--- title: "ScrapFly Alternative with Simpler, Cheaper Credits" description: "A ScrapFly alternative with a flatter credit model: residential proxies at 10 credits instead of 25, AI extraction, 7 SDKs, free failed requests. From $29/mo." url: https://webscraping.ai/scrapfly-alternative markdown_index: https://webscraping.ai/llms.txt --- SCRAPFLY ALTERNATIVE # The ScrapFly alternative with a simpler credit model ScrapFly earns its reputation on anti-bot bypass and excellent docs. WebScraping.AI offers the same core job — rendered pages through datacenter, residential, or stealth proxies plus AI extraction — with flatter, cheaper credit math and 7 official SDKs. [Start Free Trial](https://webscraping.ai/auth/sign_up)[View Documentation](https://webscraping.ai/docs) 2,000 free API credits · No credit card required ## WebScraping.AI vs ScrapFly at a glance An honest, side-by-side comparison. Verify the numbers — this is a market where you should. | | WebScraping.AI | ScrapFly | | --- | --- | --- | | Entry plan | **$29/mo · 250,000 credits** | $30/mo · 200,000 credits (Discovery) | | Pay-as-you-go | **Yes — prepaid from $20, no subscription** | No — monthly subscription required | | Plain request (datacenter) | 1 credit | 1 credit | | JS (Chromium) rendering | 5 credits | +5 credits | | Residential proxies | **10 credits (25 with JS)** | 25 credits (30 with JS) | | Stealth / anti-bot tier | 50 credits, fixed | ASP: dynamic credit cost per request | | Billing on failures | **Free — always, no threshold** | Free under "Scrape Failed Protection" (reverts to billed if \>30% of traffic fails in an hour) | | Natural-language Q&A (`/ai/question`) | Yes | — (extraction via prompt/schema) | | AI field extraction | Yes (`/ai/fields`) | Yes (Extraction API, billed as add-on) | | LLM-ready text | Yes (`/text`) | Yes (markdown format) | | Official SDKs | **7** (Python, JS, PHP, Ruby, Go, Java, C#) | Python & TypeScript | | First-party MCP server | Yes | Yes | | Screenshot API | — | Yes | Pricing and credit costs last checked July 2026. Sources: [ScrapFly pricing](https://scrapfly.io/pricing) · [WebScraping.AI pricing](https://webscraping.ai/#pricing). ## What ScrapFly does well No tool is right for everyone. ScrapFly is a capable product, and these are the areas where it genuinely shines — worth weighing before you switch. **Anti-Scraping Protection (ASP) bypass** — ScrapFly's flagship feature and a genuine benchmark for the hardest anti-bot targets. **Excellent documentation and tooling** — docs, a web debugger/playground, and monitoring dashboards developers consistently praise. **Broad product surface** — screenshot API, extraction API with LLM prompts and schemas, and a first-party MCP server. **Serious observability** — per-request logs, webhooks, and throttling controls built into the platform. ## Why developers look for a ScrapFly alternative The most common reasons teams evaluate a switch. #### The $30 plan doesn't stay $30 Residential proxies cost 25 credits and JS adds 5 more on ScrapFly, so a protected, JS-rendered scrape burns 30 credits — the 200k-credit Discovery plan collapses to ~6,600 such requests, and users report bills quietly tripling. WebScraping.AI's same configuration costs **25 credits on a 250k-credit $29 plan** , and residential without JS is 10 credits, not 25. #### ASP cost is dynamic ScrapFly's anti-bot bypass consumes a variable number of credits depending on what the target requires, which makes hard-site budgets unpredictable. WebScraping.AI's stealth tier is a **flat 50 credits per request** — expensive targets are at least predictably expensive. #### Failed-request protection has fine print ScrapFly's Scrape Failed Protection stops applying once more than 30% of your traffic fails within an hour — exactly the scenario you're in when a target starts blocking you. WebScraping.AI simply **never bills a failed request** , with no fairness threshold. #### No pay-as-you-go relief at entry Every ScrapFly plan is a monthly subscription — exhaust Discovery's 200k credits and you're done for the month unless you upgrade tiers. WebScraping.AI sells **prepaid pay-as-you-go top-ups from $20 with no subscription at all** , and on a plan they act as overflow, spent only once the monthly quota runs out. Plans are self-serve and adjustable at any time, and more of your credits survive contact with real-world targets thanks to the flatter multipliers. ## Transparent, published pricing Every request type has a fixed, published credit cost — no surprises, and you only pay for successful requests. Request type No JS + JS render Datacenter proxies 1 credit 5 credits Residential proxies 10 credits 25 credits Stealth proxies 50 credits 50 credits AI extraction add-on +5 credits Google SERP ([`/serp`](https://webscraping.ai/google-serp-api), parsed JSON) 15 credits per search Structured site data ([`/data`](https://webscraping.ai/docs#data), e.g. YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit) 15 credits per page (50 for Reddit), incl. empty parses Plans from **$29/mo** (250k credits) · **$99/mo** (1M) · **$249/mo** (3M) · or **pay-as-you-go** from $20 (100k credits, no subscription, valid 12 months). Failed requests are always free. [See full pricing](https://webscraping.ai/#pricing). ### Flatter credit math for the requests you actually make Both products use credit multipliers — that's the market standard. The difference is where the multipliers sit. On ScrapFly, the moment a site needs residential IPs you're at 25 credits, and 30 with rendering. On WebScraping.AI, residential is 10 credits (25 with JS), and the whole table is published: 1 / 5 / 10 / 25 / 50, +5 for AI extraction. Concretely, 100k JS-rendered residential requests cost 3M credits on ScrapFly's model (30 each) versus 2.5M on ours (25 each) — and each plan dollar buys more credits to begin with (250k at $29 vs 200k at $30). Every request that fails along the way costs you nothing, unconditionally. ### AI answers, not just extractions ScrapFly's Extraction API is capable — prompts, schemas, and auto-extract models. WebScraping.AI adds the endpoint developers reach for first when prototyping: `/ai/question`. Ask "what's the price?" or "is this in stock?" about any URL and get the answer back as a string — no schema required. When you're ready for structure, `/ai/fields` returns typed JSON for the fields you name. Both ship first-party MCP servers, so the choice isn't about AI-agent readiness — it's about how much credit math and schema ceremony sits between you and the data. ## Switching is one API call Point your requests at WebScraping.AI — here's the equivalent call in your language. **cURL** ```bash curl -G "https://api.webscraping.ai/ai/fields" \ --data-urlencode "api_key=YOUR_API_KEY" \ --data-urlencode "url=https://example.com/product" \ --data-urlencode "fields[title]=Product title" \ --data-urlencode "fields[price]=Current price with currency" \ --data-urlencode "fields[availability]=In stock or out of stock" # Response: # { # "title": "Example Product", # "price": "$99.99", # "availability": "in stock" # } ``` **Python** ```python # pip install webscraping_ai # https://pypi.org/project/webscraping-ai/ from webscraping_ai import Client client = Client(api_key="YOUR_API_KEY") result = client.fields( "https://example.com/product", fields={ "title": "Product title", "price": "Current price with currency", "availability": "In stock or out of stock", }, ) print(result) # Response: # { # "title": "Example Product", # "price": "$99.99", # "availability": "in stock" # } ``` **JavaScript** ```javascript // npm install webscraping-ai // https://www.npmjs.com/package/webscraping-ai import { WebScrapingAI } from 'webscraping-ai'; const client = new WebScrapingAI({ apiKey: 'YOUR_API_KEY' }); const result = await client.fields({ url: 'https://example.com/product', fields: { title: 'Product title', price: 'Current price with currency', availability: 'In stock or out of stock', }, }); console.log(result); // Response: // { // "title": "Example Product", // "price": "$99.99", // "availability": "in stock" // } ``` **PHP** ```php fields('https://example.com/product', [ 'title' => 'Product title', 'price' => 'Current price with currency', 'availability' => 'In stock or out of stock', ]); print_r($result); // Response: // { // "title": "Example Product", // "price": "$99.99", // "availability": "in stock" // } ``` **Ruby** ```ruby # gem install webscraping_ai # https://rubygems.org/gems/webscraping_ai require 'webscraping_ai' client = WebScrapingAI::Client.new(api_key: 'YOUR_API_KEY') result = client.fields( 'https://example.com/product', fields: { title: 'Product title', price: 'Current price with currency', availability: 'In stock or out of stock', } ) puts result.inspect # Response: # { # "title": "Example Product", # "price": "$99.99", # "availability": "in stock" # } ``` **Go** ```go // go get github.com/webscraping-ai/webscraping-ai-go/v4 // https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/webscraping-ai/webscraping-ai-go/v4 package main import ( "context" "fmt" webscrapingai "github.com/webscraping-ai/webscraping-ai-go/v4" ) func main() { client, _ := webscrapingai.NewClient(&webscrapingai.Config{APIKey: "YOUR_API_KEY"}) result, _ := client.Fields(context.Background(), &webscrapingai.FieldsOptions{ URL: "https://example.com/product", Fields: map[string]string{ "title": "Product title", "price": "Current price with currency", "availability": "In stock or out of stock", }, }) fmt.Println(result.Result) } // Response: // { // "title": "Example Product", // "price": "$99.99", // "availability": "in stock" // } ``` **Java** ```java // Maven: ai.webscraping:webscraping-ai:4.2.0 // https://central.sonatype.com/artifact/ai.webscraping/webscraping-ai import ai.webscraping.Client; import ai.webscraping.Config; import ai.webscraping.option.FieldsOptions; import ai.webscraping.result.FieldsResult; Client client = new Client(Config.builder().apiKey("YOUR_API_KEY").build()); FieldsResult result = client.fields(FieldsOptions.builder() .url("https://example.com/product") .addField("title", "Product title") .addField("price", "Current price with currency") .addField("availability", "In stock or out of stock") .build()); System.out.println(result.getResult()); // Response: // { // "title": "Example Product", // "price": "$99.99", // "availability": "in stock" // } ``` **C#** ```csharp // dotnet add package WebScrapingAI // https://www.nuget.org/packages/WebScrapingAI using WebScrapingAI; var client = new WebScrapingAIClient(new WebScrapingAIClientOptions { ApiKey = "YOUR_API_KEY" }); var result = await client.FieldsAsync(new FieldsRequest { Url = "https://example.com/product", Fields = new Dictionary { ["title"] = "Product title", ["price"] = "Current price with currency", ["availability"] = "In stock or out of stock", }, }); Console.WriteLine(result.Result); // Response: // { // "title": "Example Product", // "price": "$99.99", // "availability": "in stock" // } ``` ### Switch to WebScraping.AI if… Your workload leans on **residential proxies** — 10 credits here vs 25 there adds up fast. You want **fixed, published costs per request type** , including a flat stealth tier instead of dynamic ASP billing. You want **failed requests free with no fairness threshold** , especially on targets that block in bursts. Your team works across **many languages** — 7 official SDKs vs Python and TypeScript. ### Stick with ScrapFly if… You're fighting the **very hardest anti-bot targets** and want ScrapFly's ASP plus its debugging tooling around it. You need a **screenshot API** or ScrapFly's webhook/throttling infrastructure. You're invested in **ScrapFly's monitoring dashboards** and per-request observability. ## Frequently asked questions Is WebScraping.AI a good ScrapFly alternative? For most scraping workloads, yes: the same datacenter/residential/stealth proxy tiers and JS rendering with flatter credit costs (residential at 10 credits vs 25), unconditionally free failed requests, AI question answering and field extraction, and 7 official SDKs. ScrapFly keeps the edge on its specialized ASP anti-bot bypass and screenshot tooling. How do the credit models compare? Both use multipliers. WebScraping.AI: 1 credit plain, 5 with JS, 10 residential (25 with JS), 50 stealth, +5 for AI — all fixed and published. ScrapFly: 1 credit plain, +5 for JS, 25 residential, and a dynamic credit cost when ASP engages. Entry plans are $29/mo for 250k credits here vs $30/mo for 200k there. Does ScrapFly charge for failed requests? Normally no — its Scrape Failed Protection covers failures with eligible status codes. But the protection is suspended when more than 30% of your traffic fails within an hour, which is precisely what a blocking event looks like. WebScraping.AI never bills failed requests, with no threshold or fine print. Can I buy WebScraping.AI credits without a monthly subscription? Yes. Pay-as-you-go top-ups start at $20 for 100,000 credits ($0.0002 per credit) with no subscription required — useful for occasional or seasonal workloads that don't justify a monthly plan. ScrapFly requires a monthly subscription to buy credits at all. If you do have a plan, PAYG credits are consumed only after that month's quota runs out, and they stay valid for 12 months, with each new top-up extending the entire balance another 12 months. Does WebScraping.AI handle anti-bot systems like ScrapFly's ASP? Hard targets route through rotating residential proxies (10–25 credits) or stealth proxies (50 credits) designed for protected-site scraping. ScrapFly's ASP is a strong specialized system and may win on the most aggressively protected sites; the difference is our cost is flat and known before you send the request. Can I use WebScraping.AI with AI agents like ScrapFly's MCP? Yes — both ship first-party MCP servers. WebScraping.AI's exposes question answering, field extraction, HTML/text retrieval, and CSS-selector tools to Claude, Cursor, and other MCP clients, with content sandboxing against prompt injection enabled by default on the hosted server. ## Compare other alternatives [Browserless Alternative](https://webscraping.ai/browserless-alternative): See how WebScraping.AI compares to Browserless. [Jina AI Alternative](https://webscraping.ai/jina-ai-alternative): See how WebScraping.AI compares to Jina AI. [ScrapingBee Alternative](https://webscraping.ai/scrapingbee-alternative): See how WebScraping.AI compares to ScrapingBee. [ScraperAPI Alternative](https://webscraping.ai/scraperapi-alternative): See how WebScraping.AI compares to ScraperAPI. [Firecrawl Alternative](https://webscraping.ai/firecrawl-alternative): See how WebScraping.AI compares to Firecrawl. [All comparisons](https://webscraping.ai/alternatives): Browse every WebScraping.AI alternative comparison. ## Try WebScraping.AI as your ScrapFly alternative Get started with 2,000 free API credits. No credit card required. [Start Free Trial](https://webscraping.ai/auth/sign_up)[View API Documentation](https://webscraping.ai/docs)