ScrapeUnblocker vs. ScrapingBee: Pricing, Billing and Features Compared (2026)
ScrapeUnblocker and ScrapingBee solve the same problem: you send a URL to an API, and it returns the page, with proxies and JavaScript rendering handled for you. Where they differ most is in how they charge. ScrapingBee sells monthly pools of API credits, and a single request costs between 1 and 75 credits depending on the options it uses, plus 5 more if you add AI extraction. 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 ScrapingBee figure below comes from ScrapingBee’s own public pricing page, FAQ 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.
At a glance
| ScrapeUnblocker | ScrapingBee | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | 1 request = 1 credit | 1 to 75 credits per request depending on the parameters used, +5 for AI extraction |
| JavaScript rendering | Always on, included in the request | On by default (5 credits per request), can be turned off (1 credit) |
| Proxies | Chosen automatically, no proxy tiers to pick or pay extra for | Classic proxies by default; premium and stealth proxies cost more credits |
| Entry price | Pay as you go at €1.00 per 1,000 requests; monthly plans from €29 | Monthly plans from $19 |
| Largest self-serve plan | €1,000 per month (Ultimate) | $599 per month (Business +) |
| Free trial | 500 requests, no card needed | 1,000 API credits, no credit card required |
| Throughput limit | 2 to 10 requests per second on Pay as you go, Starter and Pro; up to 400 on Business, Scale and Ultimate | 25 to 400 concurrent requests, by plan |
| Currency | EUR | USD, prices listed exclusive of VAT |
How ScrapingBee pricing works
ScrapingBee’s pricing page lists five monthly plans:
| Plan | Price per month | API credits | Concurrent requests |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hobby | $19 | 75,000 | 25 |
| Freelance | $49 | 250,000 | 50 |
| Startup | $99 | 1,000,000 | 100 |
| Business | $249 | 3,000,000 | 200 |
| Business + | $599 | 8,000,000 | 400 |
According to the same page, every plan includes JavaScript rendering, rotating and premium proxies, geotargeting, screenshots, extraction rules, the Google Search API and ScrapingBee’s dedicated scraping APIs. Priority email support, a dedicated account manager and team management are listed for the Business and Business + plans. Prices are stated as exclusive of VAT, and the page invites you to contact ScrapingBee if you need more credits or higher concurrency.
Credits are the detail that matters most. ScrapingBee’s documentation publishes this cost table:
| Configuration | Credits per request |
|---|---|
| Classic proxy, no JavaScript rendering | 1 |
| Classic proxy with JavaScript rendering (the default) | 5 |
| Premium proxy, no JavaScript rendering | 10 |
| Premium proxy with JavaScript rendering | 25 |
| Stealth proxy with JavaScript rendering | 75 |
Two more rules come from the same documentation. Because JavaScript rendering is on by default, a request with no extra parameters costs 5 credits. And the AI extraction features (ai_query and ai_extract_rules) add 5 credits on top of the request cost. The documentation recommends premium proxies for hard-to-scrape sites “like search engines, social networks, or hard to scrape E-commerce websites”, and describes the stealth proxy as a pool for sites where premium proxies are not enough.
ScrapingBee also offers an Auto-Mode (mode=auto). Its documentation says Auto-Mode tries configurations from the cheapest to the most expensive, stops at the first one that works, and charges only for that configuration (1, 5, 10, 25 or 75 credits), or 0 credits if every configuration fails. A max_cost parameter caps how expensive a configuration it is allowed to try.
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 ScrapingBee charges per credit and the credit cost varies, the number of requests a plan covers depends on the configuration your target sites need. The table below divides each plan’s credits by the published credit costs. It is plain arithmetic on ScrapingBee’s published numbers, and it assumes every request in the month uses the same configuration. AI extraction would add 5 credits per request on top.
| ScrapingBee plan | No JS (1 credit) | Default, JS (5) | Premium, no JS (10) | Premium + JS (25) | Stealth + JS (75) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hobby, $19 | 75,000 | 15,000 | 7,500 | 3,000 | 1,000 |
| Freelance, $49 | 250,000 | 50,000 | 25,000 | 10,000 | 3,333 |
| Startup, $99 | 1,000,000 | 200,000 | 100,000 | 40,000 | 13,333 |
| Business, $249 | 3,000,000 | 600,000 | 300,000 | 120,000 | 40,000 |
| Business +, $599 | 8,000,000 | 1,600,000 | 800,000 | 320,000 | 106,666 |
On ScrapeUnblocker, the number is fixed per plan whatever the site: 34,000 requests on Starter, 132,000 on Pro, 966,000 on Scale, and so on.
Two price points side by side
The two services price in different currencies: ScrapingBee in US dollars, excluding VAT, and ScrapeUnblocker in euros. We have not converted between them, because exchange rates move. Keep that in mind when you read these tables.
Around 99 per month:
| Plan and configuration | Requests per month | Price per 1,000 requests |
|---|---|---|
| ScrapeUnblocker Pro (€99) | 132,000 | about €0.75 |
| ScrapingBee Startup ($99), no JS | 1,000,000 | about $0.10 |
| ScrapingBee Startup ($99), default with JS | 200,000 | about $0.50 |
| ScrapingBee Startup ($99), premium + JS | 40,000 | about $2.48 |
| ScrapingBee Startup ($99), stealth + JS | 13,333 | about $7.43 |
Around 599 per month:
| Plan and configuration | Requests per month | Price per 1,000 requests |
|---|---|---|
| ScrapeUnblocker Scale (€599) | 966,000 | about €0.62 |
| ScrapingBee Business + ($599), no JS | 8,000,000 | about $0.07 |
| ScrapingBee Business + ($599), default with JS | 1,600,000 | about $0.37 |
| ScrapingBee Business + ($599), premium + JS | 320,000 | about $1.87 |
| ScrapingBee Business + ($599), stealth + JS | 106,666 | about $5.62 |
How to read these numbers
Here is the honest reading. If your target sites work on ScrapingBee’s classic proxies, with or without JavaScript rendering, ScrapingBee’s plans cover more requests for a similar nominal monthly amount than ours do. If your targets need ScrapingBee’s premium or stealth proxies, each request draws 25 or 75 credits. At the listed prices, that works out to about $1.87 to $6.33 per 1,000 requests for premium with JavaScript and about $5.62 to $19.00 for stealth, depending on the plan, against €0.55 to €1.00 per 1,000 on ScrapeUnblocker. Mixed workloads land somewhere in between, and with ScrapingBee’s Auto-Mode the configuration is chosen request by request.
What we cannot tell you is which configuration your particular sites need on ScrapingBee. That decides most of the price difference, and only a test on your own URLs will show it. There is a simple way to run that test at the end of this article.
What you pay for when a request fails
Both services say they do not charge for failed requests, but the details differ. Here is what each one’s documentation says.
ScrapingBee. Its FAQ states that it charges only for successful requests, “i.e returning with a 200, 404 or 410 status code”. The status code table in its documentation also lists 413 as billed. By default, ScrapingBee reports its own status rather than the target’s: any 2xx becomes 200, 404, 410 and 413 are passed through, and everything else becomes a 500, which is not billed. The documentation gives a 403 from an anti-bot page as an example of a response that reaches you as a 500. If you set transparent_status_code=true, anything the target returns below 500 is billed, and ScrapingBee does not retry the request.
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 and all errors on our side are not billed.
| Outcome | ScrapeUnblocker | ScrapingBee (default settings) |
|---|---|---|
| Page delivered | Billed | Billed |
| Target answers 404 or 410 | Billed (200 with X-Origin-Status) | Billed (passed through as 404 or 410) |
| Blocked by the target’s bot protection | Not billed (403) | Not billed (reported as 500) |
| Error or failure on the provider’s side | Not billed | Not billed (500) |
| Rate or concurrency limit exceeded | Not billed (429) | Not billed (429) |
| Out of quota or credits | Not billed (402) | Not billed (401) |
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 ScrapingBee handles this.
Features compared
| Feature | ScrapeUnblocker | ScrapingBee |
|---|---|---|
| JavaScript rendering | Always on, in a real browser | Headless browser, on by default, can be turned off |
| Geotargeting | proxy_country, with a published list of supported countries | country_code, with separate published country lists for classic and premium proxies |
| Structured data | parsed_data=true returns JSON (Schema.org, __NEXT_DATA__ or AI-generated rules) | CSS and XPath extraction rules, AI extraction (+5 credits), Markdown output |
| Page interaction | steps: click, type, select, press keys, scroll and wait, up to about 10 steps per request, plus list_elements to discover selectors | JavaScript scenario (js_scenario) |
| Screenshots | Not offered | screenshot and screenshot_full_page |
| Google search | /serpApi endpoint returning organic results, ads and Google’s AI overview as JSON | Google Search API |
| Site-specific scrapers | Plugin endpoints that return JSON, for example Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Target, Etsy, Indeed, TikTok, Booking.com, Airbnb and Skyscanner | Dedicated APIs listed in its navigation: Google, Amazon, YouTube, Walmart, ChatGPT and Gemini, plus a Fast Search API |
| Sessions | get_cookies=true returns the cookies and the proxy address used | session_id routes requests through the same IP address for 5 minutes |
| Maximum request time | 60 seconds (90 seconds with steps) | Configurable timeout, from 1 to 140 seconds |
| Official client libraries | Python, Node.js, Ruby and PHP | Python and Node.js packages shown in its documentation, plus a command-line tool |
| Integrations | MCP server (Claude, ChatGPT and other MCP clients), Claude Code plugin, Scrapy middleware, n8n node, Apify actors | MCP server, plus Make, n8n and Zapier integrations |
A note on rate limits. ScrapingBee limits how many requests you can have in flight at the same time (25 to 400, by plan). ScrapeUnblocker’s pricing page states a rate in requests per second (2 to 10 on Pay as you go, Starter and Pro, and up to 400 on Business, Scale and Ultimate). These are different units, so the two sets of numbers cannot be compared directly: the throughput a concurrency limit gives you depends on how long each request takes, and that varies from site to site. If throughput matters for your project, measure it on your own targets.
And on free trials: ScrapingBee offers 1,000 free API credits with no credit card required. At the default 5 credits per request, that is 200 requests with JavaScript rendering, or 1,000 without it. ScrapeUnblocker gives 500 requests on signup, with no card needed.
When ScrapingBee may be the better fit
- Most of your targets are simple pages that work on ScrapingBee’s classic proxies, especially without JavaScript rendering, where a request costs 1 credit.
- You need screenshots, Markdown output, or requests that can run longer than 60 seconds.
- You rely on its Make or Zapier integrations, or on the team management listed on its Business plans.
- You already have a working ScrapingBee integration that meets your needs.
When ScrapeUnblocker may be the better fit
- Your targets need premium or stealth proxies on a credit-based API, and you want the same price per request whatever the site.
- You want to predict your monthly bill from request volume alone, without tracking credit multipliers.
- You want pay-as-you-go with no monthly commitment. ScrapingBee’s pricing page lists monthly plans only, and we did not find a pay-as-you-go option there.
- You want structured JSON for common sites from ready-made plugin endpoints, or you work in Ruby or PHP and want an official client library.
- You prefer to be billed in euros.
What this comparison does not tell you
- Success rates. We have not run ScrapingBee and ScrapeUnblocker against the same set of sites, so we make no claim about which one gets through more often on any particular site. We have published a benchmark of our own API on a public list of protected sites, but it measures ScrapeUnblocker only.
- Which ScrapingBee configuration your sites need. This drives most of the price difference, and only a test on your own URLs can answer it.
- Speed. Response times depend on the site, the configuration and the load. We have not measured ScrapingBee’s.
- Support and custom pricing. Both companies offer custom plans on request. We do not know what ScrapingBee offers beyond its public pricing page.
- Anything that changed after 24 September 2026. Both pricing pages can change at any time.
How to decide in an afternoon
- Pick 50 to 100 URLs that represent your real workload.
- Run them through ScrapingBee’s free credits with
mode=auto. According to its documentation, the credits charged come back in theSpb-auto-costresponse header, which tells you which configuration each URL needed. If many of your URLs need the stealth proxy at 75 credits, 1,000 free credits cover fewer than 14 of them, so usemax_costor a smaller sample. - 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
- ScrapingBee pricing: scrapingbee.com/pricing, viewed 24 September 2026
- ScrapingBee FAQ: scrapingbee.com/faq, viewed 24 September 2026
- ScrapingBee documentation (credit costs, status codes, Auto-Mode, proxies and parameters): scrapingbee.com/documentation, viewed 24 September 2026
- ScrapeUnblocker pricing: scrapeunblocker.com/pricing
- ScrapeUnblocker errors and billing: docs.scrapeunblocker.com/errors
- ScrapeUnblocker documentation: docs.scrapeunblocker.com
ScrapingBee is a trademark of its respective owner. ScrapeUnblocker is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by ScrapingBee. 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.
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