AlterLab vs Scrapfly in 2026

Scrapfly code runs as written

SpecStream answers Scrapfly's GET /scrape with Scrapfly's result JSON and error codes. The address changes, and the key. url, format and proxified_response keep their meaning, and with scrapfly-sdk the change is the host argument of ScrapflyClient. Every parameter and field is in the Scrapfly guide.

Each price from its own vendor

AlterLab's comparison page puts Scrapfly at $1.40 or more per 1,000 basic HTML pages. Scrapfly's own pricing page sells Discovery credits at $0.15 per 1,000, and a datacenter page takes 1 credit. Every number on this page was copied from the vendor's own page on Nov 12, 2026, and each one is listed under Sources.

One price, whatever the page needs

Both price the page by what it takes. On AlterLab 1,000 URLs cost $0.20 when a direct fetch reads them all and $20 when each needs an extended browser session. On Scrapfly the same 1,000 take 1,000 credits on datacenter proxies and 30,000 with residential proxies and a browser, and the Unblocker may change the pool.

SpecStream charges $0.0008 for every page that gives text, whatever it took to read it. 1,000 URLs cost $0.80, and there is no plan to renew.

Blocked pages are tried again, and never billed

The Extract API tries a page that refuses a plain read again as a browser would ask, then in a real browser, then from the site's own feed, then from its newest public archive capture. Each result says where it was read: read_from is live, site or archive, with captured_at for an archive copy.

A site that still refuses, or answers with a bot check, comes back as blocked and is not charged. A bot check's page is never returned as text, so a challenge page never lands in your data as content. A 404 and a page with no text are not charged either.

Test all three on your own URLs

This script sends the URLs in urls.txt to Scrapfly and to SpecStream with the same Scrapfly call, then to AlterLab, and prints how many pages each returned and what each run cost.

import os

import requests

urls = [line.strip() for line in open("urls.txt") if line.strip()]


def scrapfly_call(base, key):
    """The same Scrapfly call, sent to the address you name."""
    pages = credits = 0
    for url in urls:
        reply = requests.get(f"{base}/scrape", params={"key": key, "url": url, "format": "markdown"}, timeout=120)
        pages += reply.ok and reply.json()["result"]["success"]
        credits += int(reply.headers.get("X-Scrapfly-API-Cost", 0))
    return pages, credits


pages, credits = scrapfly_call("https://api.scrapfly.io", os.environ["SCRAPFLY_KEY"])
print(f"Scrapfly: {pages} pages, {credits} credits, ${credits * 0.15 / 1000:.4f} at the Discovery rate")

pages, _ = scrapfly_call("https://api.specstream.ai/scrapfly", os.environ["SPECSTREAM_API_KEY"])
print(f"SpecStream: {pages} pages, at most ${pages * 0.0008:.4f}")

pages, cost = 0, 0.0
for url in urls:
    reply = requests.post(
        "https://api.alterlab.io/api/v1/scrape",
        headers={"X-API-Key": os.environ["ALTERLAB_API_KEY"]},
        json={"url": url},
        timeout=120,
    ).json()
    pages += bool(reply.get("success"))
    cost += reply.get("billing", {}).get("total_credits", 0) / 1_000_000  # $0.0002 is 200
print(f"AlterLab: {pages} pages, ${cost:.4f}")

Scrapfly's credits are priced at the Discovery rate of $0.15 per 1,000. On SpecStream only a page that was read is charged, at $0.0008, so the script prices the pages that came back. A page with no text is not charged, so the real cost can be lower.

Search and rows on the same key

The same key runs the Search API, the most accurate web search API in the world: 97.9 F-score on all 1,000 SimpleQA Verified questions and 64.0 item F1 on all 200 WideSearch tasks (benchmarks). When you need records, not pages, Deep Search returns structured rows that meet every condition you wrote, at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a delivered row.

Oxylabs

One subscription for proxies and scrapers, from $15 a month. A custom domain costs $1.00 per 1,000 results without JavaScript and $1.50 with it, and a 2xx or 4xx reply counts as a result. SpecStream reads the same pages at $0.80 per 1,000 (Oxylabs alternatives).

Zyte API

Zyte puts each site in a price tier: $0.13 to $1.27 per 1,000 plain responses and $1.01 to $16.08 per 1,000 in a browser, pay as you go. On SpecStream every page is $0.80 per 1,000, whatever the site (Zyte alternatives).

Firecrawl

Scrape and crawl at 1 credit a page, with Hobby at $19 a month for 5,000 credits. SpecStream answers Firecrawl's v2 calls at https://api.specstream.ai/firecrawl, with pages at $0.80 per 1,000 and search from $1 per 1,000.

ScrapingBee

Hobby is $19 a month for 75,000 credits, valid for one month. JavaScript rendering is the default at 5 credits a call. SpecStream answers its HTML API at https://api.specstream.ai/scrapingbee/api/v1 for $0.80 per 1,000 pages.