By use case · ZenRows vs ScrapingBee

ZenRows vs ScrapingBee: pricing, credits per rendered page and anti-bot cost compared

The short answer

ZenRows and ScrapingBee are the closest-priced pair in this category, which is why the comparison is harder than it looks. Both meter in credits, both charge 5 credits for a JavaScript-rendered page and 10 for a premium proxy, and at the mid tier both sell exactly 250,000 credits: ScrapingBee Freelance at $49.99 against ZenRows Launch at $57, with 50 concurrent requests on each. So on ordinary rendered pages ScrapingBee is cheaper at every paid tier, from $1.33 per 1,000 rendered pages on Hobby down to $0.375 on Business+, against $1.78 to $0.46 at ZenRows. The ranking reverses on defended sites. ZenRows tops out at 25 credits for premium proxy plus rendering, while ScrapingBee escalates hard targets to a stealth proxy at 75 credits, so a page behind serious bot protection costs roughly three times more at ScrapingBee. Buy ScrapingBee if your targets are ordinary sites and your bill is driven by volume. Buy ZenRows if a meaningful share of your targets fight back. All figures verified from both vendors in August 2026.

Clean markdown & JSON · JavaScript rendered · robots.txt respected

Last updated August 2026

Live Extraction

Endpoint · POST /v1/extract

POST

try:

Hit Extract to turn this page into clean, LLM-ready data.

robots.txt respected · public data only

Markdown · JSON · structured fields, from one API call. Crawling, rendering and extracting ...

These two end up on the same shortlist for a good reason. Both sell the same shape of product: one HTTP request per page, a proxy pool behind it, a render_js style flag, and a credit meter that makes the invoice hard to predict until you have run real traffic. The docs read similarly and the entry prices are within a few dollars of each other.

Put the two credit tables side by side and something unusual shows up. They agree. A plain fetch is 1 credit at both. A JavaScript-rendered page is 5 credits at both. A premium proxy is 10 at both, and premium with rendering is 25 at both. That is an almost exact match, and it means the usual comparison trick of converting credits to a common unit does not separate them the way it separates most vendors.

What separates them is the top of the difficulty range and the shape of the volume ladder. ScrapingBee adds a stealth proxy tier at 75 credits for targets that beat the 25-credit option, so its hardest pages cost three times its own premium rate. ZenRows has no equivalent step above 25, because getting through Cloudflare, DataDome and PerimeterX is the product rather than an upsell on top of it. Meanwhile ScrapingBee sells more credits per dollar at every paid tier above the entry plan, so ordinary volume is cheaper there.

We build a crawling API too, so weigh our recommendation accordingly. ClawEngine sits third in the table below and loses rows outright: we defeat no anti-bot system, we have no free plan, and our pricing is published but not yet open for purchase. If your targets are defended, neither of those first two columns is replaceable by us and you should buy one of them.

CRAWL RENDER JS EXTRACT MARKDOWN JSON

Any URL in LLM-ready data out

robots.txt respected public data only

Why it works

Three things that actually decide this comparison

The credit tables agree, so price alone cannot choose

Most vendor comparisons are won by converting incompatible credit units to a common one. That trick fails here. A plain fetch is 1 credit at both, a rendered page is 5 at both, and premium with rendering is 25 at both. The multipliers are effectively identical, so the only thing left to compare is how many credits a dollar buys and what happens at the hardest end of your target list.

Your target mix decides this, not your volume

Work out what share of your URLs actually fight back. If it is near zero, ScrapingBee is cheaper at every paid tier and the decision is done. If it is meaningful, ScrapingBee escalates those pages to a 75-credit stealth call while ZenRows handles them within its 25-credit ceiling, and a modest share of hard targets is enough to erase ScrapingBee volume advantage entirely.

Both hand you HTML, so budget for the parsing too

Neither product ends at the fetch. You get HTML back, and turning that into rows your warehouse or your model can use is still your code: boilerplate stripping, selector maintenance, and a fix every time a target redesigns. That engineering cost does not show up on either pricing page, and for a lot of teams it is larger than the API bill.

What it handles

Any URL in, clean structured data out

Point ClawEngine at a public page and it crawls, renders the JavaScript and extracts clean markdown or typed JSON in one call. Define a schema for structured fields, and respect robots.txt and Terms of Service by default.

Compares August 2026 pricing verified from both vendors directly
Converts both credit systems to cost per 1,000 rendered pages
Shows where the ranking reverses on defended targets
Puts the concurrency ladders side by side at every tier
Names the jobs where each tool is the wrong purchase
States plainly where ClawEngine loses to both

POST /v1/extract extraction result

200 · JSON

{
  "url": "https://example.com/products/atlas",
  "title": "Atlas Field Notebook",
  "markdown": "# Atlas Field Notebook\n\nDurable...",
  "data": {
    "name": "Atlas Field Notebook",
    "price": 24.00,
    "currency": "USD",
    "rating": 4.7
  },
  "links": [ "/products", "/cart" ],
  "metadata": { "rendered": true }
}

JS rendered · boilerplate stripped ✓ robots.txt respected

Head to head

ZenRows vs ScrapingBee, side by side

Every price, credit count and multiplier below was read from each vendor own pricing page and developer documentation in August 2026, never from a review aggregator. We include ourselves in the third column and we lose several rows outright.

Swipe to compare all columns →

What you are comparing	ZenRows	ScrapingBee	ClawEngine
What it is	A proxy and rendering API built around getting through anti-bot systems	A proxy and rendering API built around simple, dependable page fetches	A crawl API that returns typed JSON matching a schema you supply, in one call
Free tier	5,000 credits a month, 5 concurrent requests, about 1,000 rendered pages	1,000 credits, no card required, about 200 rendered pages	No free plan
Published tiers	Build $16 (45,000 credits), Launch $57 (250,000), Growth $165 (1.2M), Scale $456 (5M), Enterprise custom	Hobby $19.99 (75,000 credits), Freelance $49.99 (250,000), Startup $99.99 (1M), Business $249.99 (3M), Business+ $599.99 (8M), then an Enterprise ladder to $5,799.99 (120M)	Hobby $39, Startup $99, Scale $399, Enterprise custom. Published but not yet open for purchase
Plain fetch, no rendering	1 credit	1 credit	Counted as one page
JavaScript-rendered page	5 credits	5 credits	Counted as one page. Rendering is not metered separately
Premium proxy	10 credits alone, 25 with rendering	10 credits alone, 25 with rendering	Not offered
Hardest targets	No step above 25 credits. Anti-bot handling is the core product	Stealth proxy at 75 credits per successful call	Out of scope by design. We defeat no anti-bot system
Cost per 1,000 rendered pages, entry tier	About $1.78 on Build	About $1.33 on Hobby	One page of plan allowance per page
Cost per 1,000 rendered pages, mid tier	About $1.14 on Launch ($57 for 50,000 rendered pages)	About $1.00 on Freelance ($49.99 for the same 50,000 rendered pages)	One page of plan allowance per page
Cost per 1,000 rendered pages, at scale	About $0.69 on Growth, $0.46 on Scale	About $0.50 on Startup, $0.42 on Business, $0.375 on Business+	One page of plan allowance per page
Cost per 1,000 hardest-target pages	About $5.70 on Launch, at 25 credits a page	About $15.00 on Freelance, at 75 stealth credits a page	Not served
Concurrency ladder	5 free, 20 Build, 50 Launch, 100 Growth, 200 Scale, 400 to 1000+ Enterprise	25 Hobby, 50 Freelance, 100 Startup, 200 Business, 400 Business+	Concurrency scales with tier
Residential bandwidth	Billed at a flat 25,000 credits per GB	Rolled into the premium and stealth multipliers rather than billed per GB	Not offered
Browser sessions	Yes, billed as bandwidth plus a flat 5 credits per minute	No dedicated browser-session product	No. We render pages, we do not drive them
Search included	Sold as a separate SERP product	A Google Search API is bundled into every tier	No. We do not run a search index
Output you get back	HTML, with markdown and CSS or XPath parsing options	Raw HTML, with some extraction rules	Typed JSON matching the schema you passed in the request
Whole-site crawling	One request per page. You write the crawl loop	One request per page. You write the crawl loop	Yes, crawl scope and depth are request parameters
Best for	Pipelines where a meaningful share of targets are actively defended	High volume against ordinary sites, where the bill is driven by page count	Turning a permitted site you already know into typed JSON with no parser to maintain
Main gotcha	Fewer credits per dollar than ScrapingBee at every paid tier above entry, so ordinary volume costs more	The 75-credit stealth tier can quietly triple the bill once your targets start blocking you	No free plan, no anti-bot handling, and you cannot buy it yet

Prices are US list prices in USD, read from zenrows.com/pricing, scrapingbee.com/pricing and the ScrapingBee documentation in August 2026. Cost per 1,000 rendered pages is calculated as plan price divided by plan credits, times 5 credits per rendered page, and it assumes every request succeeds. Both vendors bill only successful calls, but retries against a defended target still land on whichever multiplier that target forces you onto. Run a real sample against your own URLs before committing, because a page count from any table, including this one, is an estimate of your bill and not a quote.

Why ClawEngine

One API that crawls, renders and extracts

Not a raw HTML dump, not a headless browser fleet to run, and not a brittle parser to maintain. One call crawls a public page, renders its JavaScript and returns clean markdown or typed JSON, built for RAG pipelines and AI agents.

LLM-ready output

Clean markdown or typed JSON with the boilerplate stripped, so the data drops straight into a vector store, a prompt or an agent without a cleanup step.

JavaScript rendered

Each page loads in a real browser environment before extraction, so single-page apps and client-rendered content come back complete, not as an empty shell.

Compliance-first

ClawEngine works on public, permitted data only. It respects robots.txt and site Terms of Service and honors crawl-delay, so responsible scraping is the default.

Code examples

The version of this job with no credit multiplier table at all

If your targets are permitted sites that do not fight back, and what you want back is typed JSON rather than HTML you still have to parse, the whole request looks like this. Rendering is part of the call rather than a metered add-on, and the crawl loop is a parameter rather than code you maintain.

curl Crawl a product catalog and return typed JSON

curl https://api.clawengine.ai/v1/crawl \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $CLAWENGINE_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "url": "https://example.com/products",
    "path_prefix": "/products/",
    "max_pages": 500,
    "render": true,
    "schema": {
      "name": "string",
      "sku": "string",
      "price": "number",
      "in_stock": "boolean"
    }
  }'

# One page, one unit. No render multiplier, no premium tier, no stealth tier.
# Rendering is on by default and robots.txt is respected.

ZenRows vs ScrapingBee: the questions buyers ask

What is the difference between ZenRows and ScrapingBee?

Both are proxy plus rendering APIs with nearly identical credit costs, so the difference is at the hardest end. ZenRows is built around defeating anti-bot systems and never charges more than 25 credits a page. ScrapingBee is built around simple, dependable fetches and sells more credits per dollar, but escalates blocked targets to a 75-credit stealth proxy.

Is ZenRows or ScrapingBee cheaper?

ScrapingBee is cheaper on ordinary pages at every paid tier: about $1.33 per 1,000 rendered pages on Hobby down to $0.375 on Business+, against $1.78 to $0.46 at ZenRows. On defended targets ZenRows is cheaper, roughly $5.70 per 1,000 pages at 25 credits against about $15.00 for ScrapingBee 75-credit stealth calls.

How much does ZenRows cost?

ZenRows publishes a free tier of 5,000 credits a month with 5 concurrent requests, then Build at $16 for 45,000 credits, Launch at $57 for 250,000, Growth at $165 for 1.2 million and Scale at $456 for 5 million, with Enterprise by quote. Concurrency runs 20, 50, 100 and 200 across those tiers. Verified from ZenRows in August 2026.

How much does ScrapingBee cost?

ScrapingBee gives 1,000 free credits with no card, then Hobby at $19.99 for 75,000 credits, Freelance at $49.99 for 250,000, Startup at $99.99 for 1 million, Business at $249.99 for 3 million and Business+ at $599.99 for 8 million, with an Enterprise ladder reaching $5,799.99 for 120 million. Verified from ScrapingBee in August 2026.

How many credits does a ZenRows request cost?

A plain fetch is 1 credit and a JavaScript-rendered page is 5. Premium proxies cost 10 credits on their own and 25 combined with rendering, which is the ceiling. Residential bandwidth is billed at a flat 25,000 credits per GB, and Browser Sessions bill bandwidth plus a flat 5 credits per minute of session time.

How many credits does a ScrapingBee request cost?

A plain request is 1 credit and JavaScript rendering makes it 5. Premium proxy is 10 credits alone or 25 with rendering enabled. The stealth proxy, which is what hard targets push you onto, costs 75 credits per successful call. Only successful calls are billed, so failures do not consume credits directly.

Which is better for scraping sites protected by Cloudflare?

ZenRows, on cost. Both can reach many protected sites, but ScrapingBee routes the hardest ones through a 75-credit stealth proxy while ZenRows handles them inside its 25-credit premium plus rendering option. On a list where blocking is common that is roughly a threefold difference in cost per page, and it is the main reason to pay ZenRows higher per-credit rate.

Do ZenRows and ScrapingBee crawl entire websites?

Neither does. Both are per-request page fetchers, so discovering URLs, following links, deduplicating, respecting depth limits and handling retries is code you write and maintain. That is a real difference from crawl APIs, where scope and depth are request parameters. Budget engineering time for the crawl loop with either vendor.

What is the best ZenRows alternative?

It depends which half of ZenRows you rely on. If you are there for anti-bot handling, ScrapingBee stealth proxy and the larger proxy networks at Bright Data and Oxylabs are the honest shortlist, and we are not on it. If you are there mainly for rendering ordinary pages and want structured output rather than HTML, that is a different purchase.

What is the best ScrapingBee alternative?

For the same job, ZenRows and ScraperAPI are the direct swaps, and ScraperAPI is worth checking if your targets include Amazon or SERP pages it prices specially. If what you actually want is to stop writing parsers, a crawl API returning typed JSON against your own schema is a different product shape, which is where ClawEngine fits, without a free plan or anti-bot handling.

Good questions

Questions about ZenRows vs ScrapingBee

Yes, and for a mixed target list that is often cheaper than standardizing on one. Route ordinary sites to ScrapingBee, where a rendered page costs about half as much at volume, and send the known-defended domains to ZenRows rather than paying a 75-credit stealth call for each one. The cost is a second integration and a second key to rotate, which is usually a smaller bill than the one you avoid.

Neither enforces it as a default you can rely on, and the legal exposure from a crawl sits with the customer rather than the vendor. Both sell anti-bot handling, which by definition means fetching pages a site has tried to refuse. If you need robots.txt and crawl-delay honored as policy rather than as a flag somebody remembered to set, confirm the behavior explicitly before either one goes into a production pipeline.

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Point ClawEngine at a public page and one call crawls, renders the JavaScript and extracts clean markdown or typed JSON, ready for your RAG pipeline or AI agent. Public, permitted data only.

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Crawl · render JS · extract markdown & JSON · robots.txt respected, public data only