What is scrapestack?

scrapestack is an API service allowing customers to scrape websites without having to worry about technical issues like proxies, IP blocks, geo-targeting, CAPTCHA solving, and more. Simply send a valid website URL and the scrapestack API will return its full HTML content (as seen in the browser, including JavaScript rendering) as a response.

To learn more about the API, you can get a free API access key, take a look at the extensive API Documentation and make your first API requests right away.

Who runs the API?

scrapestack is a product built and maintained by apilayer, a software company based in London, United Kingdom and Vienna, Austria. apilayer is the company behind popular API and SaaS products worldwide, including weatherstack, invoicely and eversign.

How scalable is this service?

Scrapestack is a REST API service built on top of apilayer cloud infrastructure, making it highly scalable and capable of handling anything from thousands of API requests per month all the way to millions per day. Powered by a system that scales up and down when needed, the API provides the highest possible level of speed for any API request at any stage.

What is the difference between standard (datacenter) proxies and premium (residential) proxies?

Datacenter (we call them "standard") proxies are the most common proxies used on the internet. They are not owned by any ISP and simply mask your origin IP address by showing the datacenter proxy address and the information associated with the company that owns the respective datacenter.

Residential ("premium") proxies provide IP addresses that are connected to real residential addresses and devices, which makes them much less likely to get blocked while scraping the web. We highly recommend using residential proxies for your web scraping needs as they make it easy to work around geo-blocked content and harvest data at scale.

What is the difference between free and paid subscriptions?

The scrapestack Free Plan is a way of getting familiar with the API, offering basic API functionality and a limitation of 100 API requests that can be processed by the API per month.

As soon as your use of the API requires a more advanced set of features, such as cpncurrent requests or premium proxy access, you can choose from one of the available paid subscriptions or contact us for a custom solution.

Which subscription plan fits my needs?

The most decisive factor when it comes to your technical requirements is the number of API requests you need to make on a monthly basis. Other factors include HTTPS encryption, access to premium proxies, concurrent requests, a more diverse set of geolocations, and more.

Signing up for the Free Plan is a great way of getting to know the API and implementing it without any commitments.

Which payment methods are supported?

Payments can be made via credit card (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, Diner's Club, American Express). Enterprise and high-volume customers may request annual bank transfer payments to be enabled. You can change your payment method at any given time in the "Payment" section of your account dashboard.

Can I also pay yearly?

Yes. If you choose annual billing, the total price of your subscription plan will be up to 15% lower than the total amount you would pay with a monthly payment frequency.

How can I change my payment frequency?

In order to change your billing frequency from monthly to yearly or from yearly to monthly, you will be required to downgrade your account back to the Free Plan.

Step 1: Navigate to the Subscription page, click "Downgrade" in the Free Plan section and confirm your downgrade. Downgrades are not effective immediately, your premium subscription will remain active until the end of the current billing period.

Step 2: Once your billing period ends and your account downgrade has become effective, navigate back to the Subscription page and click "Upgrade" in your preferred subscription plan's section. You will now be aked to choose a new billing frequency.

If you need any assistance changing your billing frequency, please do not hesitate to contact us.

What is an API Request?

Pricing is based on the number of monthly API requests allowed. Each time the scrapestack service is used to process a URL, one API request is made. In the event that an error should occur, your request does not count towards the monthly volume.

What happens if I exceed my API Request volume?

Users will be automatically notified via e-mail and on their Account Dashboard once at least 75%, 90%, and 100% of their monthly API Request allowance has been reached. After reaching 100% of the allowance, overages fees will apply so we make sure you won’t experience any disruptions and your website/application will keep running smoothly. You can learn more about overages billing here.

Our API's system status is closely monitored around the clock. Every effort is made to ensure the highest possible level of availability and consistency, and we are proud to have an average uptime rate of nearly 100% (99.9%), calculated based on the past 12 months.

There is a public API status page available at the following URL: status.scrapestack.com.