Oxylabs alternative
Looking for an Oxylabs alternative?
This comparison is against Oxylabs Web Scraper API, the product that overlaps with ScrAPI. The two bill in different units. Oxylabs charges per successful result and sets the price by which target you asked for, while ScrAPI charges credits for the features you switched on and does not price by hostname.
That produces a clean split. ScrAPI is far cheaper for ordinary pages, because Oxylabs applies a floor price whether the page was trivial or brutal. Oxylabs is cheaper for consistently hard targets and for Google, and it returns parsed data where ScrAPI returns a page.
Oxylabs pricing and features last checked: 10 September 2026. Compare ScrAPI with other providers.
Quick comparison
Oxylabs figures are from its Web Scraper API pricing page and developer documentation, listed at the bottom of this page. ScrAPI per-1,000 figures are shown at the pay-as-you-go rate of $0.00019 per credit unless another tier is named.
What it actually costs
Comparing a credit to a successful result requires care. A ScrAPI credit is an input that buys a feature. An Oxylabs result is an output: a delivered response, at a price set by what you asked for. The tables below convert both sides into dollars per thousand pages so they can sit next to each other, and name the tier every figure came from.
Oxylabs prices below are its published rates per 1,000 successful results. Both products bill a monthly subscription on top of nothing at all for ScrAPI's one-off top-up.
Workload A: 10,000 plain HTTP pages
An ordinary target, no JavaScript rendering. ScrAPI's cheapest request against Oxylabs' floor price.
Assumptions
- ScrAPI: 1 credit per request.
- Oxylabs: the 'Other, no JS' rate for an ordinary target.
- No media downloads, which Oxylabs meters separately at $3/GB on Micro.
ScrAPI
Pay as you go, $19 / 100,000 credits
10,000 × 1 credit × $0.00019
$1.90
ScrAPI
Starter, $49/month / 500,000 credits
10,000 × 1 credit × $0.000098
$0.98
Oxylabs
Micro, $49/month
10 × $1.15 per 1,000 results
$11.50
Oxylabs
Business, $999/month
10 × $0.75 per 1,000 results
$7.50
This is the widest gap on the page, and it is structural rather than a pricing quirk. Oxylabs has no cheap tier for easy pages: an unprotected static HTML page costs the same as a page that needed the full unlocking stack. If a large share of your targets are ordinary sites, that floor is what you are paying for.
Workload B: 10,000 JavaScript-rendered pages
Oxylabs charges a separate, higher rate for results that required rendering.
Assumptions
- ScrAPI: useBrowser, 5 credits per request, 50,000 credits total.
- Oxylabs: the 'Other, with JS' rate.
ScrAPI
Pay as you go, $19 / 100,000 credits
50,000 credits × $0.00019
$9.50
ScrAPI
Growth, $79/month / 1,000,000 credits
50,000 credits × $0.000079
$3.95
Oxylabs
Micro, $49/month
10 × $1.35 per 1,000 results
$13.50
Oxylabs
Business, $999/month
10 × $1.00 per 1,000 results
$10.00
Workload C: 1,000 protected pages needing a residential-tier proxy
This is where the gap closes, and at ScrAPI's entry tier it reverses.
Assumptions
- ScrAPI: useBrowser + residential proxy, 15 credits per request.
- Oxylabs: the 'Other, with JS' rate. Oxylabs does not charge a separate proxy line item on Web Scraper API; unlocking is included in the per-result price.
- No captcha solved. ScrAPI charges 30 credits per captcha on top, which would take the pay-as-you-go figure to $8.55.
Oxylabs
Micro, $49/month
1 × $1.35 per 1,000 results
$1.35
ScrAPI
Pay as you go, $19 / 100,000 credits
1,000 × 15 credits × $0.00019
$2.85
ScrAPI
Starter, $49/month / 500,000 credits
1,000 × 15 credits × $0.000098
$1.47
ScrAPI
Growth, $79/month / 1,000,000 credits
1,000 × 15 credits × $0.000079
$1.18
On a like-for-like $49 monthly plan, Oxylabs Micro at $1.35 is close to ScrAPI Starter at $1.47 and cheaper than ScrAPI's pay-as-you-go rate, which is more than double it. ScrAPI only pulls ahead from the $79 Growth plan upward. If almost all of your traffic is hard targets, Oxylabs' flat per-result price is competitive and worth taking seriously.
Workload D: 1,000 Google Search queries
Oxylabs prices Google as its own target class, below its ordinary rate.
Assumptions
- Oxylabs: its published Google rate, returning parsed SERP data.
- ScrAPI: a google.com/search URL is routed through the Google SERP pipeline. It is forced to browser plus residential proxy (15 credits) and carries a 20-credit SERP surcharge, for 35 credits per search, returning the page as HTML or Markdown.
Oxylabs
Business, $999/month
1 × $0.60 per 1,000 results
$0.60
Oxylabs
Starter, $99/month
1 × $0.90 per 1,000 results
$0.90
Oxylabs
Micro, $49/month
1 × $1.00 per 1,000 results
$1.00
ScrAPI
Scale, $199/month / 3,000,000 credits
1,000 × 35 credits × $0.0000663
$2.32
ScrAPI
Growth, $79/month / 1,000,000 credits
1,000 × 35 credits × $0.000079
$2.76
ScrAPI
Pay as you go, $19 / 100,000 credits
1,000 × 35 credits × $0.00019
$6.65
Oxylabs is the better Google product, and it is not close. It is between two and eleven times cheaper depending on the tiers compared, it prices Google below its own ordinary rate rather than above it, and it returns parsed results instead of a page. ScrAPI's only case here is that Google uses the same endpoint and the same credit balance as everything else you scrape, with nothing extra to configure. If SERP data is your main workload, that is not enough of a reason.
Where the products actually differ
A floor price versus a variable price
Everything else follows from this. Oxylabs sets a price per delivered result by target class, so an easy page and a hard page in the same class cost the same. ScrAPI adds up the features you asked for, so an easy page costs one credit and a hard one costs fifteen. Mixed workloads favour ScrAPI; uniformly difficult workloads favour Oxylabs.
What counts as billable
Oxylabs documents that 2xx and 4xx responses are billable successful results even when the expected content was not found. It is stated openly and it is not unusual in this market, but it means a 404 sweep or a target that silently starts returning empty pages still costs money. ScrAPI documents that no credits are consumed for requests returning no HTML or Markdown content.
Parsing
Oxylabs is stronger here. It ships pre-built parsers for 38+ targets and a Custom Parser that takes CSS and XPath parsing instructions, returning structured JSON. ScrAPI returns HTML or Markdown and offers a single response selector for narrowing the payload. If your goal is fields in a database rather than pages in a pipeline, Oxylabs has done more of that work.
Delivery and scheduling
Oxylabs offers batch submission, callback delivery, a free Scheduler for recurring jobs, and upload straight to S3 or Google Cloud Storage. ScrAPI has a per-request callbackUrl and a hosted ecommerce monitor. For a recurring job that should land in a bucket without you running anything, Oxylabs is more complete.
Proxy control
ScrAPI lets you choose the proxy tier per request. The options are free, data centre, residential, Tor, or your own proxy URL at no extra credit cost. You can also target a specific city rather than only a country. Oxylabs bundles unlocking into the result price and does not document equivalent per-request proxy selection or a bring-your-own-proxy option.
Assurances and support
Oxylabs publishes SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification, a KYC process and an acceptable use policy, and lists 24/7 support and a dedicated account manager across its plans. ScrAPI does not publish equivalent certifications. For a regulated buyer that is decisive.
Data handling
ScrAPI keeps no scrape history. Requests are metered as aggregate counters against your API key, so target URLs and page content are not written to its database and responses are not cached. Screenshots, PDFs and video are stored under hash-derived filenames and deleted within 24 hours. Two honest caveats: a saved ecommerce monitor necessarily stores the URL you configured, and diagnostic logs can capture request details when a request fails. That is a design position, not a certification, and it is worth weighing against Oxylabs' published compliance programme, which is the stronger artefact if your organisation audits suppliers.
Oxylabs documents contract-data retention in its legal pages. We did not find a published retention window specific to scraped content, so we are not characterising it here.
Which one should you pick?
ScrAPI may be a better fit if
- Your workload is mixed. Ordinary pages cost 1 credit on ScrAPI and carry Oxylabs' full per-result floor price, which is where most of the difference lives.
- You want to spend $19 once rather than $49 every month, and keep unused credits.
- You need to choose the proxy per request, bring your own proxy, or target a specific city rather than a country.
- You need PDF or video capture of the browser session, which Oxylabs does not document.
Oxylabs may be a better fit if
- Almost everything you scrape is hard. Oxylabs' flat per-result price is competitive against ScrAPI at the $49 tier and does not increase for difficulty.
- Google or marketplace SERP data is your main workload, and you want parsed fields rather than a page. Oxylabs is cheaper and does more of the work.
- You want scheduling and delivery to S3 or GCS as product features rather than something you build.
- Your procurement requires SOC 2 Type 2 or ISO 27001, which Oxylabs publishes and ScrAPI does not.
Common questions
What does Oxylabs mean by a 'successful result'?
Oxylabs documents that results with 2xx or 4xx status codes count as successful and are billable, even when the expected content was not found. 5xx and 429 responses are not billed. This is worth reading carefully: a page that returned HTTP 200 with a block message, or a 404 for a product that no longer exists, is a billable result under that definition. It is a clear and honestly stated policy, but it is not the same as 'you only pay when you get your data'.
Is ScrAPI cheaper than Oxylabs?
For easy pages, substantially. For hard pages, often not. Oxylabs charges a flat per-result price by target class regardless of how much work the page needed, starting at $1.15 per 1,000 results for an ordinary page without JavaScript on its $49 Micro plan. ScrAPI charges 1 credit for the same fetch, which is $0.19 per 1,000 on pay-as-you-go. On a JavaScript-heavy protected page, Oxylabs charges $1.35 per 1,000 while ScrAPI charges 15 credits, which is $2.85 per 1,000 on pay-as-you-go and $1.18 on the $79 Growth plan. Oxylabs is the cheaper option for consistently difficult targets at low volume.
Which is better for Google Search?
Oxylabs, clearly. Its Google results are $1.00 per 1,000 on the Micro plan and $0.60 on Business, and it returns parsed structured data with a Custom Parser available for anything it does not already parse. ScrAPI charges 35 credits for a Google results page, being a forced browser and residential proxy plus a 20-credit SERP surcharge. That is $6.65 per 1,000 on pay-as-you-go and $2.32 on the Scale plan, and it returns the page for you to parse. If SERP data is your main workload, Oxylabs is the stronger product on both price and output.
Does Oxylabs charge extra for JavaScript rendering?
Yes. Its published pricing separates results without JavaScript rendering from results with it. On the Micro plan an ordinary page is $1.15 per 1,000 without rendering and $1.35 per 1,000 with it. Media downloads are metered separately at $3 per gigabyte on that tier. ScrAPI charges 5 credits for browser rendering and does not meter bandwidth.
What is the cheapest way to start on each?
Oxylabs offers a free trial of up to 2,000 successful results with no credit card, and its cheapest paid plan is Micro at $49 per month for up to 98,000 results. ScrAPI gives 1,000 starter credits on a verified account with no card and no time limit, and its cheapest paid option is a $19 one-off top-up of 100,000 credits with no subscription.
Sources checked
Every Oxylabs figure on this page comes from one of the official pages below, read on 10 September 2026. Scraping providers change pricing often, so check the source before relying on a number for a purchasing decision.
- Oxylabs Web Scraper API pricing, https://oxylabs.io/products/scraper-api/web/pricing
- Oxylabs developer documentation, https://developers.oxylabs.io/
Plan prices come from ScrAPI's published pricing table and per-feature credit costs from its credit documentation. A few figures on these pages were taken from the service implementation rather than the documentation, because the two currently disagree: the 20-credit Google SERP surcharge, the 1-credit charge for supplying a callback URL, the 200-concurrent-request-per-IP limit, and the 15-minute session window are all read from the code. Where they conflict, the implementation is what you will be billed for.
Start with 1,000 free credits
Sign in with an email address, verify it, and ScrAPI issues an API key with 1,000 starter credits. There is no card to enter and no trial clock. Run your own URLs in the Playground and compare the result against whatever you use today.
Oxylabs and other product names and trademarks referenced on this page belong to their respective owners and are used only to identify those products. ScrAPI is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Oxylabs. Pricing and features were checked against publicly available information on 10 September 2026 and may since have changed.