9 Best Zyte Alternatives in 2026: Scraping APIs Without Tier Pricing

By Rajesh Kannan, Co-Founder & CTO, Gramosoft · Last updated: October 28, 2026 · Zyte's rates checked on its pricing page and docs on October 28, 2026; other vendors on their own pages on October 27, 2026

Zyte is the company behind Scrapy, and its API is one of the strongest at getting through bot protection. The catch is the bill. Zyte prices every website on one of five tiers, HTTP or browser, and it picks the tier for you after your first request, so the same page can cost $0.13 or $16.08 per 1,000. Here are nine alternatives, GcrawlAI first, with prices from each vendor's own page and what 10,000 and 100,000 rendered pages a month cost on each.

The 9 best Zyte alternatives in 2026

Every tool here fetches pages through rotating proxies and a real browser, so you don't run that infrastructure yourself. What differs is how each one prices a hard page and what else comes with the account. GcrawlAI leads because a protected, rendered page costs one request, the same as a plain one, on every site.

1. GcrawlAI: one request per page, no tiers

Best for: teams scraping protected or JavaScript-heavy sites who want a bill they can predict, plus RAG pipelines and AI agents · License: MIT core, managed Cloud API · Language: Python SDK (gcrawl-sdk 0.5.8), REST, MCP

GcrawlAI does what Zyte API does for most teams: fetch any URL through residential IPs with a real browser, and handle Cloudflare, DataDome, Akamai and PerimeterX on the way. The difference is pricing. There are no tiers and no per-site rates. A page is one request whether it needs a browser or not, and a blocked page, CAPTCHA, timeout or server error isn't billed.

• Scrape, crawl and map: scrape a page into HTML, Markdown or JSON, crawl a site with depth control and duplicate filtering, or map its URLs first.
• Bulk jobs: batch runs and async jobs with webhooks, so a nightly crawl doesn't need a scheduler of its own.
• Search and Deep Search: a Search API for ranked results, and Deep Search, which merges several engines into one list.
• Extractors: ready-made structured data for common targets, and custom extractors for your own sites through a custom request.
• Screenshots and offline bundles: screenshots on mobile, tablet and desktop, and offline HTML bundles for audits.
• Agents and testing: an MCP server for Claude, Cursor and other agents, the Playground, and the docs.
• Self-host: the MIT-licensed core runs on your servers with FastAPI, Celery, Redis, PostgreSQL and stealth Playwright.

The Zyte browserHtml call as one GcrawlAI request, plus a small crawl:

# pip install gcrawl-sdk
from gcrawl_sdk import GcrawlClient, ScrapeOptions

client = GcrawlClient(api_key="gc-YOUR_API_KEY")   # or GCRAWL_API_KEY; base_url="http://localhost:8000" when self-hosted

if __name__ == "__main__":
    # The Zyte "browserHtml" call, as one GcrawlAI request at the same price on every site.
    # Rendering, residential IPs and anti-bot escalation are always on; there is no tier to look up.
    page = client.scrape(
        url="https://www.example-shop.com/product/123",
        options=ScrapeOptions(html_enabled=True, markdown_enabled=True, proxy_geo="US"),
        wait=True,
    )
    print(len(page.html or ""), "bytes of rendered HTML")   # for your own selectors or Scrapy parse code
    print(page.markdown[:300])                              # LLM-ready Markdown

    # A whole site, each page one request
    job = client.crawl(url="https://www.example-shop.com/", limit=50, formats=["markdown"], wait=True)
    print(job.status, len(job.pages), "pages")

Scrapy users don't have to give up their spiders. The rendered HTML from GcrawlAI goes into the same parse code, so you can keep Scrapy for crawling logic and use GcrawlAI as the fetch layer.

And the self-hosted core, if the data must stay on your own servers:

git clone https://github.com/GramosoftAI/GcrawlAI.git && cd GcrawlAI
python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt && playwright install
cp .env.example .env                      # add your database, Redis and proxy settings
python -m api.core.db_setup
redis-server &
celery -A web_crawler.crawler.celery_config worker -l info &
uvicorn api.api:app --port 8000

Pricing (GcrawlAI pricing, checked October 28, 2026):

Every page is one request on every site, failed requests are never charged, and unused requests on paid plans roll over once. Annual billing gives two months free. Concurrency and overage rates are in the cost section below.

Where it falls short: there's no hosted spider platform like Scrapy Cloud; you run your own crawler or use GcrawlAI's crawl endpoint. There's no plain-English extraction parameter, so structured data comes from the extractors, Markdown for your LLM, or your own selectors. There are no dedicated Amazon or Walmart endpoints yet, the ecosystem is younger than Zyte's, and self-hosting means bringing your own proxy accounts.

"Teams tell us the hardest part of a Zyte bill isn't the rate, it's not knowing the rate until the job has run. We wanted the opposite: one price per page, on every site, that you can put in a budget before you start."

Rajesh Kannan, Co-Founder & CTO at Gramosoft

2. ZenRows: fixed multipliers you can model

Best for: teams who want to know the cost of a hard page before they send it · Type: scraping API with Fetch, Extract, Crawl, Batch and Browser primitives, SDKs and an MCP server

ZenRows prices by features used, not by site. A page costs the same multiplier wherever it lives, so you can work out a worst-case bill in advance. Its adaptive mode starts cheap and only escalates when a site needs it. We compared it in detail in our ZenRows alternatives guide.

Pricing (ZenRows pricing, checked October 27, 2026):

Failed requests aren't charged, but 404 and 410 responses count as successful. Annual billing charges 10 months for 12.

Where it falls short: a rendered page on premium proxies costs 25 times a plain one, and credits don't roll over.

3. Bright Data: one flat rate per request

Best for: enterprise teams that want a flat price and a large proxy network · Type: Web Unlocker API on a proxy network, plus browsers, scrapers and datasets

Bright Data's Web Unlocker charges the same rate for every successful request, whatever the site. That makes it the simplest enterprise option to budget, at a higher base rate than Zyte's Tier 1. We cover its wider range in our Bright Data alternatives guide.

Pricing (Unlocker pricing, checked October 27, 2026):

Only successful requests are billed.

Where it falls short: there's no plan between pay as you go and $499 a month, and the product catalogue takes time to learn.

4. ScraperAPI: structured e-commerce and search data

Best for: high-volume Amazon, Google and Walmart scraping · Type: scraping API with structured endpoints, async jobs and DataPipeline

ScraperAPI prices by domain type rather than by tier. The credit cost of each category is published, so a bill is easier to forecast than Zyte's, though protected pages still cost many times a plain one.

Pricing (ScraperAPI pricing, checked October 27, 2026):

Annual billing takes 10% off, and the trial gives 5,000 credits for 7 days.

Where it falls short: Hobby and Startup only geotarget the US and EU, credits don't roll over, and the credit cost of JavaScript rendering on its own isn't on the pricing page.

5. Scrapfly: built for the hardest targets

Best for: sites behind strong bot protection, and multi-step flows in a hosted browser · Type: scraping, extraction, screenshot and crawler APIs, a cloud browser and an MCP server

Scrapfly is the closest match to Zyte's depth on protected sites, with an Unblocker, and a cloud browser for Playwright and Puppeteer. Like Zyte, the cost of a request depends on what it needs.

Pricing (Scrapfly pricing, checked October 27, 2026):

Pro and above switch to pay-as-you-go overflow instead of stopping, and the Unblocker page says failed requests are free.

Where it falls short: per-feature credit costs aren't on the pricing page, so forecasting needs its estimator. That's why it isn't in our cost table.

6. Apify: a home for existing Scrapy spiders

Best for: teams moving Scrapy spiders off Scrapy Cloud, or targets that already have a maintained Actor · Type: cloud Actor platform with scheduling, storage, proxies and webhooks

Apify can run Scrapy spiders as Actors without a rewrite, and its store has ready-made scrapers for many popular sites. It's the nearest replacement for the hosting half of Zyte, rather than the API half.

Pricing (Apify pricing, checked October 27, 2026):

Compute units cost $0.20 down to $0.13, residential proxies $8 down to $7 per GB, and unused usage expires each cycle.

Where it falls short: the cost of a page depends on how each Actor is built, so it doesn't compare cleanly with a per-request API.

7. ScrapingBee: a simple HTML API

Best for: small teams that want an easy API with extraction rules · Type: scraping API with JavaScript rendering, proxies, screenshots and AI extraction

ScrapingBee keeps the request simple: one URL, a few flags, HTML or JSON back. It's now part of the Oxylabs group, and its plans are unchanged. We covered it in depth in our ScrapingBee alternatives guide.

Pricing (plans, credit costs, checked October 27, 2026):

Where it falls short: a hard page on stealth proxies costs 75 times a plain one, and the free credits are a one-time trial.

8. Crawlbase: pay only for successful requests

Best for: variable workloads where a usage bill beats a monthly bucket · Type: Crawling API, async Crawler, Smart AI Proxy and storage

Crawlbase is framework-agnostic: one HTTP call per page from any language, with rotation, rendering and CAPTCHA handling on its side. Only successful requests are charged, and the price per request falls as volume grows.

Pricing (Crawlbase pricing explained, checked October 27, 2026):

Where it falls short: JavaScript requests and harder domains cost more, at rates the article doesn't publish, so a bill is hard to forecast before you run it.

9. Firecrawl: Markdown for LLMs

Best for: pages that go straight into a model or vector store · Type: scrape, crawl, map and search API with an AGPL open-source core

Firecrawl returns clean Markdown by default and prices most pages at one credit. It suits AI pipelines more than classic e-commerce extraction. We compared it with GcrawlAI in our Firecrawl alternatives guide.

Pricing (Firecrawl pricing, billing docs, checked October 27, 2026):

JSON output adds 4 credits, and pages that return 403 or 404 still cost a credit.

Where it falls short: credits are scarce per dollar at the low end, and unused credits don't roll over below annual Scale.

How Zyte pricing works

Zyte charges per successful response, at a rate set by the tier it assigns each website. There are five tiers for HTTP responses and five for browser-rendered ones. You don't pick the tier: Zyte assigns it after your first requests to a site, reviews it every quarter, and gives two weeks' notice of changes.

Source: Zyte pricing and Zyte API pricing docs, checked October 28, 2026.

• Spending limits: pay as you go is capped at $100 a month. The $100, $200, $350 and $500 commitments raise the limit to $200, $400, $700 and $2,500.
• Extras cost more: screenshots are $1.34 per 1,000, automatic extraction $0.27 to $1.07 per 1,000 per data type (SERP extraction is free), and custom attributes are billed per million tokens.
• Billing: only successful responses are charged, and new accounts get $5 of credit for the first month.
• Scrapy Cloud (pricing docs): one free low-resource unit with 1-hour jobs and 7-day retention, or $9 per unit a month with unlimited runtime and 120-day retention.

What 10,000 and 100,000 rendered pages a month cost

For the same rendered page, Zyte costs between $100 and $768 at 100,000 pages a month, depending on the tier it assigns the site. GcrawlAI costs $101 on any site. The table shows the cheapest published plan for each tool, for pages that need JavaScript and bot protection.

These are list prices, not a benchmark. Free tiers are left out, including Bright Data's 5,000 free requests a month. Zyte's pay-as-you-go plan stops at $100 a month, so larger jobs use the cheapest commitment that covers them. Scrapfly, Apify and Crawlbase are left out because their cost for a rendered, protected page isn't published as a fixed rate.

On a Tier 1 site, Zyte is cheaper than GcrawlAI at 10,000 pages, and so are Bright Data and, at 100,000 pages, Firecrawl. The difference is that GcrawlAI's price doesn't move with the site. If a Zyte site is reassigned from Tier 1 to Tier 5, the same 100,000 pages go from $100 to $768. On GcrawlAI they stay at $101.

GcrawlAI's plans, for the cost section above:

Annual billing charges 10 months for 12, unused requests on paid plans roll over once, and Indian customers are billed in INR with a GST invoice. Full details are on the pricing page.

"We're not always the cheapest line in the table, and we say so. What we promise is that the line doesn't move. A page costs the same on a simple site and a protected one, this quarter and next."

Rajesh Kannan, Co-Founder & CTO at Gramosoft

Why teams leave Zyte

Teams rarely leave Zyte because it can't get through. They leave because the bill is hard to predict, because they don't want their stack built around Scrapy, or because they need an AI-ready output on one simple plan. These are the reasons that come up most often in reviews and forum threads.

• Tier pricing: the rate for a site isn't known until Zyte assigns its tier, and it can change each quarter. Browser rates span 16 times from Tier 1 to Tier 5.
• Spending limits: pay as you go stops at $100 a month, so any serious volume means a monthly commitment.
• Add-ons: screenshots, automatic extraction and custom attributes are billed on top of the request.
• Scrapy gravity: Zyte fits best when your crawlers are Scrapy spiders on Scrapy Cloud. Teams working in other languages or frameworks get less from the ecosystem.

Which Zyte alternative should you choose?

Start with why you're leaving Zyte. If it's an unpredictable bill, use GcrawlAI. If you want the data on your own servers, self-host GcrawlAI's MIT core. If you need LLM-ready Markdown, AI agent access or structured extractors, GcrawlAI covers those too. The table maps the common cases.

When Zyte is still the right choice, and when GcrawlAI is

Zyte still makes sense for a narrow set of teams: those whose spiders already live on Scrapy Cloud, and those who depend on its automatic extraction or managed data feeds. For everything else, from protected sites and bulk crawls to AI agents, GcrawlAI does the work on one key, at one request per page.

Keep Zyte only for:

• Spiders already running on Scrapy Cloud that you don't want to host yourself.
• Zyte's automatic typed extraction or its managed Zyte Data feeds.

Use GcrawlAI for the rest. Here's what one account gives you:

• Scrape: any URL as HTML, Markdown or JSON, with JavaScript rendering, residential IP rotation and stealth escalation in the same single request.
• Crawl and map: a whole site with depth control and duplicate filtering, or its URL list without rendering every page.
• Batch and async jobs: thousands of URLs in one job, with results by webhook.
• Search API and Deep Search: ranked results by country and page, and several engines merged into one list.
• Extractors: ready-made structured data, and custom extractors for your own sites.
• Screenshots and offline bundles: mobile, tablet and desktop captures, and offline HTML bundles for audits.
• Built for AI agents: an MCP server for Claude, Cursor and other agents, plus the Python SDK and REST API.
• Try before you build: the Playground, and a Chrome extension that turns data you pick on a page into an API call.
• Your own servers: the MIT-licensed core runs self-hosted for teams whose data can't leave their network.
• Billing that doesn't move: one request per page, failed requests never charged, unused requests rolled over once, no tiers or per-site rates, and INR invoices with GST for Indian teams.

If you're on Zyte today, start with the free plan's 50 requests: run your hardest site through GcrawlAI, check the HTML, and compare the bill.

Scraping responsibly

Every tool on this list can reach protected pages, so how you use them matters. Collect public data, respect the terms that apply to you, keep request rates reasonable, and don't collect personal data you don't need. Nothing here is for getting past logins. See What Is Web Scraping? for the basics.

For the technical side of getting blocked, our guides on Cloudflare and 403 errors explain what's happening and what an API does about it.