Smartproxy alternative
A Smartproxy alternative for teams that want finished data, not a proxy pool to manage.
One request, real response
No IPs to rotate, no page to parse, no proxy plan to size. You send one GET request and get clean JSON back in about a second. The example below is a Maps search:
The same businesses come back as CSV, so they drop straight into Sheets or a CRM:
Swap type=maps for news, shopping, reviews, and the rest. The key and the schema stay the same across every type.
What data do you get?
Every result comes complete, so you build a list or a dataset with no raw HTML to clean up and no second call. The same business comes back as CSV, ready for Sheets or a database:
Or the same record as JSON:
Smartproxy vs CrustAPI
Smartproxy is a proxy network with scraping APIs on top. CrustAPI is one clean data API for the whole Google menu plus LinkedIn profiles and local business leads, and the difference shows up in billing and in what you have to manage.
| Smartproxy | CrustAPI | |
|---|---|---|
| Billing model | Traffic based for proxies (priced by the gigabyte), and request based monthly plans for its scraping APIs | Pay only for results at the applicable endpoint rate. Google Search bills per successful request and Maps per business returned. LinkedIn reads bill per successful request, People and Jobs per successful search, Refresh per accessible profile, and enriched People per full profile. Empty and failed requests are free. The pricing page lists every rate. |
| Free tier | A free trial on select products | Free to try, no card |
| Balance expiry | Subscription traffic is measured per billing cycle | Prepaid funds never expire |
| Data in response | Raw proxies return the page for you to parse; its scraping APIs can return parsed data | Clean JSON in the response, or the same rows as CSV, keep and export them |
| Site coverage | A large proxy network plus scraping APIs across many target sites | One API for the whole Google menu plus LinkedIn profiles and local business leads, all under one key |
| Google surfaces | Available through its SERP scraping API | Search, Maps, News, Shopping, Images, Videos, Scholar, Patents, Places, Reviews, Autocomplete |
| Setup | Pick a product, size a plan, route traffic or parse the response | One GET request, JSON back in about a second |
How much does CrustAPI cost?
one request charge is one successful call: Google Search starts at $1.00 per 1,000 successful requests, Maps at $1.96 per 1,000 businesses, LinkedIn reads at $6.00 per 1,000 successful requests, and People, Jobs and Refresh at $1.96 per 1,000 billing units. Full profiles in People use the LinkedIn read rate per full profile. Each deposit saves its own prices until spent. Every eligible account gets $6 of free usage monthly; paid funds never expire.
| Deposit | Google Search / 1,000 requests | Maps / 1,000 businesses | LinkedIn reads / 1,000 requests | People, Jobs, Refresh / 1,000 units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $10+ | $1.00 | $1.96 | $6.00 | $1.96 |
| $149+ | $0.76 | $1.49 | $4.50 | $1.49 |
| $549+ | $0.56 | $1.10 | $3.30 | $1.10 |
| $1,999+ | $0.41 | $0.80 | $2.45 | $0.80 |
| $6,500+ | $0.33 | $0.65 | $1.95 | $0.65 |
| $27,500+ | $0.28 | $0.55 | $1.65 | $0.55 |
| $50,000+ | $0.26 | $0.50 | $1.50 | $0.50 |
| $100,000+ | $0.20 | $0.40 | $1.50 | $0.40 |
Every eligible account gets $6 of free usage monthly. Each deposit keeps its prices until spent; paid funds never expire. People and Jobs bill per successful search, Refresh per accessible profile. Full profiles in People use the read rate per full profile. See all billing details.
Larger deposits unlock lower endpoint prices. Each deposit keeps its prices until spent. See the full deposit table on the pricing page. Prices in USD, ex-tax.
Funds are prepaid and never expire. No gigabytes to guess, no proxy plan to size, no storage fee on top.
How do you get started?
No proxy setup, no plan sizing. From zero to clean rows in about two minutes:
- 1
Create a free account. Try it free, no card needed.
- 2
Type a search in the playground. Something like coffee in portland me. The results land in a table.
- 3
Export CSV or run the curl. Copy your key from the dashboard for the API call above.
Every Google surface, one API
One key and one schema across the whole Google menu. Each type returns clean records you can keep, with no proxies to rotate and no HTML to clean up.
Related: Google Search API · Google Maps scraper API · Google News API · Google Shopping API · Docs
Who uses CrustAPI?
- Lead gen teams. Businesses with phone and website as CSV, with no proxy pool or parser in the way.
- Sales and recruiting ops. LinkedIn profile data by API call, billed only when the call succeeds.
- Developers replacing scraper stacks. One GET request swaps out the proxy client, the retries, and the HTML parsing.
- Analysts and non-coders. The playground runs every search in the browser and exports the rows, no code.
When Smartproxy is the better pick: you want raw proxies (residential, ISP, datacenter, or mobile) for your own scrapers, or your targets reach well beyond Google, like ecommerce and social sites. CrustAPI does not sell proxies. If your work lives inside Google, LinkedIn, and local business data, ours is the simpler bill. Plenty of teams use both.
Common questions
It is one clean data API for the whole Google menu, Search, Maps, News, Shopping, Images, Videos, Scholar, Patents, Places, Reviews, and Autocomplete, plus LinkedIn profiles and local business leads. Instead of renting proxies and parsing pages yourself, you send one request and get clean JSON back, or the same rows as CSV. You pay the applicable endpoint price for successful data, and paid funds never expire.
Smartproxy gives you IPs, and with its scraping APIs, raw or parsed pages you still manage. CrustAPI returns finished records ready to use. There are no IPs to rotate and no parser to maintain, so you get the data instead of the plumbing to reach it.
No. Prepaid funds never expire, and you can try it free with no card. An unused pack waits for your next project.
The whole Google menu, Search, Maps, News, Shopping, Images, Videos, Scholar, Patents, Places, Reviews, Autocomplete, and single webpage fetch, plus LinkedIn profiles and local business leads. It covers that set rather than the whole web a proxy network can reach.
Yes. The two are not exclusive. Many teams keep Smartproxy proxies for sites CrustAPI does not cover or for their own scrapers, and use CrustAPI for the data it covers because the per-call billing is predictable.
Yes. Data is returned in the response with no storage limits. Keep it, export it to a spreadsheet or a database, and build on it.
Clay
Try it on a search you run today
the free plan covers real work. Send one request and look at the JSON that comes back.
Try for free