Web Scraping API Pricing Compared: What Does 1 Million Pages Actually Cost in 2026?

I've been testing scraping APIs for months. The pricing pages are designed to confuse you. Let me break down what you'll actually pay. The Pricing Models Scraping APIs use three pricing models: Per-request — You pay for each URL you scrape. Simple but expensive at scale. Credit-based — Each request costs a variable number of "credits" based on difficulty. A basic HTML page might cost 1 credit, but a JavaScript-rendered page with anti-bot bypass costs 10-25 credits. Bandwidth-based — You pay per GB of data transferred. Less common but can be cheaper for high-volume scraping. The credit-based model is where most APIs hide the real cost. When they say "100,000 API credits/month for $49," that might mean 100,000 simple pages or 4,000 JavaScript-rendered pages. Big difference. Real Cost Per 1,000 Pages I calculated the actual cost of scraping 1,000 pages across different scenarios: Scenario 1: Simple HTML Pages (no JavaScript) Think: news articles, blog posts, product listings on simple sit