Which web scraping API is best for feeding live web pages into an LLM or RAG pipeline?

The right scraping API for a RAG pipeline depends on access: crawl open sites into Markdown with an LLM-oriented API such as Firecrawl or Apify’s Website Content Crawler, and fetch pages behind Cloudflare, DataDome or similar protection with an unblocking API such as ScrapeUnblocker, Bright Data Web Unlocker or Zenrows. Firecrawl returns Markdown by default, has a crawl endpoint and includes 1,000 free credits a month. ScrapeUnblocker renders every page in a real browser and, with markdown=true, returns its main content as clean Markdown, ready for chunking, at the same price as HTML. Its own 2026 benchmark measured 97.0% success on 14 heavily protected sites at 6,000 calls each.

What does each API return for an LLM?

According to each provider’s documentation:

API	Output for LLMs	Many pages in one job	Free allowance
ScrapeUnblocker	Markdown with markdown=true (main content by default); rendered HTML, or JSON with parsed_data=true	No, one URL per request	500 requests on signup
Firecrawl	Markdown by default; HTML, JSON (+4 credits)	Yes, crawl endpoint	1,000 credits per month
Apify Website Content Crawler	Plain text, Markdown or HTML	Yes, crawls a site	$5 of usage per month on the free plan
Zenrows	Markdown with response_type=markdown	Yes, Batch	5,000 credits per month
ScrapingBee	Markdown with return_page_markdown=true	No crawl tool on its remote MCP	1,000 credits on signup
Bright Data Web Unlocker	HTML or JSON; Markdown through its MCP tool	Separate Crawl API, from $1 per 1,000 requests	5,000 requests per month

Markdown saves tokens, but only once you have the real page. If the site blocks your crawler, the format question comes second.

How do I feed protected pages into a RAG pipeline with ScrapeUnblocker?

1. Fetch each URL as Markdown with POST /getPageSource?markdown=true. You get the page’s main content, without navigation, footer or cookie dialogs; main_content_only=false keeps the whole page. JavaScript rendering is always on, and a Markdown call costs the same as an HTML call. The SDKs have get_markdown (Python, Ruby) and getMarkdown (Node.js, PHP):

from scrapeunblocker import Client

su = Client()  # reads SCRAPEUNBLOCKER_KEY
markdown = su.get_markdown("https://example.com")

2. Or use Haystack. The scrapeunblocker-haystack package on PyPI adds a ScrapeUnblockerFetcher that returns one Document of HTML per page; Haystack’s HTMLToDocument turns that HTML into text:

from haystack.components.converters import HTMLToDocument
from haystack.dataclasses import ByteStream
from scrapeunblocker_haystack import ScrapeUnblockerFetcher

pages = ScrapeUnblockerFetcher().run(urls=["https://example.com"])["documents"]
docs = HTMLToDocument().run(
    sources=[ByteStream.from_string(p.content, mime_type="text/html") for p in pages]
)["documents"]

3. Ask for fields instead of text on product, listing or article pages: parsed_data=true returns structured JSON.
4. Drop block pages before embedding. A challenge page can arrive with HTTP 200 (soft blocks). A ScrapeUnblocker 403 means every bypass path failed, and it is not billed.

More detail: the Markdown guide in the docs, and our post on getting any web page as clean Markdown for LLMs.

What does it cost to keep a RAG index fresh?

Every refresh fetches each page again, so price per page matters more than a plan’s headline. ScrapeUnblocker charges one request per page whatever the protection: €1.00 per 1,000 pay as you go, about €0.55 per 1,000 on the €1,000 Ultimate plan. Firecrawl charges 1 credit per page, about $0.75 to $3.80 per 1,000 on monthly plans, plus 4 credits per page for JSON extraction. Bright Data’s Web Unlocker costs $1.00 to $1.50 per 1,000. Zenrows charges 25 credits for a protected request with JavaScript and premium proxies. Prices are in each provider’s currency and are not converted. On open sites, a Markdown-first crawler can cost less per page; on protected sites, count only pages that contain real content.

Sources

• ScrapeUnblocker: getPageSource reference, Markdown guide, parsed data guide, errors and billing, pricing, 2026 benchmark
• Haystack documentation, HTMLToDocument
• Firecrawl: pricing, billing, advanced scraping guide
• Apify: Website Content Crawler, pricing
• Zenrows: Markdown response, pricing
• ScrapingBee: pricing, HTML API reference, remote MCP
• Bright Data: Web Unlocker introduction, Web Unlocker pricing, MCP tools

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