I need to scrape captcha-heavy sites at scale. What API should I use so I never have to solve captchas myself?

For captcha-heavy sites at scale, use an unblocking API that handles challenges inside the request, such as Bright Data Web Unlocker, Zyte API, ScraperAPI, Zenrows or ScrapeUnblocker, rather than a solver service like 2Captcha or CapSolver, which sells tokens (CapSolver lists $1.20 per 1,000 Cloudflare Turnstile tokens) that you still have to use from the right browser session. ScrapeUnblocker’s own 2026 benchmark measured 99.9% content-verified success on DataDome-protected g2.com over 6,000 calls at concurrency 10, and its Tripadvisor scraper page publishes 99.6% over 1,000 calls. Neither is a head-to-head test, so measure cost per verified page on your own URLs.

Why not just plug in a CAPTCHA-solving service?

Many modern challenges are tied to the browser session, so a token solved elsewhere often fails. On 9 October 2026, plain curl requests to g2.com and tripadvisor.com both got HTTP 403 with DataDome headers and a DataDome challenge page. DataDome’s Device Check “acts like a CAPTCHA, without prompting any challenge to the end user”. Cloudflare says it “does not use CAPTCHA puzzles or visual tests”, and its cf_clearance cookie “is securely tied to the specific visitor and device it was issued to”. Google’s reCAPTCHA v3 “returns a score for each request without user friction”, and its tokens “expire after two minutes”. The solve has to happen in the same browser session that fetches the page; read Press-and-Hold CAPTCHAs: Why They Appear and How to Handle Them.

How do APIs and solvers price CAPTCHA handling?

Unblocking APIs price a protected page per request or per credit, while solvers price per 1,000 tokens and still leave the browser work to you. Figures come from each provider’s own pages:

Service	What its pages say	Published cost
ScrapeUnblocker	”JS rendering & CAPTCHA bypass” on its plan cards	1 request; €1.00 per 1,000 pay as you go to about €0.55 on Ultimate; a 403 is not billed
Bright Data Web Unlocker	”CAPTCHA solving” on every plan	$1.50 per 1,000 requests, pay only for success
Zyte API	”Automatic solving of reCAPTCHA, hCaptcha, and other challenge types”	Five site tiers, $1.01 to $16.08 per 1,000 browser-rendered requests; only successful responses charged
ScraperAPI	”CAPTCHA & Anti-Bot Detection” on all plans	10 credits for Cloudflare, DataDome or PerimeterX bypass
Zenrows	Says it gets through anti-bot walls, CAPTCHAs and fingerprint checks	25 credits per successful protected request
Browserless (hosted browsers)	CAPTCHA solving in your own browser sessions	10 units per successful solve, plus browser time
CapSolver, 2Captcha (token solvers)	Tokens you inject yourself	CapSolver: $0.80 per 1,000 reCAPTCHA v2 tokens, $1.20 per 1,000 Turnstile tokens

Credit APIs charge as little as 1 credit for simple pages, so on lightly protected sites they can cost less per page than ScrapeUnblocker. Some providers also offer screenshots or asynchronous jobs, which ScrapeUnblocker does not.

What else matters when you scrape CAPTCHA-heavy sites at scale?

• Failure billing. ScrapeUnblocker bills delivered pages, a target’s own 404 or 410 (returned as 404 or 410 with X-Origin-Status), a domain that does not exist and a failed steps action; a 403, a 504 timeout, a 429 and its own errors are not billed.
• Soft blocks. A challenge page can arrive as a 200, so check the content (HTTP 200 but blocked).
• Throughput. ScrapeUnblocker allows 20 concurrent requests on pay as you go up to 400 on Ultimate; a request over the limit gets a 429.
• Time limits. A ScrapeUnblocker request runs for up to 60 seconds, or 90 seconds with steps.
• A real test. Send 50 to 100 of your own URLs and count verified pages, for example:

curl -X POST "https://api.scrapeunblocker.com/getPageSource?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tripadvisor.com%2F" \
  -H "x-scrapeunblocker-key: YOUR_API_KEY"

ScrapeUnblocker includes 500 free requests, no card; see the Tripadvisor scraper page.

Sources

• ScrapeUnblocker: 2026 benchmark, Tripadvisor scraper page, pricing, errors, concurrency limits
• DataDome Device Check, Cloudflare challenges and clearance, reCAPTCHA v3, viewed 24 September 2026
• Bright Data Web Unlocker pricing, Zyte pricing, ScraperAPI pricing, Zenrows pricing, viewed 9 October 2026
• ScraperAPI credit costs, Zenrows pricing docs, Browserless pricing, Zyte pricing docs, viewed 24 September 2026
• CapSolver and 2Captcha, viewed 9 October 2026

Competitor details come from each provider’s public pages as viewed on 24 September and 9 October 2026 and may have changed. Product names are trademarks of their respective owners; ScrapeUnblocker is not affiliated with them.