ScrapingBee works well for basic scraping. But if you've hit credit-reset waste, the 5× JS multiplier, or the $49/month minimum — ScrapeBadger is the ScrapingBee alternative built to fix them. Credits never expire, no monthly subscription, and anti-bot bypass on every plan.
| Feature | ScrapeBadger | ScrapingBee |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $10 one-time | $49 / month subscription |
| Credits expire | Never | Monthly reset |
| Pay for blocked requests | Never — fails are free | Charges 200 + 404 responses |
| JS rendering credit cost | 23 credits flat | 5× multiplier (default on) |
| Anti-bot bypass coverage | Cloudflare, DataDome, Akamai, Imperva, PerimeterX, Kasada — all plans | Premium proxies on all plans, named systems not publicly documented |
| JS rendering browser | Patchright (stealth Chromium) | Standard headless Chrome |
| Residential proxies | 80M+ IPs, 150+ countries — included all plans | Premium proxies — included all plans |
| Free trial | 1,000 credits, no credit card | 1,000 credits, no credit card |
| AI data extraction | Natural-language prompts | CSS selectors + AI |
| Output formats | HTML, Markdown, Text, Screenshot | HTML, Markdown, JSON, Screenshot |
| Custom JS scenarios | On roadmap | Available |
| SDK languages | Python, Node.js / TypeScript | Python, Node.js, Ruby, PHP, Go, Java |
| Volume | ScrapeBadger | ScrapingBee |
|---|---|---|
| Entry-level (1 month or one-time) | $10 one-time · 100K credits | $49 / mo · 250K credits (50K real JS pages) |
| Mid-tier | $40 one-time · 500K credits | $99 / mo · 1M credits (200K real JS pages) |
| Pro / Business | $120 one-time · 2M credits | $249 / mo · 3M credits |
| Enterprise | $500 one-time · 10M credits | $599 / mo · 8M credits |
| Effective $/1K JS pages (mid-tier) | ~$0.18 | ~$0.495 |
Install the ScrapeBadger SDK: pip install scrapebadger (or npm install scrapebadger)
Sign up at scrapebadger.com/auth/signup — your API key is in the dashboard, no credit card required
Replace the ScrapingBeeClient initialization with `client = ScrapeBadger(api_key='sb_live_...')`
Map ScrapingBee's `client.get(url, params={...})` to `client.web.scrape(url=..., render_js=True, country='us', format='html')`
Delete the explicit `premium_proxy=True` flag — anti-bot bypass is included on every ScrapeBadger plan
The response contains the same rendered HTML — your downstream parser code does not change
Test with the 1,000 free trial credits, then cancel your ScrapingBee subscription once verified
For most workloads, yes. ScrapingBee starts at $49/month with credits that reset monthly. ScrapeBadger starts at $10 with credits that never expire — and only successful scrapes are charged. The comparison sharpens on JS-rendered pages: ScrapingBee's $99 Startup plan advertises 1M credits but JS rendering costs 5 credits per page, so you actually get ~200K real pages for $99 (~$0.495 per 1K). ScrapeBadger's Stealth mode costs a flat 23 credits per page; on the $40 Growth pack that's ~$0.18 per 1K — with anti-bot bypass included.
No. ScrapeBadger only deducts credits for successful responses. If a site blocks the request or returns an error, no credits are consumed. ScrapingBee charges credits for any 200 or 404 response — so blocked-but-returning-200 challenge pages still consume credits.
Yes, and on sites with serious bot detection ScrapeBadger typically performs better. ScrapeBadger uses Patchright — a stealth-patched Chromium that passes browser fingerprinting — versus ScrapingBee's standard headless Chrome which is detectable. ScrapeBadger also explicitly covers Cloudflare, DataDome, Akamai, Imperva, PerimeterX, and Kasada across all plans; ScrapingBee's documentation does not publicly specify which anti-bot systems are covered.
Migration takes under 10 minutes. Run `pip install scrapebadger`, swap the client initialization with your ScrapeBadger API key, and add `render_js=True` to enable Stealth mode (JS rendering + anti-bot bypass combined). The response object contains the same rendered HTML — your downstream parser does not change.
Never. ScrapeBadger credits have no expiry date. You buy a credit pack once and use it at any pace — same day or two years later. There is no subscription and no billing-cycle reset, which makes ScrapeBadger particularly well-suited for variable, seasonal, or project-based workloads where a fixed monthly allocation does not match actual usage.
ScrapingBee includes JS rendering, rotating proxies, and premium proxies on all plans including the $49 Freelance tier. The differences at higher tiers are mostly team management, dedicated account manager, and concurrency limits. ScrapeBadger's edge is explicit named anti-bot system coverage (Cloudflare, DataDome, Akamai, Imperva, PerimeterX, Kasada) plus Patchright stealth Chromium that passes browser fingerprinting that standard headless Chrome fails.
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