Where Outscraper's free tier stops
Outscraper Outscraper's free tier stops at fixed starter limits across its product lines. It includes the first 500 businesses, 500 reviews, 500 contacts, 25 emails, 25 phones, 500 images, 10 searches on one workflow, 50 searches on another, 500 products, 500 shopping and reviews records, and 500 traffic requests. It does include CSV, Excel, Parquet, JSON, API access, enrichments, filters, and historical data from 2001, but once you pass those caps you need paid usage. A card is required for postpaid billing.
Switch table
| Outscraper | Simplescraper | Geocodify | ScraperAPI | Scraper's Proxy | OpenCage | Geoapify Location Platform | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| monthly business records | 500 businesses | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed |
| review records | 500 reviews | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed |
| contact records | 500 contacts | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed |
| emails | 25 emails | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed |
| phones | 25 phones | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed |
| requests or calls per month | Varies by workflow | 100 cloud credits | 30,000 calls per month | 1,000 API credits | 100 requests per month | 2,500 requests per day | 3,000 credits per day |
| rate limit per second | Varies by workflow | Not listed | 1 request per second | Maximum 5 concurrent connections | Not listed | 1 request per second | Up to 5 requests per second |
| Card required | - | Unknown | Unknown | No | Unknown | No | No |
| First paid tier | - | Plus $39/mo | Starter $49.00 /Month | Hobby $49 /month | PRO $40.00 / mo | X-Small $50/mo | API 10 $59 billed monthly |
The alternatives
Simplescraper
FTV 29 / 100Simplescraper's free tier gives you browser scraping, 100 cloud credits for automated scraping, 3 saved recipes, CSV and JSON export, and API access. That makes it useful if your work is closer to extracting page data than collecting business listings or reviews at scale. It beats Outscraper on workflow flexibility because it is built around browser and cloud scraping recipes rather than just place and contact quotas. It falls short on breadth because its free tier does not list the same business-data enrichment, review, contact, or image allowances. Switch if you want a scraper-first workflow and only need a modest automated allowance.
- Beats Outscraper: Browser scraping and workflow flexibility
- Falls short: Much smaller free allowance for business data extraction
- Who should switch: Switch to this if you want a browser-based scraper with API access and a lightweight monthly starter pool.
Geocodify
FTV 60 / 100Geocodify's free tier includes 30,000 calls per month, 1 request per second, commercial use, attribution requirements, and community support. That is a better fit when your main need is geocoding rather than scraping listings or contacts. It beats Outscraper on pure geocoding volume and gives a clearer monthly API quota for location lookup work. It falls short on non-geocoding workflows because it does not offer Outscraper's business listings, reviews, contacts, product, or image extraction scope. Switch if your app mostly translates addresses and coordinates and you want a straightforward monthly API allowance.
- Beats Outscraper: Monthly geocoding call volume
- Falls short: No business-listing scraping or enrichment breadth
- Who should switch: Switch to this if your project is mainly geocoding and you need a recurring API allowance.
ScraperAPI
FTV 41 / 100ScraperAPI's free offering includes a 7-day trial with 5,000 API credits, a separate free account with 1,000 API credits, and up to 5 concurrent connections on the free account. It is the strongest choice here for trying out generalized web scraping infrastructure without immediate setup friction. It beats Outscraper on credit-card clarity because the free account is explicitly no-card for the trial, and it is designed for fetching public pages with proxy handling and browser rendering. It falls short on business-data specialization and on recurring free capacity, since the listed free access is small and not framed around monthly place, review, or contact quotas. Switch if you need general scraping rather than data-extraction workflows.
- Beats Outscraper: No-card trial and general web scraping focus
- Falls short: No recurring monthly allowance for structured business data
- Who should switch: Switch to this if you want to test a scraping API before committing to a paid plan.
Scraper's Proxy
FTV 35 / 100Scraper's Proxy gives access to 100 free requests per month. That is a simple, low-friction way to test proxy-based scraping without managing your own infrastructure. It beats Outscraper on simplicity if you only need raw request volume for a narrow job and do not need enrichment, exports, or business-specific data types. It falls short sharply on capacity and features because the free tier is just 100 requests monthly, with no listed exports, data fields, or domain-specific allowances. Switch if your goal is to make a few authenticated or blocked requests and you do not need structured output.
- Beats Outscraper: Raw request-based testing with minimal setup
- Falls short: Very small free quota and little structured-data support
- Who should switch: Switch to this if you only need a tiny monthly request allowance for proxy-style scraping.
OpenCage
FTV 65 / 100OpenCage's free tier includes 2,500 geocoding API requests per day, 1 request per second, spreadsheet uploads up to 100 rows, permanent data storage during testing, no credit card requirement, no IP restriction, and no CORS restriction. It is the best fit here for developers who want a geocoding trial that is easy to start and broad enough for real testing. It beats Outscraper on signup friction and on clear geocoding-specific behavior, especially for app integration and testing. It falls short on scraping business listings, reviews, and contacts because it is a geocoding service, not a business-data extraction platform. Switch if your main need is address and coordinate lookup.
- Beats Outscraper: No-card geocoding trial with testing-friendly access
- Falls short: Not a business-data scraping product
- Who should switch: Switch to this if you are building around geocoding and want the least signup friction.
Geoapify Location Platform
FTV 71 / 100Geoapify Location Platform's free tier includes 3,000 credits per day, multiple API keys, limited commercial use, up to 5 requests per second, isochrones up to 15 minutes, isodistances up to 10 km, and best-effort support. It is a strong free option for map, routing, and location workflows that need more than simple lookup calls. It beats Outscraper on location-platform breadth because it covers routing, map tools, and spatial features rather than only extraction. It falls short on business listings, reviews, contacts, and image scraping, since those are not its focus. Switch if you need a location API suite instead of a scraper.
- Beats Outscraper: Broader mapping and location-platform features
- Falls short: No business scraping or contact enrichment
- Who should switch: Switch to this if your free-tier needs are around maps, routing, and spatial APIs.
Two quick picks
Simplescraper
Simplescraper is the closest drop-in for builders who want a scraping API plus exports without changing to a geocoding-only or location-only product. It keeps the same general pattern of collecting structured web data and gives an API-based workflow that is easy to adopt next to existing scraping jobs.
OpenCage
OpenCage gives the most free headroom on a day-to-day basis because its free plan is framed as 2,500 requests per day with no credit card required, making it the most generous recurring allowance among the alternatives with a similar low-friction signup path.
Frequently asked questions
Which alternative is closest if I mainly need scraping APIs, not geocoding?
Simplescraper is the closest fit because it is also a web scraping tool with API access and export support. It is better aligned with scraping workflows than the geocoding-focused options.
Which alternative has no credit card required?
OpenCage and Geoapify Location Platform explicitly say no credit card is required. ScraperAPI also states that its free account and trial can be started without a card.
Which alternative gives the biggest recurring free usage?
OpenCage and Geoapify stand out because their free tiers are daily allowances rather than small monthly request bundles. OpenCage lists 2,500 requests per day, and Geoapify lists 3,000 credits per day.
Which alternative is best for business listings and contacts?
None of the alternatives match Outscraper's business-listings and contacts focus as directly. If you want the closest general scraping workflow, Simplescraper is the nearest fit, but it does not list the same business-data allowances.
Bottom line
For the most common case, Simplescraper is the best alternative if you are moving away from Outscraper because you need a scraping-oriented workflow rather than a business-data package. It keeps API access, exports, and a usable starter allowance, while staying closer to general web extraction than the geocoding and location platforms. If your main need is location lookup instead of scraping, OpenCage is the better pick.
Read the full listing for Outscraper. Scores use the FTV methodology at /ftv. Browse more alternatives on /alternatives, or head-to-head comparisons on /compare.