ScrapingBee alternative
Most people after a ScrapingBee alternative want clean data, not raw HTML to parse. CrustAPI returns ready-to-use records for the whole Google menu plus LinkedIn profiles and local business leads, as clean JSON from the API or the same rows as CSV. You pay one credit only on a successful call.
One request, real response
The API returns clean JSON, and the same rows are available as CSV, so it drops straight into Sheets or a CRM with no parsing:
Swap type=web for maps, news, shopping, images, videos, scholar, patents, places, or reviews. Same key, same shape. There is no page to render and no HTML to clean up.
The full record, ready to use
Each result arrives clean and complete, so you build a feed or a dataset with no second call and no HTML selectors. The same record as CSV, ready for Sheets or a database:
Or the same record as clean JSON from the API:
With ScrapingBee you fetch the page and write the selectors. Here the structure is already done.
CrustAPI vs ScrapingBee
Both fetch public web data. The difference is what comes back, and how you pay for it. ScrapingBee is a general web-scraping toolkit; CrustAPI is one clean data API for the whole Google menu plus LinkedIn profiles and local business leads, returned as clean, ready-to-use records.
| ScrapingBee | CrustAPI | |
|---|---|---|
| Billing model | Per request, and the credit cost varies with JavaScript rendering and premium proxies | One credit per successful call; empty and failed queries cost nothing. Maps bills per result, every other search is one flat credit per query |
| What you get back | The rendered HTML of any URL, or your own CSS and XPath extraction rules | Clean JSON in a stable schema, or the same rows as CSV, no parsing |
| Free tier | A limited free trial, no card | 3,000 credits every month, no card |
| Credit expiry | Tied to a monthly plan | Never expire |
| Data ownership | You keep the pages you fetch | No storage limits. Keep it, export it, build on it |
| Endpoints | Any URL you point it at, plus a Google search endpoint | Google Search, Maps, News, Shopping, Images, Videos, Scholar, Patents, Places, and Reviews |
One credit per successful call
Prepaid packs, and credits never expire: 25k for $49 · 100k for $149 · 500k for $549 · 2.5M for $1,999 · up to 250M, all self-serve, ex-tax. Every search is one flat credit when it returns results, except Maps, which bills one credit per business it returns; a search that returns nothing costs nothing. There is no per-request premium for rendering or proxies, so the price on the page is the price you pay.
When ScrapingBee is the better pick
ScrapingBee and CrustAPI solve different problems. If your target is off our menu, ScrapingBee is the right tool, and here is where it clearly wins.
Any website, not a fixed menu. ScrapingBee is a general web-scraping API. You point it at any URL and it hands back the page. CrustAPI covers a set menu of data, not any URL you name, so for an arbitrary site ScrapingBee is what you want.
A full browser and a proxy pool. ScrapingBee renders JavaScript for any page, rotates proxies, and can take a screenshot of a URL. That toolbox is built for scraping the open web, which is a wider job than a structured data menu.
Your own extraction rules. If you already write CSS or XPath selectors and want the raw HTML to run them against, ScrapingBee gives you that page. CrustAPI decides the schema for you, which is the point here, but it is not what you want when you need the raw page.
This compares public product behavior, not a ranking. If anything here is stale or unfair, email support@crustapi.com and I will fix it.
Related: Google Search API · Google Maps scraper API · Web scraper API · Docs
Common questions
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Try it on a query you run
3,000 free credits covers real work. Run one search and look at the clean JSON that comes back, or flip it to CSV.
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