WebScrapingAPI alternatives in 2026

$0.80 per 1,000 pages, with no monthly allowance

A WebScrapingAPI plan buys a number of requests for the month: $49 buys 20,000 on Basic. On SpecStream $49 reads 61,250 pages, and $599 reads 748,750, against 450,000 requests on Pro. A page that refuses a plain read is tried again as a browser would ask for it, then in a real browser, then from the site's own feed, then from its newest public archive capture, all at the same price. A page that gives no text is not charged.

Your scraper changes in one call

Send the URLs you pass as url today to the Extract API, 20 at a time. The reply holds each page's main text as markdown or plain text, its title, its published date when the page states one, and a status for each URL.

# Was: GET https://api.webscrapingapi.com/v2?api_key=...&url=... once per page
curl https://api.specstream.ai/v1/extract \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SPECSTREAM_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"urls": ["https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_scraping", "https://example.com"], "format": "markdown"}'

Search on the same key, from $1 per 1,000

WebScrapingAPI's Google plans start at $28 a month for 10,000 searches. The SpecStream Search API costs $1 per 1,000 searches with speed=fast, and $5 per 1,000 for the full search, which returns an answer with the page it was read on when the pages agree on one value. It takes site:, filetype: and date operators, and a result that breaks one is left out.

Ask for the rows, and skip the scraper

Most scrapers exist to fill a table. With Deep Search you write the table you want in plain words, for example online stores, companies, places or filings with the facts each row needs. SpecStream reads it back as the conditions every row must meet, quotes the most the run can cost, and after you approve it returns structured rows at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a row. Source URL and read time on every value. The searches and pages behind a row are not billed.

Scores published on official benchmarks

The SpecStream Extract API scores 0.908 F1 on WCXB. The Search API scores 97.9 F-score on all 1,000 official SimpleQA Verified questions and 64.0 item F1 on all 200 WideSearch tasks. Every score and its method is on the benchmarks page.

The rows stay up to date in your tools and your agent

Save a request and it reruns hourly to yearly. A changed or new row costs half its rate and an unchanged row 1¢, so rechecking 1,000 rows that did not change costs $10. New matches arrive in Slack, email, a sheet, a CRM or a signed webhook, and agents connect to https://api.specstream.ai/mcp with OAuth or an API key, inside the spending limit you set on the key.

SpecStream

The live web data engine for teams and agents. The Extract API reads any page for $0.80 per 1,000, the Search API costs from $1 per 1,000 searches, and Deep Search returns every match on the live web as structured rows at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a row. A new account starts with $10 of credit, no card.

ScrapingBee

A scraping API by monthly credits: Hobby is $19 a month for 75,000 credits, and API credits are valid for one month. SpecStream answers ScrapingBee's own call at https://api.specstream.ai/scrapingbee/api/v1/, at $0.80 per 1,000 pages, as the ScrapingBee migration guide shows.

ScraperAPI

Hobby is $49 a month for 100,000 credits, and the credit balance resets when the subscription renews. SpecStream answers ScraperAPI's call at https://api.specstream.ai/scraperapi with the key in api_key, from credit that never expires (ScraperAPI migration guide).

ZenRows

A scraping API by monthly credits, from $19 for 45,000, where a JavaScript-rendered request always costs 5 credits. SpecStream answers ZenRows' call at https://api.specstream.ai/zenrows/v1, at one price for every page (ZenRows migration guide).

AlterLab

A pay-as-you-go scraping API with a $10 minimum deposit, where each request costs $0.0002 to $0.02 by the tier that returned the page. SpecStream charges $0.0008 for every page, rendered or not, and the same balance pays for search and finished rows.

Oxylabs

Proxies and a Web Scraper API on plans from $15 a month, with /Scrape from $0.50 per 1,000 results and Enterprise from $2,500 a month. The Oxylabs alternatives page compares it with SpecStream row by row.