Quick answer
Browse AI - Browse AI wins for most builders who want a free tier they can actually use without code, while ScraperAPI wins if you need an API-first scraping stack and can live with a much tighter free cap.
How the free tiers compare
These products solve adjacent but different problems. Browse AI is a no-code scraping and monitoring tool built around robots, websites, users, schedules, and integrations, so its free tier is more usable for non-developers and small teams that want to point, click, and automate recurring checks. ScraperAPI is a developer-facing web scraping API, so its free tier is smaller in absolute allowance but more aligned with production-style integration work. The key difference is shape, not just size: Browse AI gives you broader platform access, unlimited robots, residential proxies, and monitoring on the free plan, but only across 2 websites and 50 credits. ScraperAPI gives you 1,000 free API credits and 5 concurrent connections, which is better if you are validating an API workflow, but it runs out fast. After free, Browse AI stays lighter and more flexible for small-scale use; ScraperAPI becomes a straightforward flat-priced ladder.
Browse AI vs ScraperAPI free tier, side by side
| Browse AIFTV 47 | ScraperAPIFTV 32 | |
|---|---|---|
| Free allowanceBrowse AI is a capped recurring free tier; ScraperAPI is a free account credit bucket. | 50 credits/month | 1,000 API credits |
| WebsitesScraperAPI is API-based, so website count is not a listed quota. | Up to 2 | Not stated |
| Users | Up to 3 | Not stated |
| Concurrent usageDifferent units, but ScraperAPI explicitly caps concurrent connections on free. | Unlimited robots | 5 concurrent connections |
| Data retention | 90 days | Not stated |
| Monitoring frequencyBrowse AI supports scheduled monitoring on free. | Minimum hourly | Not stated |
| Card required for freeBoth inputs explicitly say no credit card is required. | No | No |
After you outgrow the free tier
Browse AI starts at a flat $19 per month billed annually, then $69 per month billed annually, with Premium starting at $500 per month billed annually and custom terms. It also has add-on website pricing on the paid tiers, so costs can rise with scope. ScraperAPI starts at a flat $49 per month, then steps through $149, $299, and $475 per month, with Enterprise at contact sales. For small teams, Browse AI is usually cheaper unless you need many websites or managed services; ScraperAPI costs more upfront but is simpler if your usage maps cleanly to API credits and threads.
Cost at real usage
| Usage | Browse AI | ScraperAPI |
|---|---|---|
| Small builder plan, minimal scaleA is billed annually in the source pricing label. | $19/mo | $49/mo |
| Need 5 websites and light automationBrowse AI Personal includes 5 websites; ScraperAPI does not price by website count. | $19/mo | $49/mo |
| Around 100k API credits/moBrowse AI pricing is credit-based but the provided plans are annual bundles, so this is not directly comparable; ScraperAPI Hobby includes 100,000 credits. | ~$19/mo est. | $49/mo |
| Around 1M API credits/moScraperAPI Startup includes 1,000,000 credits; Browse AI Professional includes 60,000 credits/year with an additional website add-on price, so direct credit comparison is not available from the input. | ~$69/mo est. | $149/mo |
Estimates, not quotes. Usage-based rates change - verify with the vendor's pricing page before committing.
When to pick each one
Pick Browse AI when…
- You are a non-technical user who wants point-and-click scraping instead of writing API code.
- You need to monitor a small number of websites on a schedule, not just fetch pages on demand.
- You want integrations like Google Sheets, Airtable, Zapier, Make, or webhooks in the free workflow.
- You care more about workflow breadth and platform access than raw request volume.
- You only need to track up to 2 sites and can work within 50 monthly credits.
Pick ScraperAPI when…
- You are a developer building scraping into an app, script, or backend service.
- You want a simple API interface with SDKs and documentation in common languages.
- You need to test with more than a tiny free allowance before choosing a paid plan.
- You care about concurrent request handling and want to see how the service behaves under load.
- You expect to scale into a fixed-price API plan with clear credit and thread limits.
Bottom line
For the most common builder case, Browse AI is the better free-tier pick because it gives you a usable no-code workflow, scheduled monitoring, and integrations without requiring a card. ScraperAPI is the better choice when the real need is a developer API for fetching pages at scale. If you are choosing purely on free tier usefulness, Browse AI stretches farther for everyday small projects. If you are choosing on implementation style and future API scaling, ScraperAPI is the more natural fit.
Read the full listings: Browse AI and ScraperAPI. Scores use the FTV methodology at /ftv. Browse more head-to-heads on /compare, or see the top-ranked free tiers on /top.