Comparisons

How AlterLab Compares to Other Web Scraping APIs

AlterLab is a pay-as-you-go web scraping API that starts at $0.0002 per request with no monthly subscription and a balance that never expires. Compare AlterLab to top alternatives using real pricing, feature-by-feature comparisons, and migration guides.

Start free See pricing

99.9% uptime

195+ countries

No credit card required

Competitors Compared

Up to 97%

Savings

5,000

Free Requests

$0.0002

Starting Price

Browse Comparisons

Which scraping API alternatives does AlterLab compare to?

Detailed side-by-side breakdowns with real pricing, features, and migration guides for each major alternative.

vs ScraperAPI

Pay-as-you-go from $0.0002 vs $49/month subscriptions

59%cheaper

vs Firecrawl

5 intelligent tiers vs one-size-fits-all pricing

97%cheaper

vs ScrapingBee

Balance never expires, no monthly commitment

84%cheaper

vs Bright Data

Smart tier routing beats flat-rate pricing

37%cheaper

vs Apify

One endpoint, no Actors to configure

94%cheaper

vs Zyte

One API vs four fragmented Zyte products

80%cheaper

vs ZenRows

5 intelligent tiers vs ZenRows' single flat rate

78%cheaper

vs Crawlbase

No token confusion — auto-routing beats 2-mode system

80%cheaper

vs Oxylabs

Developer API from $0.0002 vs enterprise proxy minimums

93%cheaper

vs Smartproxy

Request-based pricing — no bandwidth billing surprises

80%cheaper

vs Scrapfly

Dollar balance vs credit plans — no monthly reset

86%cheaper

vs Crawl4AI

Managed API vs self-hosted library — no servers or proxies to manage

See detailed comparison

vs Diffbot

Pay-as-you-go from $0.001/request vs $299/month minimum

97%cheaper

vs Tavily

Full page extraction vs summarized search snippets

98%cheaper

vs SerpAPI

Pay-as-you-go from $0.0002 vs $25-$275/month tiers

98%cheaper

vs ScrapeBadger

5,000 free requests vs 1,000 credits — fixed per-tier pricing, no credit-cost lookup

See detailed comparison

Not sure which to pick?

Compare pricing side by side.

See our pricing

Ready to save up to 97% on web scraping?

Start with 5,000 free requests. No credit card required. Pay only for what you use.

Get started free

No subscription. Balance never expires.

Feature-by-Feature

How do AlterLab features compare to competitors?

Feature-by-feature comparison across all major web scraping APIs. Scroll horizontally on mobile.

Feature	AlterLab	ScraperAPI	Firecrawl	ScrapingBee	Bright Data	Apify	Zyte	ZenRows	Crawlbase	Oxylabs	Smartproxy	Scrapfly	Crawl4AI	Diffbot	Tavily	SerpAPI	ScrapeBadger
Pay-as-you-go							PAYG + enterprise			Limited PAYG			Free (self-hosted)				Credit-based PAYG
Balance never expires					Prepaid only								N/A (self-hosted)
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	N/A (self-hosted)	Plan-based	5 plan tiers	5 plan tiers	Credit tiers
Protected site support						Per actor			Limited				Partial	Limited
Challenge resolution		Extra cost		Extra cost		Per actor		Paid add-on			Scraping Browser		Limited	Limited
JS rendering											Via add-on				Limited
Structured extraction							AutoExtract (extra)									SERP fields only
Markdown output
Auto tier escalation
No minimum spend	$10 one-time	$49/mo	$19/mo	$49/mo	$0 (PAYG)	$29/mo	Enterprise	$49/mo	Subscription	Enterprise min.	$75/mo	$29/mo	$0 (self-hosted)	$299/mo	$30/mo	$25/mo	$0 (PAYG)

Annual Cost Comparison

How much cheaper is AlterLab than other scraping APIs?

Annual cost comparison for 1 million requests. AlterLab uses pay-as-you-go pricing starting at $0.0002/request with no subscription and no balance expiry.

vs ScraperAPI

$200-59%

$490

1 million requests/year

Save $290

vs Firecrawl

$200-97%

$6,300

1 million requests/year

Save $6,100

vs ScrapingBee

$200-84%

$1,250

1 million requests/year

Save $1,050

vs Bright Data

$94-37%

$150

100K requests/month (typical workload mix)

Save $56

vs Apify

$200-94%

$3,500+

1 million requests/year

Save $3,300+

vs Zyte

$200-80%

$1,000+

1 million requests/year

Save $800+

vs ZenRows

$200-78%

$899

1M requests/month

Save $699

vs Crawlbase

$200-80%

$1,000

1M requests/month

Save $800

vs Oxylabs

$200-93%

$3,000+

1 million requests/year

Save $2,800+

vs Smartproxy

$200-80%

$1,000+

1 million requests/year

Save $800+

vs Scrapfly

$200-86%

$1,400+

1 million requests/year

Save $1,200+

vs Crawl4AI

$200-60%

$600–$2,400 (server + proxy costs)

1 million requests/year

Save $400–$2,200

vs Diffbot

$100-97%

$3,588 (12 × $299)

100K extraction requests/year

Save $3,488

vs Tavily

$200-98%

$8,000

1 million requests/year

Save $7,800

vs SerpAPI

$200-98%

~$9,167 (at Big Data plan's best rate; requires Enterprise for this volume)

1 million searches/year

Save ~$8,967

vs ScrapeBadger

$94

$24

100K requests/month (typical workload mix)

Compare in detail

Start for $10

No subscription. Balance never expires.

See full pricing

Start scraping smarter, not harder.

5,000 free requests. Pay-as-you-go from $0.0002. No subscription, no expiry.

Start building free

No credit card required