ScrapingBee alternatives in 2026
Describe the data and get finished rows at 5¢ to $1 a row.
ScrapingBee is a scraping API. You send one URL per call and get that page's HTML back. Its 10 plans run from $19 a month for 75,000 API credits to $5,799 a month for 120,000,000, a request costs 1 to 75 credits, and unused credits end with the month. Finding the right pages and turning them into records is code you write.
SpecStream is the live web data engine for teams and agents, and the best alternative to ScrapingBee. You ask for the data in plain words, and it finds every match on the live web, extracts and enriches it into structured rows, and keeps them up to date. You see the most a run can cost before it starts, and you pay for the rows delivered: 5¢, 15¢ or $1 each.
New accounts get $10 of credit, no card.
SpecStream and ScrapingBee side by side
| SpecStream | ScrapingBee | |
|---|---|---|
| What you send | The data you want in plain words, with the conditions every row must meet | One URL per call, with parameters for JavaScript rendering, proxies, and CSS, XPath or AI extraction rules |
| What you get back | Structured rows, one record per company, place or filing, with facts from many sites joined. Source URL and read time on every value | The HTML of that page. Options return Markdown, plain text, a screenshot, or JSON from the extraction rules you write |
| Pages you name | The Extract API reads up to 20 pages or documents (PDF, Word, Excel) a call and returns each one's main text, at $0.80 per 1,000 pages. A page with no text is not charged | One URL a call, at 1 to 75 credits: 5 with JavaScript rendering, which is the default, 10 or 25 with premium proxies, and 75 with the stealth proxy. AI extraction adds 5 credits. File downloads have a 2 MB limit per request |
| Search | The Search API answers a question from the live web at $5 per 1,000 searches of up to 10 results, and returns up to 100 results for one search | A Google API that returns search results as JSON, and a Fast Search API. Both are included in every plan |
| Data already held | Public databases read every morning at specstream.ai/data: every company that filed a Form D since 2023 with its filing history, nearly 2 million US nonprofits, every US bank failure since 1934, federal rules, open federal contracts and grants, and local businesses. Signals such as funding rounds, new executives and layoffs at specstream.ai/signals. Ask for your own cut of any of them | Dedicated APIs for Amazon, Walmart, YouTube, ChatGPT and Gemini results and for employee search, included in every plan |
| A list you already have | Import a CSV, Excel file, Google Sheet or Airtable base of up to 20,000 rows. SpecStream fills in or checks each row and matches it to one identity, with any namesakes shown alongside their evidence. Import is free. A row that matches pays its rate, and a row that does not costs 5¢ | One call per URL. Plans allow 25 to 900 requests at the same time |
| The unit you pay for | A delivered row: 5¢, 15¢ or $1 by how much the row needs, plus 5¢ for an email and 15¢ for a phone. The same rate on every plan | An API credit. Plans from $19 a month for 75,000 credits to $5,799 a month for 120,000,000. Credits are valid for one month and do not roll over |
| What failed or empty work costs | Nothing. A row left out, a retry and a run that finds nothing are not charged | A 404 or 410 from the target page is billed. A 500 is not. Every successful call is billed, whether or not the page holds the data you need |
| The cost cap before a run | The most the run can cost, quoted before it starts. Nothing runs until you approve it, and there are no automatic overages | The plan's monthly credits. In Auto-Mode, max_cost caps one request at 1, 5, 10, 25 or 75 credits |
| Reruns and change labels | Hourly to yearly. Each row comes back labeled changed, unchanged or no longer matching. A changed or new row costs half its rate, an unchanged row 1¢ | Each call returns the page as it is at that moment. Reading it again is a new call at the same 1 to 75 credits |
| MCP and API | MCP server, REST API, Python and TypeScript SDKs, a CLI and A2A. An agent can buy one request with no account, by card or in USDC | API, CLI and a remote MCP server |
| Where the data goes | Google Sheets, Excel, Airtable, Notion, monday.com, HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Attio, Slack, Teams, Zapier, Make, n8n and signed webhooks | The API response. Integrations with n8n, Make, Zapier and LangChain |
Why ScrapingBee buyers move to SpecStream
You describe the data, and SpecStream finds the pages
A ScrapingBee call starts from a URL you already have, and your code turns the HTML into records. On SpecStream the request is the whole job. It can be companies, places, filings, tenders or products: "project management software companies with a public pricing page, with the cheapest paid plan and whether there is a free plan", or "open school HVAC tenders in Texas, with the agency and due date". SpecStream reads the request back as parts you can edit, the conditions every row must meet and the facts to bring back, before anything runs. You keep no list of URLs and no selectors to fix when a site changes.
You pay for rows, and dead ends cost nothing
ScrapingBee bills each successful call at 1 to 75 credits, and a 404 or 410 from the target page is billed too. SpecStream bills the rows that meet your request: 5¢ for a row with up to 5 facts, 15¢ for up to 15 facts and one set of related records, and $1 for a deep row with no limit. At 5¢ a row, 200 companies cost $10, and the searches and pages behind them cost nothing. A run that finds nothing costs nothing.
The price is set before the run
Every request gets a quote of the most it can cost, good for 30 minutes. Nothing runs until you approve it, the charge never goes past that amount, and whatever the run does not use goes back to your balance. Reading and pricing a request cost nothing.
Your balance does not end with the month
ScrapingBee credits are valid for one month and do not roll over, on every plan from $19 to $5,799. On SpecStream a top-up starts at $10 and never expires, and the row rates are the same on every plan.
Search and Extract, with published scores
When you want pages or answers in place of rows, the same key calls two more APIs. The Search API costs $5 per 1,000 searches and scores 97.9 F-score on SimpleQA Verified, on all 1,000 official questions (978 correct), and 64.0 item F1 and 43.4 row F1 on WideSearch, on all 200 official tasks. The Extract API costs $0.80 per 1,000 pages and scores 0.908 F1 on WCXB. A page that refuses a plain read is tried again in a real browser, then from the site's own feed, then from its newest public archive capture, at the same price. Scores and method are at specstream.ai/benchmarks.
A row that did not change costs 1¢ to recheck
Save the request and it reruns hourly to yearly. Each row comes back labeled changed, unchanged or no longer matching, and new matches arrive in Slack, email, a sheet, a CRM or a signed webhook. A changed or new row costs half its rate (3¢, 8¢ or 50¢) and an unchanged row costs 1¢, so rechecking 1,000 rows that did not change costs $10. Rows you already own are never charged again.
The rows land in your tools and your agent
Rows go to Sheets, Excel, Airtable, Notion, monday.com, HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Attio, Slack, Teams, Zapier, Make or n8n with no code. Agents connect to https://api.specstream.ai/mcp with OAuth or an API key, connecting is free on every plan, and people and agents spend from one balance.
Other ScrapingBee alternatives
ScraperAPI
A scraping API billed in API credits. Hobby costs $49 a month for 100,000 credits and 20 concurrent threads, and Startup costs $149 a month for 1,000,000. The credit balance resets when the subscription renews. SpecStream bills the delivered row, and a top-up never expires.
Apify
A platform for cloud programs called Actors, with 115,189 in its Store. Plans run from $0 to $999 a month plus pay as you go, and a compute unit costs $0.2 on the Free and Starter plans, $0.16 on Scale and $0.13 on Business. SpecStream has one rate card for every request, the same on every plan.
Firecrawl
Search, Scrape, Crawl and Agent endpoints billed in credits: 1 a page, 4 more for JSON and 2 per 10 search results, on paid plans from $19 a month for 5,000 credits to $749 a month for 1,000,000. A 403 or 404 page costs 1 credit. On SpecStream the pages read to find a row are not billed.
How SpecStream scores
The same numbers as the benchmarks page, from the official tasks and scorers.
| SpecStream |  Parallel |  Exa |  Tavily |  Perplexity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Web researchWideSearch, GPT-5.6 Luna | 60.9 | 45.5 | 53.0 | 47.9 | 47.0 |
| Factual accuracySimpleQA Verified, GPT-5.6 Luna | 96 | 94 | 91 | 94 | 94 |
| Factual accuracySimpleQA Verified, GPT-5.6 Sol | 99 | 97 | 91 | 92 | 95 |
How to switch from ScrapingBee
Write the data you want in plain words, in place of the URLs and extraction rules you send today. Sign up and you get $10 of credit, no card. At 5¢ a row, that is up to 200 rows.
Or send the request from code. This call spends nothing: the 402 reply shows how SpecStream read the request, the columns and the most it can cost.
curl -i https://api.specstream.ai/v1/agent/lists \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"request": "Project management software companies with a public pricing page, with the monthly price of the cheapest paid plan, whether there is a free plan, and the pricing page URL", "count": 25}'Approve that maximum by card through Stripe's Link agent wallet, or in USDC on Base, Arbitrum or Polygon, and you pay for the rows found. On an account, your agent uses the MCP server at https://api.specstream.ai/mcp and your team uses the workspace, from the same balance.
For the URLs you already call, send up to 20 at a time to POST https://api.specstream.ai/v1/extract and get each page's main text back at $0.80 per 1,000 pages.
Frequently asked questions
Something we didn't answer? Talk to a human
How much does ScrapingBee cost?
What is the best ScrapingBee alternative?
Does ScrapingBee charge for failed requests?
Do ScrapingBee credits roll over?
Is there a free ScrapingBee alternative?
Does SpecStream have an API?
https://api.specstream.ai/mcp.What does SpecStream cover?
Sources
SpecStream wrote this page. Each rival figure comes from that company's own page.
- SpecStream pricingspecstream.ai/pricing, read Nov 9, 2026
- SpecStream for agentsspecstream.ai/agents.md, read Nov 9, 2026
- SpecStream benchmarksspecstream.ai/benchmarks, read Nov 9, 2026
- SpecStream dataspecstream.ai/data, read Nov 9, 2026
- SpecStream signalsspecstream.ai/signals, read Nov 9, 2026
- ScrapingBee pricingscrapingbee.com/pricing/, read Nov 9, 2026
- ScrapingBee documentationscrapingbee.com/documentation/, read Nov 9, 2026
- ScraperAPI pricingscraperapi.com/pricing/, read Nov 9, 2026
- Apify pricingapify.com/pricing, read Nov 9, 2026
- Firecrawl pricingfirecrawl.dev/pricing, read Nov 9, 2026