Crawlbase
Proxy network software
Confidentiality software
- Features
- Ease of use
- Ease of management
- Quality of support
- Affordability
- Market presence
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Pay-as-you-go
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- Information technology and software
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- Education and training
What is Crawlbase
Crawlbase is a web scraping access and proxy API that helps developers retrieve web pages while managing IP rotation and common anti-bot challenges. It is used by teams building data collection pipelines for market research, price monitoring, SEO analysis, and similar web data use cases. The service exposes an API for fetching pages and can return raw HTML or extracted data depending on configuration. It positions itself as an infrastructure layer so users can avoid operating their own proxy pools and request routing logic.
API-first scraping access
Crawlbase provides a single API endpoint to request web pages while the service handles proxy routing and session management. This reduces the amount of custom code needed compared with running and maintaining a self-managed proxy stack. It fits well into server-side workflows and scheduled data collection jobs. The API approach also makes it easier to standardize usage across multiple internal applications.
Built-in IP rotation
The product is designed to rotate IPs and manage request distribution to lower the likelihood of blocks during repeated access. This is a practical advantage for use cases that require high request volumes across many target domains. It can simplify operations for teams that would otherwise need to source and monitor multiple proxy types. Centralizing rotation and routing also helps with consistent logging and troubleshooting.
Developer-oriented integration
Crawlbase targets developers with straightforward HTTP-based integration patterns that work across languages and common scraping frameworks. This can shorten time-to-first-result compared with assembling separate components for proxies, retries, and request fingerprinting. It is suitable for embedding into ETL pipelines and data platforms where reliability and repeatability matter. The managed model shifts some operational burden to the vendor.
Limited transparency on network
As with many managed proxy and scraping APIs, users may have limited visibility into the exact proxy sources, routing decisions, and IP pool composition. This can complicate compliance reviews and vendor risk assessments for regulated organizations. It may also make it harder to tune performance for specific geographies or target sites. Teams that need deterministic control may prefer more configurable proxy management.
Target-site variability persists
Even with proxy rotation and anti-bot handling, success rates can vary significantly by target site and change over time. Some sites require additional measures such as browser-based rendering, advanced fingerprinting controls, or custom session logic. Users may still need to implement retries, backoff, and monitoring to maintain stable pipelines. This can increase engineering effort for difficult targets.
Cost scales with usage
Managed scraping and proxy APIs typically price by request volume, bandwidth, or successful responses, which can become expensive at scale. Budgeting can be difficult when workloads are bursty or when targets trigger more retries and higher data transfer. Organizations with very high throughput may find self-managed infrastructure more predictable in cost. Procurement may also require careful review of overage policies and rate limits.
Plan & Pricing
Smart AI Proxy (tiered subscription plans)
| Plan | Price | Key features & notes |
|---|---|---|
| Free (30-day trial) | Free for 30 days (Start free 30 days trial) | 5 Threads; 5,000 Credits; 100,000 Unique Proxies; 5,000 IP Rotation; Datacenter proxies; JavaScript rendering; Custom Geolocation. (Free trial requires sign-up; no credit card required). |
| Starter | $149/month or $1,599/year | 20 Threads; 200,000 credits monthly (2.4M credits annually); 100,000 Unique Proxies; 5,000 IP Rotation; Datacenter proxies; JavaScript rendering; Custom geolocation. |
| Advanced (Most popular) | $229/month or $2,249/year | 40 Threads; 1M credits monthly (12M annually); 100,000 Unique Proxies; 10,000 IP Rotation; Mixed datacenter/residential proxies; JavaScript rendering; Custom geolocation. |
| Premium | $449/month or $4,140/year | 80 Threads; 3M credits monthly (36M annually); ~1,000,000 Unique Proxies; 20,000 IP Rotation; Mixed datacenter/residential proxies; JavaScript rendering; Custom geolocation (USA + 45 countries). |
Crawling API (usage-based / pay-as-you-go)
Pricing model: Pay-as-you-go (complexity-based). Only pay for successful requests. Start with 1,000 free requests (no credit card required). Billing unit: Price expressed per 1,000 successful requests.
Standard (reliable crawling for stable sites):
- 0–1k: $3.00 per 1,000
- Next 10k: $2.00 per 1,000
- Next 100k: $0.60 per 1,000
- Next 1M: $0.50 per 1,000
- Next 10M: $0.10 per 1,000
- Next 100M: $0.05 per 1,000
- Next 1B: $0.04 per 1,000
- After 1B: $0.02 per 1,000
Moderate (JS pages, login layers, light anti-bot):
- 0–1k: $4.50 per 1,000
- Next 10k: $3.00 per 1,000
- Next 100k: $0.90 per 1,000
- Next 1M: $0.75 per 1,000
- Next 10M: $0.15 per 1,000
- Next 100M: $0.07 per 1,000
- Next 1B: $0.06 per 1,000
- After 1B: $0.03 per 1,000
Complex / Complex II (advanced anti-bot & stealth crawling):
- 0–1k: $6.00 per 1,000
- Next 10k: $4.00 per 1,000
- Next 100k: $1.20 per 1,000
- Next 1M: $1.00 per 1,000
- Next 10M: $0.20 per 1,000
- Next 100M: $0.10 per 1,000
- Next 1B: $0.08 per 1,000
- After 1B: $0.04 per 1,000
Special / fixed pricing: LinkedIn public pages: Crawler priced at $15 per 1,000 successful crawls; free credits cannot be used for LinkedIn requests. Notes: Prices and tiers sourced directly from Crawlbase official pricing pages (Crawling API and Smart AI Proxy).
