7 Scrapfly Alternatives That Won't Surprise You on the Invoice
You're watching your Scrapfly credit balance evaporate. The API itself is solid - 4.9/5 on Capterra from 221 reviews, and users frequently praise its stability. But then you enable anti-scraping protection and your effective cost jumps 30x without a clear warning.
One reviewer put it bluntly: "enabling asp=True can use lots of credits up without additional warning." Another flagged a 25x multiplier on YouTube requests that wasn't obvious from the pricing page.
The $30/mo Discovery plan includes 200,000 credits - sounds reasonable until you do the math. With a 30x multiplier on protected pages, those credits shrink to roughly 6,666 actual scrapes. That's the moment most teams start looking for Scrapfly alternatives with more predictable billing.
Our Picks at a Glance
- Best overall API alternative: Scrape.do - transparent multiplier math, 1,000 free requests/mo, paid plans from $29/mo
- Best for B2B contact data: Prospeo - skip scraping entirely, get verified emails and direct dials from 300M+ profiles at ~$0.01/email
- Best full platform: Apify - pre-built scrapers, scheduling, and storage, not just an endpoint
Independent Benchmark Snapshot
Proxyway's December 2025 benchmark is one of the few cross-vendor tests with concrete numbers. It measured success rate, response time, and cost behavior under a fixed budget. Providers weren't told target sites in advance.
| Provider | Success Rate (2 req/s) | Success Rate (10 req/s) | Avg Response Time | Est. Cost/1K Requests |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zyte | 93.14% | - | 11.15s | $0.06-$8.16 |
| ScrapingBee | 84.47% | 72.98% | 24.46s | $0.08-$6.23 |
| ZenRows | 70.39% | 31.76% | 19.10s | $0.08-$2.08 |
| ScraperAPI | 68.95% | - | 13.92s | $0.10-$7.13 |
Scrapfly and Scrape.do weren't included in this particular Proxyway snapshot, so you can't compare them head-to-head on these exact numbers.
Here's the thing: in our experience, the multiplier math matters more than raw success rates. A tool with 85% success at $1/1K beats one with 93% success at $8/1K for most teams. Always model your actual costs before committing.
You're comparing scraping APIs to extract contact data - but credit multipliers, proxy fees, and anti-bot bypasses make every tool expensive. Prospeo gives you 143M+ verified emails and 125M+ mobile numbers directly, at ~$0.01/email with 98% accuracy. No rendering costs. No 30x multipliers. No surprise invoices.
Replace your entire scraping pipeline with one API call.
The Best Scrapfly Alternatives for 2026
Prospeo - Skip Scraping for Lead Data
If you're scraping websites to build prospect lists, you're solving the wrong problem. You don't need raw HTML, proxy rotation, and credit multipliers. You need verified contact data.
Prospeo's database covers 300M+ professional profiles, 143M+ verified emails, and 125M+ verified mobile numbers. Email accuracy runs 98% on a 7-day refresh cycle - compared to the 6-week industry average. The Chrome extension has 40,000+ users who pull contact data directly from company websites and professional profiles, no scraping pipeline required. We've watched teams burn weeks building scraping infrastructure to extract emails from company pages when a single API call would've returned verified data in milliseconds.
Pricing is radically simpler than any scraping API: ~$0.01 per verified email, with a free tier that includes 75 emails and 100 Chrome extension credits per month. No credit multipliers. No proxy fees. No rendering surcharges. Teams like Meritt tripled their pipeline from $100K to $300K/week after switching, while dropping bounce rates from 35% to under 4% (see Email Bounce Rate benchmarks and fixes).
Use this if: Your end goal is prospect lists, lead enrichment, or outbound contact data.
Skip this if: You need to scrape product pages, monitor pricing, or extract arbitrary web content - Prospeo isn't a general-purpose scraper and doesn't try to be.
Scrape.do - Best Overall API
Scrape.do is the closest apples-to-apples replacement for Scrapfly's core scraping API. The free tier gives you 1,000 requests/month, and paid plans start at $29/mo for 250,000 requests - averaging about $0.80 per 1,000 requests at base level.
The multipliers exist here too: 5x for rendering, 10x for premium proxies, 25x for both combined. The difference is transparency. Their docs lay out the math upfront so you can model actual costs before committing. We've seen teams get blindsided by Scrapfly's similar multiplier structure because it only becomes apparent when you start turning on "make it work" features like anti-bot bypass and residential proxies. Scrape.do wasn't included in Proxyway's benchmark, so we can't compare success rates directly - the recommendation rests on pricing transparency and the generous free tier.
Use this if: You need a general-purpose scraping API with predictable costs.
Skip this if: You need pre-built scrapers or scheduling. Scrape.do is an API endpoint, not a platform.
ZenRows - Cheap Base, Steep Multipliers
ZenRows looks cheap at $0.28 per 1,000 requests on basic pages. Enable JavaScript rendering and that jumps to $1.40. Add premium proxies and you're at $7.00 per 1,000. The Developer plan runs $69.99/mo with 250K basic results and 20 concurrency.
One thing ZenRows does right: you're only charged for successful requests. HTTP 404s and 410s count as successful since the request completed, but actual failures don't hit your balance.
The Proxyway benchmark showed ZenRows dropping from 70.39% success at 2 req/s to 31.76% at 10 req/s. If you're running high-concurrency jobs, that drop-off is a dealbreaker.
ScrapingBee - The Reliability Pick
ScrapingBee sits in the middle of the pack on both price and performance. The Freelance plan is $49.99/mo for 250K credits with 10 concurrency, and you get 1,000 free API calls to test before committing.
Proxyway placed ScrapingBee at 84.47% success - strong among the tools covered here. More importantly, at 10 req/s it held 72.98% success where ZenRows cratered to 31.76%. Response times averaged 24.46 seconds, which is slow, but for teams that prioritize "it works" over "it's fast," ScrapingBee earns its spot. The consensus on r/webscraping tends to confirm this: ScrapingBee isn't the cheapest or fastest, but it's the one people complain about least.
If you're also evaluating other vendors in this category, our breakdown of ScrapingBee alternatives can help you sanity-check pricing and reliability.
Apify - More Than an API
Apify isn't really a direct Scrapfly competitor - it's a different category entirely. Where Scrapfly gives you an API endpoint, Apify gives you a platform: pre-built scrapers called Actors, scheduling, cloud storage, and a marketplace of community-built tools. The free tier includes $5 of usage, and the Starter plan is $29/mo plus pay-as-you-go with compute units at $0.30/CU. Residential proxies run $8/GB on Free/Starter.
No-code teams will love it. Raw-API developers will find it overkill.
Bright Data
Enterprise-grade proxy and scraping infrastructure. Bright Data operates one of the largest proxy networks in the space and is built for teams that need serious scale and control. Expect to pay $500-$5,000+/mo depending on usage. Best for teams with complex compliance requirements and the budget to match. If you're spending less than $500/mo on scraping, skip this one.
SOAX
Proxy-first pricing at $90/mo for 25GB ($3.60/GB), covering residential, mobile, ISP, and datacenter proxies under one plan. There's a $1.99 trial to test before committing. Your effective cost per 1,000 pages depends entirely on page weight - lightweight pages run cheap, media-heavy ones add up fast.
Pricing Comparison
| Tool | Starting Price | Free Tier | Billing Model | Effective CPM | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scrapfly | $30/mo | 1,000 credits | Per credit (30x max multiplier) | ~$4.11 avg/1K | Simple scrapes |
| Prospeo | ~$39/mo | 75 emails/mo | Per verified contact | ~$0.01/email | Lead data |
| Scrape.do | $29/mo | 1,000 req/mo | Per request (25x max) | ~$0.80 base | Budget API scraping |
| ZenRows | $69.99/mo | 1,000 basic results | Per request (25x max) | $0.28-$7.00 | JS-heavy sites |
| ScrapingBee | $49.99/mo | 1,000 calls | Per credit | $0.08-$6.23 | Reliable mid-range |
| Apify | $29/mo | $5 usage | Compute units | $0.30/CU | No-code scraping |
| Bright Data | ~$500/mo | None | Custom | $1.50-$5.00 | Enterprise compliance |
| SOAX | $90/mo | $1.99 trial | Per GB | $3.60/GB | Proxy-first workflows |
Which Alternative Fits You?
The right pick depends on what you're actually scraping and why.
If your end goal is contact data for outbound sales, stop building scraping pipelines and use a B2B data platform instead (compare data enrichment services and sales prospecting databases). For general web scraping on a budget, Scrape.do gives you the best value per request with transparent math. Teams hitting JS-heavy protected sites should compare ZenRows and ScrapingBee - ScrapingBee wins on reliability at scale, ZenRows on base price for low-concurrency jobs.
For teams that need a full scraping platform with scheduling and pre-built scrapers, Apify is the clear choice. Enterprise compliance needs point to Bright Data and its large proxy network. And if your workflow is proxy-first with simple GET requests, SOAX's per-GB pricing keeps things straightforward.
Let's be honest - most teams shopping for Scrapfly alternatives are frustrated by surprise bills, not by the scraping quality itself. Whatever you pick, model your real-world costs with multipliers included before you commit to a paid plan.
Teams like Meritt ditched scraping workflows and tripled pipeline from $100K to $300K/week using Prospeo - while cutting bounce rates from 35% to under 4%. Data refreshes every 7 days, not 6 weeks. Free tier includes 75 emails and 100 Chrome extension credits to prove it.
Stop paying proxy fees for data you can get verified in milliseconds.
FAQ
Is Scrapfly still worth using in 2026?
Yes, for straightforward scraping jobs where pages don't trigger credit multipliers. Scrapfly has excellent stability and a strong Capterra rating (4.9/5). The problems start when you need anti-bot protection - that's when costs spike 25-30x and alternatives like Scrape.do or ScrapingBee start making more financial sense.
What's the cheapest Scrapfly alternative?
Scrape.do offers 1,000 free requests/month and paid plans from $29/mo with an average CPM of $0.80 on basic pages. For contact data specifically, Prospeo's free tier gives you 75 verified emails per month at ~$0.01/email - far cheaper than scraping websites and parsing the results yourself.
Do all scraping APIs use credit multipliers?
Most do. ZenRows charges up to 25x for JS rendering plus premium proxies. Scrape.do charges 25x for the same combo. ScrapingBee uses a similar credit-based system. The key difference is transparency - some tools show the math upfront, others bury it. Always calculate your effective cost per 1,000 requests with your actual feature requirements before signing up.
Can I use a B2B data tool instead of a scraping API?
Absolutely, if your goal is building prospect lists or enriching CRM records. A platform like Prospeo covers 300M+ profiles with 98% email accuracy and 125M+ verified mobile numbers - no proxy rotation, rendering, or HTML parsing needed. You'd only need a scraping API if you're extracting non-contact data like product pricing, reviews, or page content.