ScrapeUnblocker vs. ScraperAPI: Pricing, Credits and Features Compared (2026)
ScrapeUnblocker and ScraperAPI solve the same core problem: you send a URL to an API, and it returns the page, with proxies, CAPTCHAs and browsers handled for you. Where they differ most is in how they charge. ScraperAPI sells monthly pools of API credits: a standard page costs 1 credit, while certain domains, bot-protection bypasses and options such as JavaScript rendering cost more, up to 75 credits in its published tables. ScrapeUnblocker charges one credit per request, with browser rendering always on.
A note before we start: we make ScrapeUnblocker, so we are not a neutral party. To keep this comparison fair and checkable, every ScraperAPI figure below comes from ScraperAPI’s own public pricing page and documentation, as we viewed them on 24 September 2026. Every ScrapeUnblocker figure comes from our pricing page and documentation. Where we do not know something, we say so. Prices and features change, so please check both sites before you decide.
ScraperAPI also offers an Async API, Structured Data Endpoints, an AI Parser, DataPipeline and a Crawler. This article compares ScrapeUnblocker mainly with ScraperAPI’s synchronous scraping API.
At a glance
| ScrapeUnblocker | ScraperAPI | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | 1 request = 1 credit | 1 credit for a standard page; 5 to 75 credits for certain domains, bypasses and parameters |
| JavaScript rendering | Always on, included in the request | render=true, 10 credits (25 with premium proxies, 75 with ultra premium) |
| Proxies | Chosen automatically, no proxy tiers to pick or pay extra for | Standard pools by default; premium=true and ultra_premium=true cost more credits |
| Entry price | Pay as you go at €1.00 per 1,000 requests; monthly plans from €29 | Monthly plans from $49 |
| Largest self-serve plan | €1,000 per month (Ultimate) | $1,975 per month (Advanced) |
| Free usage | 500 requests, no card needed | 7-day trial with 5,000 API credits, no credit card required; free plan of 1,000 credits per month |
| Pay as you go | Yes, no monthly commitment | For extra credits on the Scaling plan and above |
| Throughput limit | 2 to 10 requests per second on Pay as you go, Starter and Pro; up to 400 on Business, Scale and Ultimate | 20 to 500 concurrent threads, by plan |
| Currency | EUR | Dollars (the pricing page shows a $ sign) |
How ScraperAPI pricing works
ScraperAPI’s pricing page lists six self-serve plans and a custom Enterprise plan (22,000,000+ credits, 500+ threads). Paying yearly is shown at 10% off, for example $44.10 per month for Hobby.
| Plan | Price per month | API credits | Concurrent threads | Geotargeting |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hobby | $49 | 100,000 | 20 | US & EU only |
| Startup | $149 | 1,000,000 | 50 | US & EU only |
| Business | $299 | 3,000,000 | 100 | Country-level |
| Scaling | $475 | 5,000,000 | 200 | Country-level |
| Professional | $975 | 10,500,000 | 300 | Country-level |
| Advanced | $1,975 | 21,500,000 | 500 | Country-level |
The same page lists JavaScript rendering, premium residential and mobile IPs, advanced bypassing, the Structured Data APIs, DataPipeline and Crawler access on every plan, and priority support from Professional up. On the day we checked, Professional and Advanced also showed limited offers of 250,000 and 500,000 bonus credits, which we leave out of every calculation below.
Pay-As-You-Go is available on the Scaling, Professional, Advanced and Enterprise plans: once your plan’s credits are used, you can continue “at a fixed per-credit rate”, with an optional monthly spending cap. On Hobby, Startup and Business, the options are to upgrade or ask for a custom plan. Unused credits do not roll over, you can cancel at any time, and ScraperAPI states a 7-day refund policy. New accounts get a 7-day trial with 5,000 API credits; after that, the documentation describes a free plan of 1,000 credits per month with up to 5 concurrent connections.
Credits are the detail that matters most. ScraperAPI’s documentation publishes these costs:
| Request type | Credits per request |
|---|---|
| Normal (flat) request | 1 |
| Amazon, Walmart, eBay | 5 |
| Google, Bing (all subdomains) | 25 |
| 30 | |
| Cloudflare, Cloudflare Turnstile, Datadome or PerimeterX/Human bypass | 10 |
render=true, premium=true or screenshot=true | 10 |
premium=true with render=true | 25 |
ultra_premium=true (paid plans only) | 30 |
ultra_premium=true with render=true | 75 |
The documentation lists country_code, session_number, keep_headers, output_format and autoparse as adding no cost. The pricing page words the bot-protection cost as sites that “add 10 credits per request when we bypass them”. A Domain Cost Estimator in the dashboard shows a URL’s cost in advance, each response carries an sa-credit-cost header, and a max_cost parameter caps what a single request may use.
How ScrapeUnblocker pricing works
ScrapeUnblocker has a pay-as-you-go option and monthly plans. Our pricing page states that one request always equals one credit.
| Plan | Price | Requests included | Effective price per 1,000 | Additional usage per 1,000 | Rate limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pay as you go | €1.00 per 1,000 requests | - | €1.00 | - | 2 requests/second |
| Starter | €29 per month | 34,000 | about €0.85 | €0.95 | 5 requests/second |
| Pro | €99 per month | 132,000 | about €0.75 | €0.85 | 10 requests/second |
| Business | €299 per month | 440,000 | about €0.68 | €0.75 | Up to 400 requests/second |
| Scale | €599 per month | 966,000 | about €0.62 | €0.68 | Up to 400 requests/second |
| Ultimate | €1,000 per month | 1,818,000 | about €0.55 | €0.60 | Up to 400 requests/second |
There is also a custom Enterprise option. Pay as you go has no monthly commitment. Our plan cards list JavaScript rendering, CAPTCHA bypass and a real browser, and none of these is charged separately: a rendered page costs the same one credit as any other request.
What each plan buys, in requests
Because ScraperAPI’s credit cost varies, the number of requests a plan covers depends on your sites and parameters. The table divides each plan’s credits by the published costs, assuming every request in the month costs the same.
| ScraperAPI plan | 1 credit (standard) | 10 credits (render=true) | 25 credits (premium + render) | 75 credits (ultra premium + render) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hobby, $49 | 100,000 | 10,000 | 4,000 | 1,333 |
| Startup, $149 | 1,000,000 | 100,000 | 40,000 | 13,333 |
| Business, $299 | 3,000,000 | 300,000 | 120,000 | 40,000 |
| Scaling, $475 | 5,000,000 | 500,000 | 200,000 | 66,666 |
| Professional, $975 | 10,500,000 | 1,050,000 | 420,000 | 140,000 |
| Advanced, $1,975 | 21,500,000 | 2,150,000 | 860,000 | 286,666 |
On ScrapeUnblocker, the number is fixed per plan whatever the site: 34,000 requests on Starter, 440,000 on Business, and so on.
Two price points side by side
ScraperAPI prices in dollars and ScrapeUnblocker in euros. We have not converted between them, because exchange rates move.
Around 299 per month:
| Plan and configuration | Requests per month | Price per 1,000 requests |
|---|---|---|
| ScrapeUnblocker Business (€299) | 440,000 | about €0.68 |
| ScraperAPI Business ($299), standard (1 credit) | 3,000,000 | about $0.10 |
ScraperAPI Business ($299), render=true (10) | 300,000 | about $1.00 |
| ScraperAPI Business ($299), premium + render (25) | 120,000 | about $2.49 |
| ScraperAPI Business ($299), ultra premium + render (75) | 40,000 | about $7.48 |
Around 1,000 per month:
| Plan and configuration | Requests per month | Price per 1,000 requests |
|---|---|---|
| ScrapeUnblocker Ultimate (€1,000) | 1,818,000 | about €0.55 |
| ScraperAPI Professional ($975), standard (1 credit) | 10,500,000 | about $0.09 |
ScraperAPI Professional ($975), render=true (10) | 1,050,000 | about $0.93 |
| ScraperAPI Professional ($975), premium + render (25) | 420,000 | about $2.32 |
| ScraperAPI Professional ($975), ultra premium + render (75) | 140,000 | about $6.96 |
How to read these numbers
If your targets work as standard 1-credit requests on ScraperAPI, its plans cover many more requests for a similar nominal monthly amount than ours do.
A ScrapeUnblocker request always includes browser rendering. On ScraperAPI, render=true works out to about $0.92 to $4.90 per 1,000 requests depending on the plan (about $0.92 to $1.00 from Business up). Premium proxies with rendering come to about $2.30 to $12.25, and ultra premium with rendering to about $6.89 to $36.75. On ScrapeUnblocker, the range is €0.55 to €1.00 per 1,000.
Which configuration your sites need on ScraperAPI decides most of the price difference, and only a test on your own URLs will show it.
What you pay for when a request fails
Both services say they do not charge for failed requests, but the details differ.
ScraperAPI. Its documentation states: “We only charge for successful requests (200 and 404 status codes) and for requests that have been cancelled from your side before giving us enough time to finish them (70 seconds).” ScraperAPI retries a failed request for up to 70 seconds before returning a 500, which is not charged. Going over your concurrency limit returns a 429 with “no extra charge”.
ScrapeUnblocker. Per our errors documentation, a delivered page (200) is billed. When the target itself answers 404 or 410, or its origin returns its own 5xx error page, we return a 200 with an X-Origin-Status header carrying the target’s status, and that is billed too. A domain that does not exist (400 Hostname cannot be resolved) is billed, and so is a browser steps action that fails after the page has rendered (422 step_failed). A 403 (blocked by the target’s bot protection on every bypass path we have), timeouts, 523 Origin unreachable, 429 rate limit, 402 out of quota and all errors on our side are not billed.
| Outcome | ScrapeUnblocker | ScraperAPI |
|---|---|---|
| Page delivered | Billed | Billed (200) |
| Target answers 404 | Billed (200 with X-Origin-Status) | Billed (404) |
| Target answers 410 or its own 5xx page | Billed (200 with X-Origin-Status) | Not stated in the pages we checked |
| Domain does not exist | Billed (400) | Not stated in the pages we checked |
| Blocked or failed after retries | Not billed (403, timeouts) | Not billed (500) |
| Rate or concurrency limit exceeded | Not billed (429) | Not billed (429) |
| Out of quota or credits | Not billed (402) | Not billed (403) |
One caveat applies to both. Each service decides for itself whether a response counts as a block. If a challenge page comes back looking like a normal page, whether it is caught depends on that service’s detection. We have not tested how ScraperAPI handles this.
Features compared
| Feature | ScrapeUnblocker | ScraperAPI |
|---|---|---|
| JavaScript rendering | Always on, in a real browser | render=true, headless browser; available on all plans |
| Geotargeting | proxy_country, with a published list of supported countries | country_code; US and EU regions only on Hobby and Startup, a country list from Business up |
| Output | HTML, or structured JSON with parsed_data=true | HTML, Markdown or text; JSON or CSV via autoparse=true for supported domains |
| Page interaction | steps: click, type, select, press keys, scroll and wait, up to about 10 steps per request, plus list_elements | Rendering Instruction Set (click, input, loop, scroll, wait), sent as a header with render=true |
| Screenshots | Not offered | screenshot=true (PNG, 10 credits) |
| Custom request headers | Not offered | keep_headers=true |
| Asynchronous requests | Not offered | Async API: up to 50,000 URLs per batch, retried for up to 24 hours, webhook delivery |
| Sessions | get_cookies=true returns the cookies and the proxy address used | session_number reuses the same proxy; sessions expire 15 minutes after last use |
| Maximum request time | 60 seconds (90 seconds with steps) | Retries for up to 70 seconds (synchronous); up to 24 hours (Async API) |
| Google search | /serpApi: organic results, ads and Google’s AI overview as JSON | Google SERP API structured endpoint |
| Site-specific scrapers | Plugin endpoints returning JSON, for example Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Target, Etsy, Indeed, TikTok, Booking.com, Airbnb and Skyscanner | Structured Data Endpoints for Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Google and Redfin, plus ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Mode results |
| Official client libraries | Python, Node.js, Ruby and PHP | Python, NodeJS, PHP, Ruby and Java |
| AI tooling | MCP server (Claude, ChatGPT and other MCP clients), Claude Code plugin | MCP server, ScraperAPI Plugin for Claude Code and OpenClaw, CLI, LangChain and LlamaIndex |
| Other integrations | Scrapy middleware, n8n node, Apify actors | n8n, Zapier |
A note on rate limits. ScraperAPI limits how many requests you can have in flight at once (20 to 500 concurrent threads), and its documentation sets a default burst limit of 10 rendered requests started per second. ScrapeUnblocker states a rate in requests per second. These are different units, because the throughput a concurrency limit gives you depends on how long each request takes. If throughput matters, measure it on your own targets.
When ScraperAPI may be the better fit
- Most of your targets are standard pages that ScraperAPI serves at 1 credit, without rendering or premium proxies.
- You need screenshots, Markdown output, custom request headers, or asynchronous batch jobs.
- You want a free allowance that renews: after the trial, the free plan gives 1,000 credits every month.
- You want an official Java SDK, or you rely on its Zapier, LangChain or LlamaIndex integrations.
- You want more of its platform, such as Structured Data Endpoints for Redfin or Google Shopping, AI assistant results, DataPipeline or the Crawler.
- You already have a working ScraperAPI integration that meets your needs.
When ScrapeUnblocker may be the better fit
- Your targets need rendering, premium or ultra premium proxies, or fall into one of ScraperAPI’s higher-cost domains, and you want the same price per request whatever the site.
- You want to predict your bill from request volume alone, without tracking credit costs per domain and parameter.
- You want pay as you go with no monthly commitment. ScraperAPI’s Pay-As-You-Go adds extra credits on Scaling and above; we did not find a standalone option on its pricing page.
- You want a small monthly plan: our Starter is €29 for 34,000 requests; ScraperAPI’s smallest paid plan, Hobby, is $49 for 100,000 credits.
- You need to click, type or scroll inside the same request at the one-credit price. ScraperAPI’s Rendering Instruction Set requires
render=true, which costs 10 credits or more. - You prefer to be billed in euros.
What this comparison does not tell you
- Success rates. We have not run ScraperAPI and ScrapeUnblocker against the same sites, so we make no claim about which one gets through more often. ScraperAPI’s documentation states an average success-rate figure, and we have published a benchmark of our own API; neither is head-to-head.
- Which credit cost your sites need on ScraperAPI. Only a test on your own URLs can answer it.
- How ScraperAPI’s costs combine. Its documentation lists domain, bypass and parameter costs in separate tables. We did not find how they add up for one request, for example an Amazon page with
render=true. The pricing page says the bypass adds 10 credits; the documentation lists a cost of 10 per scrape. - ScraperAPI’s Pay-As-You-Go rate. It is described as a fixed per-credit rate, but we did not find the figure on its public pages.
- Speed. We have not measured ScraperAPI’s response times.
- Enterprise terms. We do not know what ScraperAPI offers beyond its public pages.
- Anything that changed after 24 September 2026, including limited-time bonus credit offers.
How to decide in an afternoon
- Pick 50 to 100 URLs that represent your real workload.
- Check each URL’s cost with ScraperAPI’s Domain Cost Estimator, then run the URLs through its 5,000 trial credits, watching the
sa-credit-costresponse header. At 10 credits per rendered request, 5,000 credits cover 500 requests; at 75 credits, 66. - Run the same URLs through ScrapeUnblocker’s 500 free requests.
- For each service, count the pages you actually received (check the content, not only the status code), then divide the monthly price you would pay by the number of good pages you would get.
The service with the lower cost per good page on your own URLs is the cheaper one for you. You can start with our 500 free requests on the pricing page.
Sources
- ScraperAPI pricing and pricing FAQ: scraperapi.com/pricing, viewed 24 September 2026
- ScraperAPI credits and request costs: docs.scraperapi.com/getting-started/quick-start/credits-and-requests-costs, viewed 24 September 2026
- ScraperAPI status codes: docs.scraperapi.com/responses-and-formats/api-status-codes, viewed 24 September 2026
- ScraperAPI plans and billing FAQ: docs.scraperapi.com/resources/faq/plans-and-billing, viewed 24 September 2026
- ScraperAPI documentation (parameters, rendering, Async API, structured data, SDKs, integrations): docs.scraperapi.com, viewed 24 September 2026
- ScrapeUnblocker pricing: scrapeunblocker.com/pricing
- ScrapeUnblocker errors and billing: docs.scrapeunblocker.com/errors
- ScrapeUnblocker documentation: docs.scrapeunblocker.com
ScraperAPI is a trademark of its respective owner. ScrapeUnblocker is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by ScraperAPI. This article is published by ScrapeUnblocker and reflects information that was publicly available on 24 September 2026. If you believe anything here is inaccurate or out of date, please contact us and we will review and correct it.
Try ScrapeUnblocker free
95%+ success rate · from 0.55€ per 1,000 calls · 500 free requests on signup.