Definition
ScrapingAnt is a web scraping proxy service that handles proxy rotation, browser rendering, and CAPTCHA solving for extracting data from websites, charging variable credits per request based on features enabled (1-125 credits per request).
In Depth
ScrapingAnt's pricing starts with a free tier of 10,000 API credits/month, then $19/mo for 100K credits, $49/mo for 500K, and $249/mo for 3M credits. The catch is variable credit consumption: a basic request costs 1 credit, but enabling JavaScript rendering and premium proxies can cost up to 125 credits per request. For Cloudflare-protected sites, premium proxies are often required, making the effective cost per request 10-125x the base rate. For data that lives in search results (product prices, business listings, review ratings, news articles), structured SERP APIs return the same data as typed JSON without proxy management. Scavio charges a flat $0.005/credit (1 credit per request) for Google, Amazon, YouTube, Walmart, and Reddit results. ScrapingAnt wins when you need data from arbitrary websites behind authentication or with custom DOM extraction. SERP APIs win when the data is publicly indexed.
Example Usage
A team scraping Amazon product prices uses ScrapingAnt with JS rendering enabled (10 credits/request). At 50K products/month, they consume 500K credits ($49/mo plan). Switching to Scavio's Amazon endpoint (1 credit/request, $0.005 each), the same 50K queries cost $250/mo but return structured JSON with price, rating, and seller data -- no HTML parsing needed. ScrapingAnt remains useful for their custom competitor dashboard that scrapes behind-login pricing pages.
Platforms
ScrapingAnt is relevant across the following platforms, all accessible through Scavio's unified API:
- Amazon