ScrapingBee alternative
The best ScrapingBee alternatives
ScrapingBee sells getting the page at all — proxies, stealth, geotargeting. If what you actually need is what's on the page, cleanly, here's how the options compare.
By Roger Campos · Last updated: September 2026
TL;DR
Stay on ScrapingBee when getting the page is the hard part: premium and stealth proxies, geotargeting and search scrapers. Look at URLpipe when the hard part is what you do with the page — Markdown made without a model, a full-page screenshot, metadata, Lighthouse and console errors — with async delivery, free cache hits and a price that doesn't multiply with JavaScript.
Free plan, no credit card. 1,000 credits a month.
Why switch
Why people look for a ScrapingBee alternative
- Credits multiply. A request is 1 credit without JavaScript, 5 with it (the default), 25 with a premium proxy and 75 in stealth mode. A 250,000-credit plan is 50,000 rendered pages.
- Synchronous only. No async mode or webhook; a request holds the connection for up to 140 seconds.
- No cache. Its docs describe no cache parameter, so a re-read is a new request.
- No automatic overage. At the allowance you upgrade or renew early.
- Raw material, not answers. It returns HTML, Markdown, text and screenshots with extraction rules; summaries, keywords, Lighthouse and console capture are elsewhere.
Unblocking
The honest trade-off
ScrapingBee is built for sites that don't want to be fetched, and has the proxy range to match. URLpipe renders in real Chrome on our own custom-built engine and offers one residential exit per request (+25 credits a visit) — one exit, not a rotating pool. Bot checks we couldn't clear aren't billed, but if a target needs a fresh IP on every request, a proxy API is the right tool.
URLpipe also follows robots.txt by default for every project. You can turn that off per project, and then having the right to fetch those pages is your responsibility.
Migration
Moving a ScrapingBee request
curl "https://app.scrapingbee.com/api/v1?url=https://example.com&return_page_markdown=true" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $SCRAPINGBEE_API_KEY"curl -X POST https://urlpipe.dev/markdown \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $URLPIPE_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"url": "https://example.com/pricing", "sync": true}'| ScrapingBee | URLpipe |
|---|---|
| Default response (rendered HTML) | /html |
| return_page_markdown | /markdown |
| screenshot, screenshot_full_page, screenshot_selector | /screenshot — full page by default, selector option |
| block_ads | page_options.block_ads |
| wait_for | page_options.wait_for_selector |
| premium_proxy | "residential": true (one exit) |
| extract_rules, ai_query | /meta, /summarize, /keywords — or keep ScrapingBee |
Billing
Built so you never pay twice
A result served from cache costs nothing (max_age defaults to 7 days, up to 30); an identical request that arrives while the first is still running waits for it and costs nothing; an Idempotency-Key makes a retry return the first result; and bot checks we couldn't clear, target 4xx/5xx pages and robots.txt refusals are never billed.
Side by side
URLpipe and ScrapingBee, feature by feature
| Capability | URLpipe | ScrapingBee |
|---|---|---|
| Clean Markdown from a URL | Yes | Yes |
| Renders JavaScript (real browser) | Yes | Yes |
| Rendered HTML | Yes | Yes |
| Screenshots | Yes | Yes |
| Full-page screenshots | Yes | Yes |
| Element, dark-mode and hidden-selector screenshots | Yes | — |
| Metadata / Open Graph | Yes | Partial |
| AI summary | Yes | Partial |
| Keyword extraction endpoint | Yes | — |
| Lighthouse audits | Yes | — |
| JavaScript console capture | Yes | — |
| Several outputs from one page visit | /scrape | Partial |
| Whole-site crawling | No | No |
| Schema-based structured extraction | No | Yes |
| PDF input or output | No | — |
| MCP server | Hosted | Hosted |
| Async + webhook for a single URL | Yes | No |
| Idempotency key on retries | Yes | — |
| Your own labels on requests, usage by label | Yes | — |
| Cached results cost nothing | Yes | — |
| Residential-IP fetching | One exit, +25 credits/visit | Yes |
| Official SDKs | No | — |
| Self-hostable | No | No |
| Free tier | 1,000 credits/mo | 1,000 trial credits |
| EU processing, AI included | Yes | — |
ScrapingBee: checked against scrapingbee.com/pricing, scrapingbee.com/documentation, help.scrapingbee.com/en/article/credit-system-explained-1h2ackp, scrapingbee.com/documentation/remote-mcp on September 24, 2026. Products change — confirm on each vendor's site before you decide.
Pricing
What each one costs
| URLpipe | ScrapingBee | |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | $0 — 1,000 credits/mo, no card | 1,000 trial credits, no card |
| Entry paid plan | Starter $19/mo — 20,000 credits | Hobby $19/mo — 75,000 credits |
| Mid plan | Pro $49/mo — 55,000 credits | Freelance $49/mo — 250,000 credits |
| Billing unit | Credits per call: Markdown, HTML, screenshot or console 1, Lighthouse 2, metadata 5 | Credits: 1 plain, 5 with JavaScript, 25 premium proxy, 75 stealth |
| Overage | Paid plans never cut off — $1.50 per 1,000 credits | None — upgrade or renew early |
| Cache hits | Free, up to 30 days old | — |
ScrapingBee's Freelance plan is $49 for 250,000 credits — 50,000 JavaScript-rendered requests. URLpipe's Pro at $49 is 55,000 rendered pages as Markdown.
Who it's for
An honest recommendation
Choose URLpipe if…
- You want rendered pages at one flat price, JavaScript included
- You want async delivery to a signed webhook
- You re-read pages and want cache hits free
- You want Markdown, metadata, Lighthouse and console errors from one key
- A paid plan should carry on past its allowance
Choose ScrapingBee if…
- Your targets need premium or stealth proxies on every request
- You need geotargeting by country
- You want CSS or AI extraction rules for custom fields
- You use its Google, Amazon or other dedicated scrapers
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Is URLpipe a good ScrapingBee alternative?
How many credits does a ScrapingBee request cost?
Does ScrapingBee have webhooks?
Try URLpipe on the free plan.
1,000 credits a month, no card. Confirm your email and your key is live — most people make their first request inside five minutes.