ZenRows review (2026): is the free plan enough?
Web scraping API for protected sites, priced by monthly credits
ZenRows report card
Fair · out of 4.0 · graded Oct 24, 2026
Best for scraping protected pages on one credit balance
ZenRows fetches pages behind anti-bot walls and turns them into JSON without selectors, with crawl, batch and browser tools on the same monthly credits. For search data there's no dedicated endpoint: you send a Google or Bing results address and get back whatever groups that page shows, at 1 to 25 credits a request.
Who ZenRows is for
- 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
Who ZenRows is not for
- 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
Why ZenRows gets a 2.4
Five grades, each with its reason. The GPA is their average: an A is 4 points, an F is none.
- BValue for moneyBuild 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.
- CFree plan and trialA 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.
- CFeaturesFetch 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.
- CEase of useJudged 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.
- BPlatforms and integrationsWeb, 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.
What these grades rest on. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from ZenRows's own pages on 23 October 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews. How we review and grade.
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<a href="https://toolgpa.com/tools/zenrows#review"><img src="https://toolgpa.com/badge/zenrows.svg" alt="ZenRows: 2.4 GPA on ToolGPA" width="196" height="56"></a>Where ZenRows stands among SERP and SEO data APIs
ZenRows'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 value for money (B, above 21 of 38) and worst on ease of use (C, above 0).
Its paid plans start at $16 a month, against a middle price of $29.49 for the category: 2 of the 25 others that charge start lower.
On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.3 out of 4. 1 tool scores higher and costs less.
Each grade against the category
Every bar is all 39 SERP and SEO data APIs we grade, cut by the letter each got. ZenRows’s own letter is outlined.
- BValue for moneyAbove 21 of 38, level with 13
- CFree plan and trialAbove 2 of 38, level with 32
- CFeaturesAbove 1 of 38, level with 24
- CEase of useAbove 0 of 38, level with 36
- BPlatforms and integrationsAbove 9 of 38, level with 29
Price against what you get
Each dot is one of 26 SERP and SEO data APIs. Further left costs less, and higher up scores better on features, ease of use and platforms. Point at a dot to see which tool it is.
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
Keep ZenRows, or make your own?
Keep it
To replace ZenRows 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 $192 a year.
What you could not
- Search results fetched at scale from many countries without being blocked.
- It plugs into other products, Claude Code, Cursor and Clay among them, and has an API.
- AI features, unless you pay a model provider for each request yourself.
What this rests on. ZenRows’s listing: what it does, where it runs, what it plugs into and what it costs. It is a judgement about the kind of software this is. We have not built a replacement for it, and making your own means looking after it too. How we decide, and every tool’s verdict.
What is ZenRows?
ZenRows is a web scraping platform whose tools all draw on one monthly credit balance: Fetch returns a page's content, Extract turns it into JSON without selectors, and Crawl, Batch and Browser handle whole sites, large jobs and pages that need clicks or logins. Search results are read by sending a Google or Bing results address to Fetch, localized to a country, and getting the result groups back as JSON.
Worth knowing
- 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
- 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.
ZenRows pricing
As of Oct 23, 2026, ZenRows has a free plan, and paid plans start at $16 per month for 45,000 credits, billed annually ($19 billed monthly).
- Starts at
- $16 per month for 45,000 credits, billed annually ($19 billed monthly)
- Free plan
- 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
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 5,000 credits a month, refreshed monthly with no rollover or top-ups, 5 concurrent requests and community support. |
| Build | $16per 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 | $58per 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 | $166per 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 | $458per 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). |
| Enterprise | Custom | Committed volume, 500 to 1,000+ concurrent requests, an SLA, a DPA and a dedicated account manager. Through sales. |
Read from zenrows.com on Oct 23, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with ZenRows before you buy.
Ways to pay less
- Annual discountTwo 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.
Stated on zenrows.com
Works with
ZenRows alternatives
- ZenRows vs ScrapingBee
Free trial · from $19/mo
- ZenRows vs Scrapfly
Free trial · from $30/mo
- ZenRows vs ScraperAPI
Free plan · from $44.10/mo
- ZenRows vs Scrape.do
Free plan · from $29/mo
- ZenRows vs Zyte
Free trial · from $100/mo
Common questions
Does ZenRows have an Android app?
No Android app was listed when its pages were read on Oct 23, 2026. ZenRows is listed for Web.
Does ZenRows have an iPhone app?
No iPhone app was listed when its pages were read on Oct 23, 2026. ZenRows is listed for Web.
Is ZenRows open source?
ZenRows is not described as open source on its own site, as read on Oct 23, 2026.
Does ZenRows have an API?
Yes. ZenRows offers a public API, according to its own site.
Sources for this page
The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Oct 23, 2026.