Comparisons
How AlterLab Compares
No subscriptions. No balance expiry. Pay only for what you scrape, starting at $0.0002 per request. See how AlterLab stacks up against every major web scraping API.
Pick a Competitor
Detailed side-by-side breakdowns with real pricing, features, and migration guides.
vs ScraperAPI
Pay-as-you-go from $0.0002 vs $49/month subscriptions
vs Firecrawl
5 intelligent tiers vs one-size-fits-all pricing
vs ScrapingBee
Balance never expires, no monthly commitment
vs Bright Data
Smart tier routing beats flat-rate pricing
vs Apify
One endpoint, no Actors to configure
vs Zyte
One API vs four fragmented Zyte products
vs ZenRows
5 intelligent tiers vs ZenRows' single flat rate
vs Crawlbase
No token confusion — auto-routing beats 2-mode system
vs Oxylabs
Developer API from $0.0002 vs enterprise proxy minimums
vs Smartproxy
Request-based pricing — no bandwidth billing surprises
vs Scrapfly
Dollar balance vs credit plans — no monthly reset
Feature Matrix
A quick look at what each platform offers. Scroll horizontally on mobile.
| Feature | AlterLab | ScraperAPI | Firecrawl | ScrapingBee | Bright Data | Apify | Zyte | ZenRows | Crawlbase | Oxylabs | Smartproxy | Scrapfly |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pay-as-you-go | PAYG + enterprise | Limited PAYG | ||||||||||
| Balance never expires | Prepaid only | |||||||||||
| Tiered pricing | 5 tiers | 1 tier | 1 tier | 1 tier | 1 tier | Per actor | 4 products | 1 tier | 2 modes | Multiple SKUs | Bandwidth plans | Credit tiers |
| Protected site support | Per actor | Limited | ||||||||||
| CAPTCHA solving | Extra cost | Extra cost | Per actor | Paid add-on | Scraping Browser | |||||||
| JS rendering | Via add-on | |||||||||||
| Structured extraction | AutoExtract (extra) | |||||||||||
| Markdown output | ||||||||||||
| Auto tier escalation | ||||||||||||
| No minimum spend | $10 one-time | $49/mo | $19/mo | $49/mo | $0 (PAYG) | $49/mo | Enterprise | $49/mo | Subscription | Enterprise min. | $75/mo | $29/mo |
Pricing at a Glance
Annual cost comparison for 1M requests. AlterLab uses pay-as-you-go pricing starting at $0.0002/request.
vs ScraperAPI
$490
1 million requests/year
Save $290vs Firecrawl
$6,300
1 million requests/year
Save $6,100vs ScrapingBee
$1,250
1 million requests/year
Save $1,050vs Bright Data
$150
100K requests/month (typical workload mix)
Save $56vs Apify
$3,500+
1 million requests/year
Save $3,300+vs Zyte
$1,000+
1 million requests/year
Save $800+vs ZenRows
$899
1M requests/month
Save $699vs Crawlbase
$1,000
1M requests/month
Save $800vs Oxylabs
$3,000+
1 million requests/year
Save $2,800+vs Smartproxy
$1,000+
1 million requests/year
Save $800+vs Scrapfly
$1,400+
1 million requests/year
Save $1,200+Your first scrape.
Sixty seconds.
$1 free balance. No credit card. No SDK.
Just a POST request.
No credit card required · Up to 5,000 free scrapes · Balance never expire