# Scrape.do vs Scrapeless

> Scrapeless has a score of 54.3 (C) against Scrape.do's 44 (E). Both do scraping. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 36 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrape-do-vs-scrapeless
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrape-do-vs-scrapeless.md (~1,700 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrape-do-vs-scrapeless.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrape-do-vs-scrapeless.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-05

Scrapeless has a score of 54.3 (C) against Scrape.do's 44 (E). Both do scraping. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 36 points.

- Scrape.do: grade E, 44/100, rank #406 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/scrape-do.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/scrape-do.json
- Scrapeless: grade C, 54.3/100, rank #326 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/scrapeless.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/scrapeless.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Scrape.do for agent ergonomics (+12).

Pick Scrapeless for reliability (+35), schema & documentation (+9), security & auth (+12), maintenance & community (+36), transparency & trust (+7).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Scrape.do | Scrapeless | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 40 | 75 | Scrapeless +35 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 57 | 66 | Scrapeless +9 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 62 | 50 | Scrape.do +12 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 23 | 35 | Scrapeless +12 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 35 | 35 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 45 | 81 | Scrapeless +36 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 49 | 56 | Scrapeless +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **44 · E** | **54.3 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Scrape.do | Scrapeless |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Scrape.do | Scrapeless (NST Labs Tech) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.scrape.do/` | `https://api.scrapeless.com` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 25 |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.scrapeless-ai/scrapeless-mcp-server` |
| Last release | 2026-07-31 | 2026-09-16 |
| Popularity | 2 npm/wk | 169 stars, 423 npm/wk, 216 PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | 2/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Scrape.do.** $29 for 250,000 basic credits, and 429s, 502s and most failures aren't billed. Token travels in the query string on the main API.

**Scrapeless.** Hosted streamable HTTP MCP at api.scrapeless.com/mcp with header auth, plus a stdio package, both in the official MCP registry. llms.txt quotes Deep SerpApi at $0.1 per 1,000 while the plan data charges $1 per 1,000 for Google Search.

## Before you call either

### Scrape.do

1. Start with the default data centre request (1 credit). Add `super=true` or `render=true` only after a block, since they cost 10 and 5
2. Pass `output=markdown` to get LLM-ready text instead of raw HTML
3. Read `Scrape.do-Request-Cost` from the response headers. Some domains cost 10 to 200 credits whatever you pass
4. Treat a 429 as too many concurrent requests and wait for one to finish
5. Keep URLs with `token=` out of logs and shared traces

### Scrapeless

1. Use scrape_markdown for reading pages and save the browser_* tools for clicks and logins, since browser time bills by the hour
2. Call browser_close when done so the session and its billing stop
3. Set limit on crawl_start. Unset, it defaults to 10,000 pages
4. Crawls are asynchronous. Call crawl_start, then poll crawl_result with the returned id
5. Set SCRAPELESS_API_KEY for the stdio server. Older guides use SCRAPELESS_KEY, which still works as a fallback

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