt for less, and 1 scores higher than ZenRows 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
At a glance
| ScrapingAnt | ZenRows | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free plan |
| Starts at | $19 per month for 100,000 API credits | $16 per month for 45,000 credits, billed annually ($19 billed monthly) |
| Free plan | 10,000 API credits every month, with failed requests not charged. No card needed. | 5,000 credits a month with every tool except standalone residential proxies, 5 concurrent requests and community support. No card needed. |
| Free trial | None listed | None listed |
| Web | ||
| Made by | DATAANT SP. Z O.O. | Zenrows |
| Price read from | scrapingant.com | zenrows.com |
| Checked | Oct 23, 2026 | Oct 23, 2026 |
Worth knowing
ScrapingAnt
- Google requests cost 10 credits each; other pages cost 1 to 125 credits by browser and proxy choice, with residential proxies and JavaScript rendering the most.
- Search pages come back as HTML by default; JSON needs the AI extractor, which adds 1 credit per 30 characters read and written.
- Unused credits do not carry over; a plan that runs out mid-month can be restarted at once by paying again.
- Standalone residential and datacenter proxies are billed by GB, separately from API credits.
ZenRows
- A standard page costs 1 credit, 5 with JavaScript rendering, 10 with premium proxies and 25 with both; residential bandwidth is 25,000 credits per GB.
- Search results come from fetching a Google or Bing results address and parsing the page, so the groups returned vary with what the page shows.
- The free plan stops at 5,000 credits until the next month; paid plans can buy top-ups up to ten times a billing period.
- Each paid plan's price rises with its credit allowance, in three steps (five for Scale).
Key features
ScrapingAnt
- Headless Chrome rendering
- Each request runs in a fresh Chrome instance, with custom JavaScript snippets, waits for a CSS selector, and custom cookies and headers.
- Rotating proxies
- Datacenter and residential proxies across 100+ countries rotate per request, with geo-targeting by country code and CAPTCHA and Cloudflare handling.
- Search result pages
- Send a Google, Bing, Yandex or DuckDuckGo results address to the same endpoint to get the page back, then scrape the result pages on the same key.
- Markdown and AI extraction
- Get any page as LLM-ready Markdown, or describe fields in plain English and receive JSON, billed by the characters read and written.
- No concurrency cap
- Every plan can send requests in parallel without queues or throttling; ScrapingAnt allocates browsers and proxies per request.
- MCP server
- Adds tools for page HTML, Markdown and text to Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf and other MCP clients, drawing on the plan's credits.
ZenRows
- Fetch
- Returns any page as HTML, Markdown, JSON or a screenshot, getting past anti-bot walls, CAPTCHAs and fingerprint checks on protected sites.
- Extract
- Detects the data on a page and returns it as JSON with no selectors or schema to write. It currently costs nothing on top of the Fetch it uses.
- Search results as JSON
- Send a Google or Bing results address with a country and get organic results, related questions, videos and other groups back with their positions.
- Crawl and Batch
- Crawl collects every page behind a starting address, each billed as a Fetch; Batch runs large queued jobs with retries, webhooks and status tracking.
- Browser
- Drives a real browser for pages that need clicks, forms, logins or a session kept across a long job, billed at 5 credits a minute plus bandwidth.
- MCP server, CLI and SDKs
- An MCP server for Claude, Cursor and Codex, a command-line tool, and Python, Node and Go SDKs, all published as open source under MIT.
Plans
ScrapingAnt
Free$0
10,000 API credits a month, enough for about 1,000 Google result pages at 10 credits each.
Enthusiast$19
per month for 100,000 API credits
Email support and documentation for integration help.
Startup$49
per month for 500,000 API credits
Priority email support and custom code snippets.
Business$249
per month for 3,000,000 API credits
Priority email support, debug sessions and expert assistance.
Business Pro$599
per month for 8,000,000 API credits
Priority debug sessions, custom proxy pools and custom anti-bot handling.
Custom$699
per month and up for 10M+ API credits
Priority and dedicated support, full onboarding and a dedicated account manager. Through sales.
ZenRows
Free$0
5,000 credits a month, refreshed monthly with no rollover or top-ups, 5 concurrent requests and community support.
Build$16
per month for 45,000 credits, billed annually ($19 billed monthly)
20 concurrent requests, email support and top-ups. Rises to $33 a month for 120,000 credits ($39 billed monthly).
Launch$58
per month for 250,000 credits, billed annually ($69 billed monthly)
50 concurrent requests and chat support. Rises to $108 a month for 700,000 credits ($129 billed monthly).
Growth$166
per month for 1.2M credits, billed annually ($199 billed monthly)
100 concurrent requests, priority support and the residential network at scale. Rises to $333 a month for 3M credits ($399 monthly).
Scale$458
per month for 5M credits, billed annually ($549 billed monthly)
200 to 400 concurrent requests and committed capacity options. Rises to $2,499 a month for 45M credits ($2,999 monthly).
EnterpriseCustom
Committed volume, 500 to 1,000+ concurrent requests, an SLA, a DPA and a dedicated account manager. Through sales.
Ways to pay less
ScrapingAnt
No public discounts listed.
ZenRows
- Annual discount
Two months free with annual billing
Zenrows says paying yearly gives two months free (pay for 10, get 12), shown as a 17% saving, with the year's credits up front.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, ScrapingAnt or ZenRows?
As of Oct 23, 2026, ZenRows is cheaper to start with: $16 a month, against $19 a month for ScrapingAnt. ScrapingAnt starts at $19 per month for 100,000 API credits, and ZenRows starts at $16 per month for 45,000 credits, billed annually ($19 billed monthly).
Which has a free plan, ScrapingAnt or ZenRows?
As of Oct 23, 2026, both ScrapingAnt and ZenRows have a free plan.
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.