What is the best ScrapingAnt alternative in 2026?

AlterLab is a ScrapingAnt alternative for teams that want pay-as-you-go billing instead of a monthly credit plan. It charges a fixed price per tier, chooses the tier automatically, and keeps a prepaid balance that never expires.

Is AlterLab cheaper than ScrapingAnt?

Not on raw per-request price for datacenter traffic: ScrapingAnt's Enthusiast plan works out to $0.00019 for a simple request and $0.0019 for a JS-rendered one, versus $0.0002 and $0.004 on AlterLab. AlterLab costs less for browser rendering on residential IPs (125 credits, about $0.024, on ScrapingAnt) and when your volume doesn't fill a monthly plan.

How does ScrapingAnt pricing work?

ScrapingAnt sells monthly credit plans from $19 for 100,000 credits, with 10,000 free credits every month. A request costs 1–10 credits on datacenter proxies and 25–125 credits on residential proxies, depending on whether a headless browser and JS rendering are used.

How long does migrating from ScrapingAnt take?

About 15 minutes: replace the GET request with an AlterLab POST and drop the browser and proxy_type flags.

Does AlterLab render JavaScript like ScrapingAnt?

Yes. AlterLab uses full browser rendering when a page needs it and plain HTTP when it doesn't, and you pay only for the tier that returned the page.

ScrapingAnt Alternative

ScrapingAnt Alternative Without a Monthly Plan

ScrapingAnt bills monthly credit plans, and one request costs anywhere from 1 to 125 credits depending on browser rendering and proxy type. AlterLab is pay-as-you-go: a fixed price per tier, picked automatically, from a balance that never expires.

Compare pricing, features & anti-bot handling

See where AlterLab wins on your actual workload

99.9% uptime

195+ countries

No credit card

Pay-as-you-go from $10 — no monthly plan

Fixed price per tier instead of 1–125 credits per request

Prepaid balance never expires

Smart routing picks the cheapest tier that returns the page

Failed requests are not charged

See Pricing Comparison

Common frustrations

Why developers leave ScrapingAnt

Real pain points from developers who switched to AlterLab

Credit multipliers

A ScrapingAnt request costs 1, 2, 10, 25, 50 or 125 credits depending on rendering and proxy type, so the same URL can cost up to 125x more.

Monthly plan required for paid volume

Paid usage starts at $19 per month. AlterLab starts at a $10 one-time top-up that never expires.

AlterLab vs ScrapingAnt price per 1,000 requests
Workload	AlterLab per 1k	ScrapingAnt per 1k
Basic HTML	$0.20 $0.0002 per request	$0.19 $0.00019 per request
JavaScript rendering	$4.00 $0.004 per request	$1.90 $0.0019 per request

Interactive Calculator

See How Much You Save

Drag the slider to calculate your exact savings vs ScrapingAnt

pricing-calculator

Scraping Mode

Monthly Volume

100K

AlterLab

$20.00

$0.0002 per request

Lower for this mode

ScrapingAnt

$19.00

$0.0002 per request

This Workload

ScrapingAnt is cheaper for this workload

Their pricing wins here. AlterLab's advantage shows up on protected-site and JS-heavy traffic — see the feature comparison below for where AlterLab pulls ahead.

No credit card

Up to 5,000 free requests

2-min setup

Feature-by-Feature

Every feature, side by side

See exactly how AlterLab compares to ScrapingAnt across all key features

Feature	AlterLab Winner	ScrapingAnt
Billing model How you pay	Prepaid pay-as-you-go	Monthly credit plan
Simple page cost Static pages, datacenter proxy	$0.0002/req	$0.00019/req (1 credit)
JS-rendered page cost Headless browser with JS rendering	$0.004/req	$0.0019/req (10 credits, datacenter)
Residential proxy rendering Browser rendering on residential IPs	$0.002–$0.004/req (Tier 3–4)	$0.02375/req (125 credits)

Compare features vs ScrapingAnt

See the full feature breakdown

Get the same capabilities at a fraction of the cost. Start with up to 5,000 free requests — no credit card required.

View Detailed Pricing

Live API Preview

See AlterLab in action

One endpoint. Any website. Results in under 2 seconds. No ScrapingAnt complexity.

AlterLab API Playground

Click Run to see the response

// Response will appear here...

Try it yourself with up to 5,000 free requests

No credit card required. Get your API key in 30 seconds.

Migration Time: 15 minutes

Switch from ScrapingAnt in 15 minutes

Simple easy migration process. No downtime, no complex setup.

Migration Steps

Code Migration Example

Before (ScrapingAnt)

Python

// ScrapingAnt
const response = await fetch(
  'https://api.scrapingant.com/v2/general' +
    '?url=' + encodeURIComponent('https://example.com') +
    '&x-api-key=YOUR_SCRAPINGANT_KEY&browser=true&proxy_type=datacenter'
)

After (AlterLab)

Python

// AlterLab — the cheapest tier that works is picked automatically
const response = await fetch('https://api.alterlab.io/v1/scrape', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    'X-API-Key': 'YOUR_ALTERLAB_KEY',
    'Content-Type': 'application/json'
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    url: 'https://example.com',
    format: 'markdown'
  })
})

Compatibility Notes

•ScrapingAnt passes the API key as an x-api-key query parameter; AlterLab uses an X-API-Key header
•browser=true / proxy_type map to AlterLab's automatic tier selection (render_js forces a browser when you need one)
•AlterLab returns the cost of each request in the response, replacing credit arithmetic