vs
Zyte
ScrapingBee vs Zyte
ScrapingBee and Zyte sit at opposite ends of the pricing spectrum. ScrapingBee uses flat monthly plans with fixed credit pools, which makes budgeting simple. Zyte (the Zyte API, from the makers of Scrapy and Crawlera) is pure usage-based with no flat plans, deep volume discounts and an enterprise feature set, at the cost of pricing that is harder to predict.
Key differences.
Cost, side by side.
| Pricing model | ScrapingBee | Zyte |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 1,000 credits | $5 free credit, first month |
| Entry | $49/mo (250K credits) | Usage-based, no flat plan |
| Mid | $99/mo (1M credits) | Usage-based, no flat plan |
| Business | $249/mo (3M credits) | Usage-based, no flat plan |
| Pricing model | Fixed credits per plan | ~$0.001 to $0.008+ per request, by complexity |
The two models do not map cleanly. ScrapingBee bills fixed credit pools per month. Zyte charges roughly $0.001 per basic request up to $0.008 or more for browser rendering, with volume discounts of 25 to 52%. Zyte gives true pay-as-you-go up to about $100 of spend, above which a monthly commitment is required. Model the real cost on your traffic mix.
Feature by feature.
| Feature | ScrapingBee | Zyte |
|---|---|---|
| JavaScript rendering | Yes | Yes |
| Residential proxies | Yes | Yes |
| Geotargeting | Yes (extra credits) | Yes |
| CAPTCHA solving | Not advertised | Yes (automatic) |
| Google SERP API | Yes | Yes |
| Article / content extraction | Yes | Yes |
| AI extraction | Yes | Yes |
| Screenshots | Yes | Yes |
| PDF output | No | No |
| Interactive playground | Partial | Yes |
| MCP server | Yes | Partial |
| Per-success billing | Yes | Yes |
An honest look at each.
- Predictable flat monthly pricing with fixed credit pools
- No minimum commitment
- Generous 250K credits at the entry tier
- Built-in article and AI extraction
- Ships an MCP server
- No advertised CAPTCHA solving
- No PDF output
- Credit pricing gets expensive for JS and premium requests at scale
- No managed-service option
Zyte- Enterprise-grade all-in-one scraping API
- Automatic CAPTCHA solving
- Deep volume discounts (25 to 52%)
- Built-in AI extraction and a polished playground
- From the team behind Scrapy and Crawlera
- Opaque, complex usage-based pricing
- Monthly-commitment requirement above ~$100 of spend
- No flat monthly plans, harder to budget
- No PDF output
We do our best to keep this comparison accurate and up-to-date. If you notice any discrepancies, please let us know.
Our take: ScrapingBee for predictable budgets, Zyte for enterprise scale
ScrapingBee is the simpler choice when you want a flat monthly bill and a fixed credit pool you can plan around. Zyte is the more capable platform for enterprise workloads, with automatic CAPTCHA solving, deep volume discounts and the heritage of Scrapy behind it, but its usage-based pricing is harder to predict and a monthly commitment kicks in once spend exceeds about $100. Pick ScrapingBee for predictability, Zyte for scale and tough targets. Neither generates PDFs.