A self-serve Bright Data alternative
Most people hunting a Bright Data alternative want something smaller: sign up with an email, call one endpoint, and pay only when a query returns results. That is CrustAPI, and this page compares the two.
✓ one credit per query that returns results; failed and empty queries cost nothing
✓ credits never expire, and 3,000 queries a month are free with no card
✓ 12 Google search types plus LinkedIn public data, one key, one schema
✗ Bright Data covers far more of the web than we do
✗ Bright Data has the proxy network and the enterprise paperwork
→ only here for the LinkedIn slice? see the LinkedIn comparison
Where Bright Data wins
We are a small company and they are the giant of this space. Pretending they have no edge would waste your time, so here is theirs, stated plainly.
Scale. Bright Data runs one of the largest proxy networks in the world and sells scrapers and datasets for a huge range of sites. If you need one vendor for the whole web, they built that, and nobody else matches the breadth.
Enterprise compliance. Their site lists certifications like SOC 2 and ISO 27001, and they review who their customers are before granting full access. Big companies with procurement teams want exactly that paperwork. We are a young company and we do not have those certifications.
The legal track record. Bright Data has won two well-known public-data cases in 2024, against Meta and against X Corp. Both were district-court wins about scraping public, logged-out pages. That track record helps everyone in this industry, including us.
Where it gets heavy
The same things that make Bright Data right for enterprises can slow a builder down. None of this is a hidden flaw. It is all on their own site, and it is the price of operating at their size.
Onboarding has a compliance review. Bright Data describes a know-your-customer process on its own compliance pages. That review protects them and their enterprise buyers. It also means full access can involve steps beyond entering an email, which matters when you want data this afternoon.
Many products, many pricing units. Proxies bill per gigabyte. Scraper APIs bill per record. Datasets bill per order. Each product has its own dashboard, docs, and plan tiers. Powerful once learned, and a lot to learn for one lead list.
Datasets lean on sales. Custom dataset work routes through a "talk to a data expert" step, and marketplace datasets can carry minimum order sizes. Fine for a contract buyer, heavy for a test.
All of the above comes from Bright Data's public product and compliance pages. If anything here is stale or unfair, email support@crustapi.com and I will fix it.
The CrustAPI way
CrustAPI does one narrow thing: clean public data from Google and LinkedIn, through one small API, with billing a 5th grader could audit.
Self-serve, top to bottom
Sign up, get a key, call the API. Every pack, from $49 to the biggest, is a button in the dashboard. No sales call, no onboarding queue, no account team between you and the data.
Billed only on success
One credit per query that returns results. A query that fails or comes back empty costs nothing. You never pay to learn that a search had no answer.
Credits never expire
Buy a pack in January, finish it in December. There is no monthly burn and no use-it-or-lose-it clock. Bursty projects can pause without losing a cent.
Speed is published, and measured: Maps answers in about 1 second, web search p50 is about 1.2 seconds, and reviews come back in about 0.3 seconds. One image search returns about 97 images for a single credit.
Deep dives: Google Search API · Google Maps scraper API · Google Reviews API · LinkedIn people search API
A real call, not a mockup
This ran today. Three businesses came back in 572 milliseconds of server time, so it cost three credits. Here is the first business as CSV, then the full JSON below it. The phone is masked here on purpose; the API returns it in full.
The same pattern reaches every surface. Reviews for a place, or a public LinkedIn profile, are each one line:
Side by side
These are different shapes of company, so the fairest table compares how each one feels to buy from and build on.
| CrustAPI | Bright Data | |
|---|---|---|
| Getting started | Email signup, key works right away, 3,000 free queries a month with no card | Signup plus a compliance (KYC) review as part of onboarding for full access |
| Product surface | One API: 12 Google types + LinkedIn, one key and one credit balance | Many products: proxies, unblocking tools, scraper APIs, and datasets, each with its own pricing unit |
| Billing unit | 1 credit per query that returns results; failed and empty queries free | Depends on the product: per GB, per record, or per dataset order |
| Credit expiry | Purchased credits never expire | Pay as you go and plan tiers, depending on the product |
| Datasets | No dataset shop today; the API is the product | Large dataset marketplace; custom work goes through a data-expert conversation |
| Scope | Google and LinkedIn public data | Much of the public web, plus the proxy network itself |
| Compliance paperwork | None to show; young one-person company | SOC 2 and ISO 27001 listed on its site |
| Support | Email the founder: support@crustapi.com | Enterprise support and account teams |
Bright Data details come from its public product and compliance pages. Something wrong or out of date? Email support@crustapi.com and it gets fixed.
One credit, one successful result
Prepaid packs, self-serve all the way up, ex-tax: 25k for $49 ($1.96 per 1k) · 100k for $149 ($1.49 per 1k) · 500k for $549 ($1.10 per 1k) · 2.5M for $1,999 ($0.80 per 1k). Free tier is 3,000 queries a month with no card. Credits never expire, and a query that returns nothing costs nothing. There is no other pricing unit to learn.
Which one to pick
Common questions
Clay
Try the small one first
Bright Data will still be there if you outgrow us. Run a real query on the free tier, look at the JSON, and check the math on your own bill.
Get 3,000 free queries