ScrapingBee vs FourA: what does a protected page cost? #
75 credits. That's what ScrapingBee charges for one successful request with stealth_proxy, the pool its docs keep for the hardest sites, and on its $99 Startup plan it comes to $7.43 per 1,000 pages. FourA's $99 Startup plan runs the same rendered page, with a verification step completed, for $0.55 per 1,000. We read both pricing pages on 1 October 2026; prices are in US dollars.
What FourA charges per request #
Every FourA request is priced in credits by the engine that ran it. Single costs 1 credit, or 2 with a browser profile (the unblocker parameter, on by default), which is what you'd send to pages that check who's asking. Browser costs 5 credits, and 10 only when a page asked for a verification step and Browser completed it.
Startup is $99 a month for 1,800,000 credits on foura.ai/prices, as of 1 October 2026. Only a successful request is billed, and every response carries an X-FourA-Credits header with what that call used.
What does ScrapingBee charge per request? #
ScrapingBee's documentation lists five prices for its HTML API. A classic proxy costs 1 credit without JavaScript and 5 with it, and render_js defaults to true, so a request with no options set renders and costs 5. premium_proxy costs 10, or 25 with rendering. stealth_proxy costs 75 and runs only with rendering; the version without it is listed as coming soon.
Its pricing page sells Startup at $99 a month for 1,000,000 credits. Here's the same $99 on both sides, cheapest request to the option for hard sites:
| Per 1,000 | FourA | ScrapingBee |
|---|---|---|
| HTTP, plain | $0.055 | $0.099 |
| HTTP, protected | $0.11 | $0.99 |
| Rendered | $0.275 | $0.495 |
| Rendered, protected | $0.55 | $7.43 |
On ScrapingBee the protected HTTP row is premium_proxy without rendering and the protected rendered row is stealth_proxy.
Why FourA comes out ahead here #
The gap is widest where the pages are hardest: $0.55 against $7.43 per 1,000 rendered pages, 13.5 times apart. Protected HTTP is 9 times apart, and even the two cheap rows run 1.8 times higher on ScrapingBee. And Browser charges its 10 credits only on a page where the step was actually completed; a page that didn't ask for one costs 5. ScrapingBee bills 75 on every successful stealth_proxy call.
Move both sides to $249 and the distance grows. ScrapingBee's Business plan carries 3,000,000 credits, so a stealth_proxy page costs $6.23 per 1,000. FourA's Business plan carries 9,000,000 credits, which puts the same rendered page at $0.28, about 22 times less.
ScrapingBee deserves credit for its Auto-Mode: mode=auto tries its configurations cheapest first, bills only the one that worked, charges nothing when every one fails, and max_cost can stop it before the 75-credit tier.
Run the same request on FourA #
ScrapingBee reports each call's cost in an Spb-cost header, so last month's bill splits by credit cost. Price the 1-credit calls at 1 on Single and the 10-credit calls at 2 (Single with a browser profile). Price the 5-credit calls at 5 on Browser, and the 25 and 75-credit calls at 10, as if every one of those pages had asked for a verification step. Then set the total against the plans on the pricing page. If a quote you're weighing bills by the gigabyte instead, our per GB vs per page breakdown covers that unit.
Frequently asked #
Does a 404 cost credits? ScrapingBee's FAQ says it charges for requests that return 200, 404 or 410. On FourA a 404 isn't a success unless your validate rule accepts it, so it costs nothing.
How many rendered pages a day does the $99 plan run? FourA's Startup plan allows 5,000 Browser requests a day and Business 20,000, as of 1 October 2026. Single has no daily count and runs on credits, a per-minute rate and a concurrency limit.
Check it on your own pages: create a free account at auth.foura.ai/signup, send ten URLs you now pay 75 credits for through Browser on the free plan's 3,000 credits, and read X-FourA-Credits on each answer.