What is the best Scrapingdog alternative in 2026?

AlterLab is a Scrapingdog alternative for teams that don't want a monthly plan. You top up once from $10, pay a fixed price per tier, and the balance never expires.

Is AlterLab cheaper than Scrapingdog?

Simple pages cost the same ($0.20 per 1,000 on AlterLab and on Scrapingdog Lite). JavaScript-rendered pages are cheaper on Scrapingdog ($0.001 vs $0.004). AlterLab costs less for rendering on premium IPs (25 credits, $0.005, on Scrapingdog Lite) and when your volume doesn't fill a $40 monthly plan.

How does Scrapingdog pricing work?

Scrapingdog sells monthly credit plans from $40 for 200,000 credits, with 100 free credits to start. A normal request is 1 credit, JavaScript rendering 5, premium proxies 10 and both together 25. Unused credits carry over from the $90 Standard plan upward.

How long does migrating from Scrapingdog take?

About 15 minutes: replace the GET request with an AlterLab POST, move the key into the X-API-Key header and drop the dynamic flag.

Does AlterLab handle protected and JavaScript-heavy pages?

Yes. AlterLab escalates through five tiers — from plain HTTP to full browser rendering with challenge resolution — and charges only for the tier that returned the page.

Scrapingdog Alternative

Scrapingdog Alternative With Pay-As-You-Go Pricing

Scrapingdog's paid plans start at $40 per month, and a request costs 1 to 25 credits depending on JavaScript rendering and premium proxies. AlterLab has no monthly plan: top up once, pay a fixed price per tier, and keep the balance until you use it.

Compare pricing, features & anti-bot handling

See where AlterLab wins on your actual workload

99.9% uptime

195+ countries

No credit card

No monthly plan — pay-as-you-go from $10

Same $0.20 per 1,000 for simple pages

Prepaid balance never expires (Scrapingdog Lite credits don't roll over)

Smart routing picks the tier — no dynamic/premium flags to tune

Up to 5,000 free requests vs 100 free credits

See Pricing Comparison

Common frustrations

Why developers leave Scrapingdog

Real pain points from developers who switched to AlterLab

Monthly plan required

Paid Scrapingdog usage starts at $40 per month, and Lite-plan credits you don't use don't carry over.

Credit multipliers per request

JavaScript rendering costs 5 credits, premium proxies 10, and both together 25 — spend depends on flags you set per request.

AlterLab vs Scrapingdog price per 1,000 requests
Workload	AlterLab per 1k	Scrapingdog per 1k
Basic HTML	$0.20 $0.0002 per request	$0.20 $0.0002 per request
JavaScript rendering	$4.00 $0.004 per request	$1.00 $0.001 per request

Interactive Calculator

See How Much You Save

Drag the slider to calculate your exact savings vs Scrapingdog

pricing-calculator

Scraping Mode

Monthly Volume

100K

Best Price

AlterLab

$20.00

$0.0002 per request

Scrapingdog

$20.00

$0.0002 per request

Your Monthly Savings

$0.00

0% less every month with AlterLab

That's $0.00 back in your budget annually

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 Scrapingdog across all key features

Feature	AlterLab Winner	Scrapingdog
Billing model How you pay	Prepaid pay-as-you-go	Monthly credit plan
Simple page cost Static pages	$0.0002/req	$0.0002/req (1 credit, Lite)
JS-rendered page cost JavaScript rendering	$0.004/req	$0.001/req (5 credits, Lite)
JS + premium proxy Rendering on premium IPs	$0.002–$0.004/req (Tier 3–4)	$0.005/req (25 credits, Lite)

Compare features vs Scrapingdog

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 Scrapingdog 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 Scrapingdog in 15 minutes

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

Migration Steps

Code Migration Example

Before (Scrapingdog)

Python

// Scrapingdog
const response = await fetch(
  'https://api.scrapingdog.com/scrape?api_key=YOUR_SCRAPINGDOG_KEY' +
    '&url=' + encodeURIComponent('https://example.com') +
    '&dynamic=false'
)

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

•Scrapingdog passes api_key as a query parameter; AlterLab uses an X-API-Key header
•dynamic=true maps to AlterLab's automatic browser tier (render_js forces it explicitly)
•AlterLab returns the cost of each request in the response, replacing credit arithmetic