Smartproxy alternative
A Smartproxy alternative for teams that want finished data, not a proxy pool to manage. You send one request and get clean JSON back, or the same rows as CSV, and you pay one credit per successful call.
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.
The full record, ready to use
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, built to give you IPs and access across a wide range of sites. CrustAPI is one clean data API for the data you actually want: the whole Google menu, plus LinkedIn profiles and local business leads. The difference shows up most 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 | One credit per successful call. Maps bills per result you keep, every other search is one flat credit per query |
| Free tier | A free trial on select products | 3,000 results a month, no card |
| Credit expiry | Subscription traffic is measured per billing cycle | Prepaid credits 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 |
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. Maps bills one credit per business you keep, so a Maps search that returns 20 results costs 20 credits; every other search is one flat credit per query, and a search that returns nothing costs nothing. No gigabytes to guess, no proxy plan to size, no storage fee on top.
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
When Smartproxy is the better pick: if you need raw proxies, residential, ISP, datacenter, or mobile IPs to run your own scrapers or route your own traffic, that is what Smartproxy is built for and CrustAPI does not sell. If your targets reach well beyond Google, like ecommerce listings, social platforms, or general web pages at scale, its proxy network and scraping APIs cover far more ground. And if you already have your own parsers and just want reliable access, a proxy provider fits better than a finished-data API. CrustAPI is narrower than a full proxy network on purpose. It is one clean data API for the whole Google menu plus LinkedIn profiles and local business leads, priced one way, with data returned ready to use. If your work lives inside those surfaces and you would rather skip proxies and parsing, the simpler billing and the credits that never expire are the reason to switch. The two are not exclusive; plenty of teams use both.
Common questions
Clay
Try it on a search you run today
3,000 free credits covers real work. Send one request and look at the JSON that comes back.
Get 3,000 free credits