🚀18 Google Scraper APIs just launched — SERP, Maps, Shopping, Scholar, Lens, Flights & more→
ScrapingdogvsScrapeBadger· Updated April 2026

Looking for a Scrapingdog Alternative?

Scrapingdog is purpose-built for Google and Amazon structured data. But if your targets go beyond those dedicated APIs — or you need broader geo coverage, named anti-bot bypass, and flexible billing (Pay As You Go with 6-month validity, or monthly/annual subscriptions) — these are the friction points developers hit. ScrapeBadger now also offers 18 dedicated Google scraper APIs of its own.

  • 34% overall success rate on protected sites — below industry average of 58.2% (Scrapeway, 2026)
  • PAYG costs $0.40/1K credits — significantly more expensive than their own subscription rate
  • Only 15 countries for geotargeting
  • Top-up credits bought during a subscription expire at the end of the billing cycle
Try ScrapeBadger FreeSee full comparison

1,000 free credits · no credit card · credits never expire

Independent benchmark

The Success Rate Gap on Protected Sites

Scrapingdog excels on its own dedicated APIs. On general protected sites, the picture is different.

34%
Scrapingdog overall
58%
Industry average
3.2s
Scrapingdog speed
8.7s
Industry avg speed
What the numbers mean: Scrapingdog is genuinely fast and achieves near-100% on targets its dedicated APIs are built for — Google Search, Amazon, LinkedIn. But across 13 popular scraping targets in independent testing, six return zero results. That 34% overall rate reflects real-world diversity, not just the easy targets.

Source: Scrapeway bi-weekly benchmarks, 2025–2026.
TL;DR

Switch to ScrapeBadger if…

Both are capable web scraping APIs. The right choice depends on your workload and priorities.

✦ Switch to ScrapeBadger

  • →Your targets go beyond Google/Amazon (e-commerce, real estate, social, classifieds)
  • →You need more than 15 countries for geotargeting
  • →You want credits that never expire
  • →You need named anti-bot bypass (Cloudflare, DataDome, Akamai, Imperva)
  • →You want a stealth browser that passes fingerprinting checks

— Stay with Scrapingdog if…

  • ·Your core use case is Google APIs — SERP, Maps, News, Scholar, Jobs, Finance
  • ·You need structured JSON from Amazon or LinkedIn at high volume
  • ·You have predictable monthly volume and prefer subscription pricing
  • ·Speed matters more than breadth — Scrapingdog is fast on supported targets

ScrapeBadger vs Scrapingdog — Full Breakdown

FeatureScrapeBadgerScrapingdog
Entry price$10 one-time · 100K credits, no subscription$40 / month subscription · 200K credits (Lite)
PAYG rate$10 = 100K credits ($0.10/1K)$10 = 25K credits ($0.40/1K)
Credits expireNeverSubscription credits reset monthly · top-up credits expire at cycle end
PAYG + subscription togetherNot applicable — all credits permanentCannot combine — must choose one or the other
Overall success rate (protected sites)Higher — named bypass for 6 anti-bot systems34% avg (Scrapeway) — industry avg 58.2%, 6 of 13 targets return zero
Geotargeting countries150+ countries · 80M+ residential IPs15 countries
Anti-bot systems documentedCloudflare, DataDome, Akamai, Imperva, PerimeterX, Kasada — all plansCloudflare documented — others not publicly specified
Browser enginePatchright (stealth Chromium) — passes fingerprintingStandard headless Chrome
Mobile proxiesResidential pool (highest IP reputation)Not offered — datacenter + residential only
Free trial1,000 credits, no credit card1,000 credits, no credit card
Speed (avg latency)Sub-second to 8s depending on target~3.2s avg (fast on supported targets)
Dedicated Google APIs18 products — SERP, Maps, News, Shopping, Scholar, Lens, Flights, Trends, etc.20+ Google endpoints — mature and pre-parsed JSON
Dedicated Amazon APIGeneral scraper (HTML)Structured JSON endpoint
Dedicated LinkedIn APIGeneral scraper (HTML)Structured JSON endpoint
SDK languagesPython, Node.js / TypeScriptPython, Node.js, Ruby, PHP, Go
Why developers switch

The 3 Biggest Problems with Scrapingdog

These aren't edge cases — they're the issues that appear most often when developers compare Scrapingdog alternatives.

1

34% overall success rate — six major targets return zero results

Scrapingdog's own benchmarks show 100% success rates — but those tests are run on the targets its dedicated APIs are explicitly built for: Google, Amazon, LinkedIn, Indeed. Scrapeway's independent bi-weekly benchmarks, which test across 13 popular scraping targets using default settings, tell a different story: a 34% overall success rate, significantly below the 58.2% industry average. The gap is explained by six targets returning zero results in independent testing. Scrapingdog is optimised for a specific set of high-value platforms. If your pipeline touches sites outside that set — European classifieds, property portals, niche e-commerce, protected news sites — you will encounter this limitation directly.

ScrapeBadger

ScrapeBadger's general web scraping API uses Patchright (stealth Chromium) with explicitly documented bypass for Cloudflare, DataDome, Akamai, Imperva, PerimeterX, and Kasada. The approach is broader: every request gets the full anti-bot stack regardless of the target site.

2

PAYG costs 4× more per credit than subscription — and you can't combine them

Scrapingdog's PAYG pricing is $10 for 25,000 credits — $0.40 per 1,000 credits. Their Lite subscription delivers 200,000 credits for $40/month — $0.20 per 1,000 credits. Their own documentation explicitly states that subscriptions are "roughly 50% more economical" than PAYG. In other words, Scrapingdog's own team recommends against using PAYG for anything beyond sporadic or test workloads. The further constraint: you cannot run PAYG and a subscription simultaneously. If your subscription runs out mid-cycle, you must either top up within the subscription (those credits expire at cycle end) or switch fully to PAYG at the higher rate. There's no flexible hybrid model.

ScrapeBadger

ScrapeBadger credits never expire whether you're on PAYG or a subscription plan. The Starter pack is $10 for 100,000 credits — four times the credits per dollar compared to Scrapingdog's PAYG rate. No billing cycle resets.

3

Only 15 countries for geotargeting

Scrapingdog's geotargeting is limited to 15 countries. For teams scraping localised content — regional e-commerce pricing, country-specific search results, European marketplaces — 15 countries covers the basics but excludes a large portion of the world. ScraperAPI's comparison page, citing Scrapingdog's own documentation, notes 15 supported geotargeting locations versus ScraperAPI's 100+.

ScrapeBadger

ScrapeBadger's proxy pool covers 150+ countries with 80M+ IPs, including country-matched residential proxies. For teams scraping localised content across Europe, Asia, or less common markets, coverage depth matters.

What You Actually Pay — Real Cost Comparison

The most common reason developers search for a Scrapingdog alternative is pricing confusion. Scrapingdog's credit multiplier means advertised credits don't translate to actual pages scraped — here's what you really get.

ScrapingdogSubscription · credits reset monthly
Lite
$40 / mo
200K credits · 5 concurrent · $0.20/1K
Standard
$100 / mo
1M credits · 25 concurrent · $0.10/1K
Professional
$200 / mo
3M credits · 75 concurrent · $0.067/1K
PAYG
$10 = 25K credits
$0.40/1K · credits don't expire · no subscription
The PAYG trap: Scrapingdog's own docs call PAYG "roughly 50% less economical" than subscription. But subscriptions reset monthly — unused credits are lost. You're either overpaying per credit (PAYG) or losing unused credits (subscription).
ScrapeBadgerPay-as-you-go · credits never expire
Starter
$10 one-time
100K credits · $0.10/1K · never expires
Basic
$18 one-time
200K credits · $0.09/1K · never expires
Growth
$40 one-time
500K credits · $0.08/1K · never expires
Professional
$120 one-time
2M credits · $0.06/1K · never expires
No expiry, no subscription: A $10 Starter pack gives 100K credits — 4× more than Scrapingdog's PAYG rate for the same money. Use them in a day or a year. Failed requests are always free.

Spring sale — 50% off all ScrapeBadger plans. Credits never expire regardless of when you use them. See full pricing →

Anti-Bot Bypass, JS Rendering, and More

The details that determine whether your scraper actually works on the sites you need.

Anti-Bot Bypass

ScrapingdogScrapeBadger
CloudflareDocumentedAll plans
DataDomeNot specifiedAll plans
AkamaiNot specifiedAll plans
ImpervaNot specifiedAll plans
PerimeterXNot specifiedAll plans
KasadaNot specifiedAll plans

Proxy Infrastructure

ScrapingdogScrapeBadger
Pool size40M IPs80M+ IPs
Residential✓✓
Datacenter✓✓
Geotargeting15 countries150+ countries
Browser engineHeadless ChromePatchright

How to Switch from Scrapingdog in 10 Minutes

Migrating from Scrapingdog to ScrapeBadger is a drop-in replacement. Your downstream parsing code stays the same — you're changing the client, not the output.

  1. Step 1:pip install scrapebadger
  2. Step 2:Sign up at /auth/signup — get your API key in under a minute
  3. Step 3:Replace the request — see example below
  4. Step 4:Response returns rendered HTML — your existing parser is unchanged
Scrapingdog (before)Remove this
import requests

url = "https://api.scrapingdog.com/scrape"
params = {
    "api_key": "YOUR_DOG_KEY",
    "url": "https://example.com",
    "dynamic": True,   # JS rendering
    "premium": True,   # premium proxies
    "country": "us",
}
response = requests.get(url, params=params)
html = response.text
ScrapeBadger (after)Replace with this
from scrapebadger import ScrapeBadger

client = ScrapeBadger("sb_live_...")

result = client.web.scrape(
    url="https://example.com",
    render_js=True,    # Patchright stealth
    # anti-bot bypass automatic
    country="us",
    format="html",
)

html = result.content
Key difference: Note on dedicated APIs: If you're migrating Scrapingdog's Google Search or Amazon structured JSON endpoints, ScrapeBadger's general scraper returns rendered HTML rather than pre-parsed JSON for those targets. If structured Google data is your primary use case, review whether the migration meets your needs before switching — ScrapeBadger now also offers 18 dedicated Google scraper APIs at /google-scraper.

Trusted by Developers Building with Data

From ScrapeBadger users who made the switch from subscription-based scraping APIs.

“I'm a developer myself but ScrapeBadger's web scraping API is my go-to when my own scrapers can't bypass anti-bot systems. High success rates and reasonable pricing. The credits-never-expire model is huge — I don't feel pressured to burn credits before month end.”
E
Eugene
Co-founder, WISS APPS
“We've tried a few scraping tools before and most break pretty often or require a lot of work to keep things running. ScrapeBadger has been a lot more stable in comparison. We mainly use it to find leads and it's been effective — does what it's supposed to do without the hassle.”
D
Domas
Founder, Webdy

Frequently Asked Questions

According to Scrapeway's independent bi-weekly benchmarks, Scrapingdog achieves a 34% overall success rate across 13 popular scraping targets — below the industry average of 58.2%. Six of those targets return zero results in testing. This doesn't mean Scrapingdog is unreliable — it means its reliability is concentrated on the specific platforms it has dedicated APIs for: Google, Amazon, LinkedIn, Indeed. If those match your targets, the success rate is near 100%. If your targets are outside that set, results vary significantly.

Yes, Scrapingdog introduced PAYG in late 2025. The rate is $10 for 25,000 credits — $0.40 per 1,000 credits. Their own documentation states subscriptions are "roughly 50% more economical," which implicitly flags PAYG as a convenience option rather than the cost-effective choice. One important constraint: you cannot run PAYG and a subscription simultaneously. If you're on a subscription and need more credits, top-up credits expire at the end of your billing cycle. PAYG credits don't expire, but you must cancel your subscription first to use them.

Scrapingdog supports 15 countries for geotargeting, according to their own documentation. ScrapeBadger supports 150+ countries through its residential proxy pool of 80M+ IPs, including country-matched proxies for all 26 Vinted markets. For teams scraping localised content — regional pricing, country-specific SERP results, European marketplaces — the 15-country limit is a meaningful constraint.

No. Scrapingdog offers datacenter and residential proxies, but no mobile proxies. Mobile proxies carry the highest IP reputation scores and are essential for bypassing advanced bot detection on sites like DataDome that flag datacenter IP ranges. ScrapeBadger's residential pool of 80M+ IPs across 150+ countries gives broader IP diversity than Scrapingdog's pool.

Compared to Scrapingdog's PAYG rate: yes, significantly. ScrapeBadger's Starter pack is $10 for 100,000 credits ($0.10/1K) — versus Scrapingdog's $10 for 25,000 credits ($0.40/1K). That's four times the credits per dollar, and ScrapeBadger's PAYG credits never expire. Compared to Scrapingdog's subscription: ScrapeBadger's Basic pack is $18 for 200,000 credits ($0.09/1K) — cheaper per credit than Scrapingdog Lite's $40/month for the same 200,000 credits, with no monthly commitment and PAYG credits never expire.

Scrapingdog is still a strong choice if your core use case is structured Amazon or LinkedIn data. Their dedicated endpoints for those platforms return pre-parsed JSON — ScrapeBadger's general scraper returns HTML for those targets, requiring your own parser. For Google data, ScrapeBadger now offers 18 dedicated Google scraper APIs (SERP, Maps, News, Shopping, Scholar, Lens, Flights, Trends and more) that return structured JSON the same way Scrapingdog's Google endpoints do — see /google-scraper.

Compare Other Alternatives

vs ScrapingBee

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. Pay As You Go from $10 (credits never expire, no monthly cliff) or subscribe for deeper savings, with anti-bot bypass on every plan.

Compare

vs Apify

Apify is great for general web scraping, but ScrapeBadger is purpose-built for Twitter data. Get faster responses, lower prices, and a dedicated API with zero rate limits.

Compare

vs RapidAPI Twitter APIs

RapidAPI hosts dozens of Twitter APIs from different providers, each with different quality and reliability. ScrapeBadger offers one reliable, well-documented API directly.

Compare