The ZenRows Insider’s Guide
Everything we know about ZenRows in one document: what it costs, its grades, getting a refund, getting help and what else to look at. Read it here, or keep a copy.
ZenRows
The Insider’s Guide
Web scraping API for protected sites, priced by monthly credits
Every plan, grade, refund rule and rival among SERP and SEO data APIs, read from ZenRows’s own pages.
Made by Zenrows · checked Oct 23, 2026 · toolgpa.com
Contents
- 01WelcomeWhat it is, who it suits, its grades and the ten things to know first
- 02What it costsEvery plan, the free plan, ways to pay less and how prices have moved
- 03What it doesIts main features, where it runs, what it works with and who makes it
- 04Where it standsIts grades against its category, and whether to keep it or make your own
- 05The alternativesThe tools it is most often weighed against, side by side
- 06Quick answersThe questions people ask about it, each answered in a line or two
- 07About ToolGPAWho made this guide, what else is on the site, and how to cite it
ToolGPA put this guide together from ZenRows’s own pages, its app-store listings and our grades. Every fact in it is on ZenRows’s page too, where it is kept up to date. Checked Oct 23, 2026.
Part 01 · Overview
Welcome
What it is, who it suits, its grades and the ten things to know first
2.4
GPA, above 16 of the 38 other SERP and SEO data APIs we grade
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.
To get you started, here are 9 things to know about ZenRows, taken from its own pages and our grades.
Judged on how fast a developer gets a first result: Python, Node and Go SDKs, a CLI and an MCP server, all open source.
- 1
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.
- 2
Paid plans start at $16 a month
As its pricing page puts it: $16 per month for 45,000 credits, billed annually ($19 billed monthly).
- 3
There is a free plan
5,000 credits a month with every tool except standalone residential proxies, 5 concurrent requests and community support. No card needed.
- 4
It runs on Web
Web.
- 5
Fetch
Returns any page as HTML, Markdown, JSON or a screenshot, getting past anti-bot walls, CAPTCHAs and fingerprint checks on protected sites.
- 6
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.
- 7
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.
- 8
A 2.4 GPA, above 16 of 38
That is against the other SERP and SEO data APIs we grade, on value, the free plan, features, ease of use and platforms.
- 9
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.
ZenRows at a glance
- Pricing
- Free plan, from $16 per month for 45,000 credits, billed annually ($19 billed monthly)
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free trial
- None stated
- Runs on
- Web
- Made by
- Zenrows
- Category
- SERP & SEO Data APIs
- Our grade
- 2.4 GPA, fair
The report card
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.
| Subject | Grade | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | B | Build 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 | C | A 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 | C | Fetch 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 | C | Judged 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 | B | Web, 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. |
An A is worth 4 points, a B 3, a C 2, a D 1 and an F nothing. The GPA is the average of the five.
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 it 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
Good to know
Good for
- Developers scraping protected sites without managing proxies
- AI agents that need web pages as Markdown or JSON
- Small projects that fit in 5,000 free credits a month
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).
Part 02 · Pricing
What it costs
Every plan, the free plan, ways to pay less and how prices have moved
$16
A month to start. There is a free plan too
ZenRows has a free plan. Paid plans start at $16 per month for 45,000 credits, billed annually ($19 billed monthly).
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).
Enterprise
Custom
Committed volume, 500 to 1,000+ concurrent requests, an SLA, a DPA and a dedicated account manager. Through sales.
The free plan
5,000 credits a month with every tool except standalone residential proxies, 5 concurrent requests and community support. No card needed.
Read from zenrows.com on Oct 23, 2026.
Ways to pay less
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.
Stated on zenrows.com
Part 03 · Features
What it does
Its main features, where it runs, what it works with and who makes it
1
Place it runs: Web
Web scraping API for protected sites, priced by monthly credits. Here is what it does, as its own site describes it, and what it covers: public API, AI features, sERP API.
Fetch past anti-bot walls, Extract to JSON with no selectors, Crawl, Batch and a real Browser.
- 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.
Where it runs
- Web
What it works with
- Claude Code
- Cursor
- Clay
- Make
- n8n
- Zapier
- LangChain
- LlamaIndex
ZenRows is made by Zenrows.
Part 04 · Standing
Where it stands
Its grades against its category, and whether to keep it or make your own
16/38
Other SERP and SEO data APIs it is graded above
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
- CFree plan and trialAbove 2 of 38
- CFeaturesAbove 1 of 38
- CEase of useAbove 0 of 38
- BPlatforms and integrationsAbove 9 of 38
Price against what you get
Each dot is one of 26 SERP and SEO data APIs. Further left costs less; higher up scores better on features, ease of use and platforms. ZenRows is the marked dot.
What paid plans start at, a month (each step along is roughly double) →
Keep it, or make your own?
Whether this is something you could build for yourself with an AI app builder, and what you would give up.
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.
Part 05 · Alternatives
The alternatives
The tools it is most often weighed against, side by side
ScrapingBee, Scrapfly, ScraperAPI, Scrape.do and Zyte
The 5 tools ZenRows is most often weighed against, with where each one differs from it.
- 2.4GPA
ScrapingBee
Free trial · from $19/mo
Web scraping API with a Google search endpoint, priced by credits.
- ZenRows has a free plan. ScrapingBee does not, though it has a free trial.
- 2.4GPA
Scrapfly
Free trial · from $30/mo
Web scraping API with anti-bot unblocking, browsers and AI extraction.
- ZenRows has a free plan. Scrapfly does not, though it has a free trial.
- 2.2GPA
ScraperAPI
Free plan · from $44.10/mo
Web scraping API with Google search endpoints, priced in API credits.
- 2.2GPA
Scrape.do
Free plan · from $29/mo
Web scraping API with ready-made Google and AI search scrapers.
- 2.4GPA
Zyte
Free trial · from $100/mo
Web scraping API with ban handling, AI extraction and a SERP endpoint.
- ZenRows has a free plan. Zyte does not, though it has a free trial.
Part 06 · Questions
Quick answers
The questions people ask about it, each answered in a line or two
14
Questions, each answered in a line or two
The short version of everything above, for when you only need the answer. Each one is told in full in its part of the guide.
Is ZenRows free?
ZenRows has a free plan. 5,000 credits a month with every tool except standalone residential proxies, 5 concurrent requests and community support.
How much does ZenRows cost?
ZenRows lists 6 plans. Free: $0.
What platforms does ZenRows work on?
ZenRows is available on Web.
Does ZenRows offer any discounts?
ZenRows publicly lists the following: Two months free with annual billing.
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.
What does ZenRows integrate with?
ZenRows's listing names Claude Code, Cursor, Clay, Make, n8n, Zapier, LangChain and LlamaIndex.
Who makes ZenRows?
ZenRows is made by Zenrows.
What are the alternatives to ZenRows?
The closest alternatives to ZenRows in our directory are ScrapingBee, Scrapfly, ScraperAPI, Scrape.do and Zyte.
How does ZenRows compare with other 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.
Is ZenRows good value for money?
ToolGPA grades ZenRows B for value for money. 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.
Could I make my own version of ZenRows?
To replace ZenRows you would be making search results fetched at scale from many countries without being blocked.
Where this guide comes from
The prices, plans, platforms and features were read from ZenRows’s own pages on Oct 23, 2026, and the grades were given on Oct 24, 2026. 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.
Every tool we list gets five grades, A to F, each with its reason, and a GPA that averages them. How each is decided is at toolgpa.com/grades. This guide is ToolGPA’s own work; it is not made, paid for or approved by Zenrows. Prices change, so check zenrows.com before you buy.
Part 07 · About
About ToolGPA
Who made this guide, what else is on the site, and how to cite it
3,189
Tools graded, in 94 categories
ToolGPA grades software the way a school report grades a pupil: five subjects, a letter for each with the reason written beside it, and a GPA that averages them. Prices, plans and platforms are read from each maker’s own pages and dated, so you always know how fresh a figure is.
Every grade, review and ranking on ToolGPA is our own judgement. No company can pay for a grade or change one. Every tool on the site has a guide like this one, free to download and pass on. It all lives at toolgpa.com.
3,189
tools graded
94
categories
426
price changes on record
579
apps priced in 12 countries
What else is on toolgpa.com
- ZenRows, kept up to dateEverything in this guide, with prices and grades as they are todaytoolgpa.com/tools/zenrows
- How grades are givenThe rules behind every letter and every GPAtoolgpa.com/grades
- Value chartsWhat each tool costs against what it scores, for every categorytoolgpa.com/charts
- CompareAny two tools side by side, plan by plantoolgpa.com/compare
- Price changesEvery price rise and cut on record, each with its sourcetoolgpa.com/price-changes
- Prices by countryWhat apps cost on the App Store in 12 countriestoolgpa.com/prices-by-country
- Pay lessEvery public discount: yearly billing, students, nonprofitstoolgpa.com/save
- Keep or makeWhich tools are worth paying for, and which you could build yourselftoolgpa.com/keep-or-make
Scan for the live page
Prices and grades as they are today
Quoting this guide?
Please name ToolGPA and link to the live page, so readers can check the figures for themselves:
ToolGPA, "ZenRows: The Insider's Guide", checked Oct 23, 2026. https://toolgpa.com/tools/zenrows
Know someone choosing between SERP and SEO data APIs?
Send them this guide: toolgpa.com/tools/zenrows/guide
ToolGPA elsewhere: youtube.com/@toolgpa
See our other guides
The best-graded SERP and SEO data APIs after ZenRows, each with an Insider's Guide of its own.
- SERP & SEO Data APIs Insider's GuideEvery one of the 39 SERP and SEO data APIs we grade, compared
- Apify Insider's GuideScraping platform with a store of ready-made Actors, Google included2.8 GPA
- DataForSEO Insider's GuidePay-as-you-go APIs for SERP, keyword, backlink and AI mention data2.8 GPA
- Decodo SERP Scraping API Insider's GuideSERP scraping for Google, Bing and more, inside a web data API2.8 GPA
Choosing software? Every tool graded, every price dated.
Compare tools at toolgpa.com ›Everything in this guide is ToolGPA’s own summary of what ZenRows’s pages, its app-store listings and public reviews said on the dates shown. Grades are our judgement under the rules at toolgpa.com/grades. Every grade, review and ranking on ToolGPA is our own judgement. No company can pay for a grade or change one. ZenRows is a trademark of its owner, and this guide is not made, paid for or approved by Zenrows. Prices and plans change: check zenrows.com before you buy.