# Crawlbase review (2026): is it worth $99 a month?

> Crawling API with built-in scrapers, Google SERP to JSON included

Checked Oct 23, 2026 · graded Oct 24, 2026 by ToolGPA.

Crawlbase is a web data platform whose Crawling API fetches pages through rotating residential proxies with CAPTCHA and block handling built in, and returns raw HTML or structured JSON from more than 100 built-in scrapers, Google search results among them. It also sells an asynchronous crawler, a rotating proxy endpoint and cloud storage, all drawing on one credit balance billed as you go or through a monthly subscription.

- **Category:** SERP & SEO Data APIs
- **Made by:** Crawlbase LLC (since 2017)
- **Website:** https://crawlbase.com
- **Runs on:** Web
- **Who should skip it:** Watch out: heavily defended sites cost 1.5 to 20 times a standard request, applied automatically.
- **Facts last checked:** Oct 23, 2026

## Pricing

As of Oct 23, 2026, Crawlbase is a paid product with a free trial, starting at $99 per month for 200,000 credits, billed monthly.

- **Pricing model:** Free trial
- **Free plan:** None.
- **Free trial:** 1,000 free credits on sign-up, up to 5,000 after setup steps, no card needed.

| Plan | Price | What you get |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Starter | $99 per month for 200,000 credits, billed monthly | About $0.50 per 1,000 credits, or $1,089 a year with yearly billing. Use past the block continues as pay as you go. |
| Scale 500K | $199 per month for 500,000 credits, billed monthly | About $0.40 per 1,000 credits, or $2,189 a year with yearly billing. |
| Scale 1M | $349 per month for 1,000,000 credits, billed monthly | About $0.35 per 1,000 credits, or $3,839 a year with yearly billing. |
| Growth | $599 per month for 2,000,000 credits, billed monthly | About $0.30 per 1,000 credits, or $6,589 a year with yearly billing. |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom volume above 2 million credits a month, with SLAs and invoicing. Through sales. |

Read from https://crawlbase.com/pricing on Oct 23, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Crawlbase before buying.

## Ways to pay less

- **One month free with yearly billing** (Annual discount): Crawlbase's pricing page says yearly billing gives one month free, about 8% off: Starter is $1,089 a year instead of $99 a month. Source: https://crawlbase.com/pricing

## Key features

- **Crawling API:** Fetches any page with rotating residential proxies, CAPTCHA and block handling included, optional JavaScript rendering in a real browser, and full-page screenshots.
- **Google SERP Scraper:** Turns a Google search address into JSON with organic results, ads, People Also Ask, the local pack and related searches, at the same price as raw HTML.
- **Built-in scrapers:** More than 100 scrapers return structured JSON from sites such as Amazon, Walmart, LinkedIn, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yandex and Tripadvisor.
- **Enterprise Crawler:** Crawls asynchronously at scale and delivers the results to storage, for jobs too large to run request by request.
- **Smart AI Proxy and Cloud Storage:** A single proxy endpoint that rotates residential IPs, and storage that keeps crawled pages for 0.5 credits a page a month.
- **Spend caps and MCP server:** Set a hard spending cap on the account or a workspace, and give AI agents live web data through the Web MCP server.

## Good for

- Developers who want Google results and other sites as JSON from one API
- Uneven workloads that suit pay as you go with a spending cap
- Large crawls delivered to storage instead of fetched one by one

## Worth knowing

- Without a subscription, pay as you go has no monthly fee and is billed in arrears per 1,000 requests, falling from $3.00 for the first 1,000 to $0.02 at high volume.
- Heavily defended sites cost 1.5 to 20 times a standard request, applied automatically, and JavaScript rendering doubles any request.
- A subscription's credits reset each month; use past them is billed as pay as you go unless you turn that off.
- Screenshots cost 2 credits each and stored pages 0.5 credits a month.

## ToolGPA grades

**GPA: 2.4 out of 4**, graded Oct 24, 2026. Crawlbase fetches pages through rotating residential proxies with CAPTCHA handling and returns raw HTML or JSON from 100+ built-in scrapers, Google search results among them, billed as you go or by monthly block. Heavily defended sites cost 1.5 to 20 times a standard request, JavaScript rendering doubles it, and subscriptions start at $99 a month.

- **Value for money: C.** Pay as you go has no monthly fee and is billed per 1,000 requests, from $3.00 for the first 1,000 down to $0.02 at high volume. Subscriptions start at $99 a month for 200,000 credits, about $0.50 per 1,000, well above this category's $29.99 middle as a monthly bill.
- **Free plan and trial: C.** No free plan: 1,000 credits on sign-up with no card, rising to 5,000 after some setup steps. They're a one-off, not a monthly allowance.
- **Features: B.** Google results as JSON with organic results, ads, People Also Ask, the local pack and related searches, 100+ scrapers including Bing, DuckDuckGo and Yandex, JavaScript rendering, screenshots and an asynchronous crawler. Nothing in the listing shows a gap in the core job.
- **Ease of use: C.** Judged on how fast a developer gets a first result: one API with built-in scrapers, and hard spending caps per account or workspace. No rating on record, and a request's cost changes with how defended the site is.
- **Platforms and integrations: B.** Web, with an API and a Web MCP server, plus Claude, Cursor, LangChain, Zapier and n8n. No desktop or phone app, so B is the top.

These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Crawlbase's own pages on 23 October 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews.

## Where it stands among SERP and SEO data APIs

- Crawlbase's GPA of 2.4 is higher than 16 of the 38 other SERP and SEO data APIs we grade, and level with 14.
- It stands best on features (B, above 26 of 38) and worst on ease of use (C, above 0).
- Its paid plans start at $99 a month, against a middle price of $29.49 for the category: 22 of the 25 others that charge start lower.
- On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.7 out of 4. Nothing scores higher for less, though at least one tool matches that score at a lower price.

The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/seo-data-apis

## Keep it, or make your own?

**Keep it.** To replace Crawlbase you would be making search results fetched at scale from many countries without being blocked. That is not a weekend's work, with an AI app builder or without one. It costs $1,188 a year.

- You could not: Search results fetched at scale from many countries without being blocked.
- You could not: It plugs into other products, Claude, Cursor and LangChain among them, and has an API.
- You could not: The depth: we grade its features B, which means it covers the whole job.

A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it.

## Works with

Claude, Cursor, LangChain, Zapier, n8n

**Tags:** SERP API, Public API

## Alternatives

- [ScraperAPI](https://toolgpa.com/tools/scraperapi): Web scraping API with Google search endpoints, priced in API credits. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/crawlbase-vs-scraperapi)
- [ScrapingBee](https://toolgpa.com/tools/scrapingbee): Web scraping API with a Google search endpoint, priced by credits. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/crawlbase-vs-scrapingbee)
- [Zyte](https://toolgpa.com/tools/zyte): Web scraping API with ban handling, AI extraction and a SERP endpoint. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/crawlbase-vs-zyte)
- [Scrapingdog](https://toolgpa.com/tools/scrapingdog): Web scraping and Google SERP APIs on one shared credit plan. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/crawlbase-vs-scrapingdog)
- [ZenRows](https://toolgpa.com/tools/zenrows): Web scraping API for protected sites, priced by monthly credits. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/crawlbase-vs-zenrows)

## Sources

The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Oct 23, 2026:

- https://crawlbase.com/pricing
- https://crawlbase.com/
- https://crawlbase.com/google-serp-scraper
- https://crawlbase.com/docs/integrations
- https://crawlbase.com/terms

Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/crawlbase
Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).