Fastcrawl vs ScrapingAnt
ScrapingAnt and Fastcrawl both take a URL and return clean data, and both arecredit-based. The differences come down to the free tier, the per-credit math, and what's bundled into one credit. ScrapingAnt leans on a proxy fleet and a big monthly free grant; Fastcrawl leans on a flat per-call model and a low $5 entry. Here's the honest breakdown.
Side by side
| Feature | fastcrawl | ScrapingAnt |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | 2,000 credits / mo, no card, no trial clock | 10,000 credits / mo, no card, repeats monthly |
| Paid entry | $5 / mo (Go), 5,000 credits | $19 / mo (Enthusiast), 100,000 credits |
| Effective $ / 1k units | $1.00 (5k on $5; overage $0.25/1k) | $0.19 / 1,000 credits |
| Credits per scrape | 1 credit every call (flat) | 1 credit/request (no JS upcharge) |
| JS rendering cost | Included, no extra | Included, no extra |
| Failed requests | Free (never charged) | Free (0 credits) |
| Concurrency cap | None on Go plan | None on any plan |
| Pricing model | One flat credit, every endpoint | One credit pool across scrape/markdown/extract/MCP |
| MCP server | 12 tools | Hosted MCP |
| PDF parse | Included | Not a first-class endpoint |
| Monitors | Included (schedule + diff + webhook) | Not built in |
| Proxy pools | Cloudflare browser rendering | 3M+ rotating residential + datacenter (credits-only) |
Where Fastcrawl wins
Cheaper entry. Fastcrawl's Go plan is $5/mo for 5,000 credits, with metered overage at $0.25 per 1,000. ScrapingAnt's floor is$19/mo for 100,000 credits ($0.19 per 1K). For a solo dev who needs a few thousand scrapes a month, $5 beats $19 — and Fastcrawl's per-1k overage is a flat, predictable number rather than a tier jump.
Flat per-call model. One credit for every endpoint — scrape, crawl, map, extract, screenshot, PDF, parse. ScrapingAnt also uses one credit pool, which is genuinely simple, but its credit value is the thing to watch: at $0.19/1k, a $5 spend buys you ~26k credits vs Fastcrawl's 5k — but Fastcrawl's $5 includes the full pipeline (monitors, PDF, MCP) with no tier gap to unlock.
Monitors and PDF parse included. Schedule a re-scrape with change detection and webhooks, and parse PDFs, on the $5 plan. ScrapingAnt doesn't ship monitors or a dedicated PDF endpoint.
Where ScrapingAnt wins
Bigger free tier. ScrapingAnt grants 10,000 credits every month— five times Fastcrawl's 2,000 — and it's a recurring monthly allowance, not a one-time trial. For long-running evaluation that's a real edge.
Residential proxy fleet built in. ScrapingAnt has 3M+ rotating residential and datacenter proxies, usable per-call with proxy_type=residential and no separate plan. If you're scraping anti-bot-heavy storefronts (Amazon, Walmart) or sites that block datacenter IPs, that's the difference between getting content and getting a 403.
Lower per-1k cost at volume. At 100k+ credits/month, ScrapingAnt's $0.19/1k (and falling to $0.083/1k on Business) is well under Fastcrawl's $0.25/1k overage. If you're at that scale, ScrapingAnt's credit math is cheaper per call.
Which should you pick?
Pick Fastcrawl if you want the cheapest entry, a flat predictable per-call model, built-in monitors and PDF parsing, and you mostly need clean markdown from standard pages. Most agent projects fit this shape.
Pick ScrapingAnt if your workload is high-volume (100k+/mo), you need a residential proxy fleet to get past anti-bot on specific storefronts, or you want the bigger recurring free tier. For heavy anti-bot scraping, their proxies are the decisive factor.
Fastcrawl's free tier is 2,000 credits, no card required.
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