Scraping API PricesFirecrawl vs ScrapingBee
The volume boundary between page-oriented crawl credits and request-shape scraping credits.
Firecrawl
ScrapingBee
The difference
Both paths, one ruler
Firecrawl
Successes you want
100,000 pages
Your stated workload. Every vendor on this site is priced against this same number.
- ÷ 0.95
Attempts you are billed for
105,263 requests
Firecrawl bills failed fetches, so a 5% failure rate is billed work.
- × 1
What the meter counts
105,263 credits
One attempt is one billed unit for this workload.
- =
Cash per month
$399.00 /mo
Growth. Cheapest of every eligible purchase option, not the first plan that fits.
Bars share one linear scale across the 3 counted stages, so a multiplier shows as length. Units differ by stage and are labelled. Cash is not on that scale.
ScrapingBee
Successes you want
100,000 pages
Your stated workload. Every vendor on this site is priced against this same number.
- × 1
Attempts you are billed for
100,000 requests
ScrapingBee does not bill failed fetches, so failures cost nothing here.
- × 5
What the meter counts
500,000 credits
One attempt is not one billed unit here: this workload multiplies by 5 before any money is involved.
- =
Cash per month
$99.00 /mo
Startup. Cheapest of every eligible purchase option, not the first plan that fits.
Bars share one linear scale across the 3 counted stages, so a multiplier shows as length. Units differ by stage and are labelled. Cash is not on that scale.
Both ladders share one linear scale, topping out at 500,000 counted units, so a longer bar means more billed work rather than a different drawing.
These figures are for one stated workload: 100,000 JavaScript-rendered pages a month at a 95% success rate. The comparison below names where the answer changes.
The boundary
After both free allowances are excluded, Firecrawl is lower for paid successful standard page fetches through 5,000 pages a month. At 5,001 pages, Firecrawl must move off its entry allowance while ScrapingBee remains inside a much larger first paid allowance, so ScrapingBee becomes lower and remains lower through the tested one-million-page range. The useful boundary is therefore the first Firecrawl paid-plan ceiling, not an abstract feature score. A small crawl-shaped project can sit on Firecrawl’s smaller bundle; a sustained extraction queue can use more of ScrapingBee’s entry capacity. (Firecrawl pricing, retrieved 2026-07-26; ScrapingBee pricing, retrieved 2026-07-26)
This baseline requires JavaScript rendering to be disabled on ScrapingBee when it is not needed. ScrapingBee documents that JavaScript rendering is enabled by default, and its default rendered call consumes more credits than a classic request. If the integration leaves that default unchanged, use the rendered workload in the calculator rather than the standard-page boundary above. Firecrawl assigns one page credit to its ordinary Scrape operation, but advanced features can add separate credits. (ScrapingBee FAQ, retrieved 2026-07-26; ScrapingBee credit rules, retrieved 2026-07-26; Firecrawl pricing, retrieved 2026-07-26)
How the billing models differ
Firecrawl uses monthly credits across several operations. Scrape, Crawl, and Map are page-metered; Search is result-bundle-metered; browser Interact is time-metered; enhanced proxy and extraction have separate rules. The self-serve page does not offer a normal pay-per-use plan, and ordinary plan credits do not roll over. ScrapingBee uses monthly credits whose consumption changes with request shape. Classic, JavaScript, premium, stealth, AI query, and specialized target APIs have distinct costs, and unused credits do not roll over. (Firecrawl pricing, retrieved 2026-07-26; ScrapingBee credit rules, retrieved 2026-07-26; ScrapingBee pricing, retrieved 2026-07-26)
Failure treatment is close but not identical. Firecrawl does not charge for its own failures, yet it charges after fetching a target-side error response. ScrapingBee says only specified successful or terminal response classes consume credits. Neither rule should be turned into a vendor success-rate assumption because this site has not benchmarked either service. (Firecrawl pricing, retrieved 2026-07-26; ScrapingBee FAQ, retrieved 2026-07-26)
What each offers that the other does not
Firecrawl exposes Crawl and Map for site discovery, Search for web results, Monitor for repeated checks, browser Interact, and an Agent path. ScrapingBee exposes dedicated Google, Amazon, YouTube, and Walmart APIs, screenshot and extraction-rule options, AI data extraction, and a request API centered on a supplied URL. Firecrawl can make one crawl request fan out across a site, while the compared ScrapingBee baseline is built around request-level page acquisition and specialized target APIs. (Firecrawl pricing, retrieved 2026-07-26; ScrapingBee pricing, retrieved 2026-07-26)
Who should pick which
Pick Firecrawl below the boundary when the job is small and site-oriented, or when Crawl, Map, Monitor, or agent workflows eliminate work you would otherwise build. Pick ScrapingBee above the boundary when the job is a repeatable page queue, especially when its larger entry allowance, higher published concurrency, or dedicated target API matches the workload. Recalculate for JavaScript, premium proxy, stealth, AI extraction, or specialized targets because the page count alone no longer predicts credit use. (Firecrawl pricing, retrieved 2026-07-26; ScrapingBee pricing, retrieved 2026-07-26; ScrapingBee credit rules, retrieved 2026-07-26)
Firecrawl’s Agent rate is dynamic, and its reviewed pricing material does not publish enough fixed detail to compare Agent runs against ScrapingBee AI extraction. ScrapingBee’s documentation also contains examples that do not fully reconcile with its stated additive AI-query rule. Both unknowns stay outside this standard-page calculation. (Firecrawl pricing, retrieved 2026-07-26; ScrapingBee credit rules, retrieved 2026-07-26)