Zyte API

# Fix list: Zyte API

From Anchor Terminal's listing at https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/zyte, the October 2026 research run, assessed 9 October 2026. Grade B, 69.7 out of 100.

This is everything the published grade says the listing lacks, the biggest possible gain to the total first. It comes from the reason given for each score, the checklist each category was scored against (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist), the provenance checks, the deductions, what we couldn't check and what the review panel asked for. A fix counts at the next check, once it's public.

For a coding agent working on Zyte API: work through the items below in the product, its docs and its public pages. Each category gives the reason for its score, with the points each checklist item earned, and the checklist itself, so the gap is the items that earned less than their points. Change the product, not the wording, and keep a note of what you changed and where it's published.

## 1. Security & auth, 55 out of 100, up to 7.9 more on the total

Why it scored 55: API keys are revocable, an organisation can hold several, and none travels in a URL. Keys carry no permission scopes. Zyte MCP signs in over OAuth and works through its own key, `mcp_access_key` (22 of 30). An owner can set a blocking spending limit per key. We found no read-only mode, and the MCP docs warn that the agent can delete schedules and collections with no undo, leaving approval to the MCP client (8 of 20). The API returns untrusted web content, and the only guidance found is to review what the agent asks to do (2 of 15). The Stats API and dashboard break usage down by key, domain and request type, requests can be tagged, and each response has a `request-id`. No per-request log for the operator was found (10 of 15). ISO 27001 certification per the trust centre, a responsible disclosure programme with a hall of fame and no rewards, penetration test reports under NDA, and no security.txt (13 of 20).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-security):

- 0 to 30, the credential model. 30 for OAuth 2.1 with scopes, or scoped and revocable keys with rotation. 20 for plain revocable API keys. 10 for one all-powerful key. 10 off when a secret can travel in a URL query string as a documented option.
- 0 to 20, read-only or least-privilege modes, and confirmation or approval for destructive actions.
- 0 to 15, prompt-injection posture where the tool returns untrusted content (documented mitigations or guidance). A tool that returns no untrusted content gets 10.
- 0 to 15, audit logs or per-call visibility for the operator.
- 0 to 20, a security programme. security.txt or a disclosure policy, a bug bounty, SOC 2 or ISO 27001, advisories handled in public.

Models are read for retention, whether API data trains models (and whether that's off by default), zero-retention options and certifications. Frameworks for telemetry defaults, approval hooks, guardrails and sandboxing.

## 2. Payments & pricing, 40 out of 100, up to 7.5 more on the total

Why it scored 40: The official Python client documents x402 against `api-x402.zyte.com`, but our one unauthenticated request there on 9 October 2026 returned 401 with no 402 challenge, and the main docs and pricing page don't mention it, so we score the line as not established (0 of 40). Per-1,000 prices for all five site tiers, screenshots and extraction are public, though a given site's tier needs the dashboard's cost estimator (20). $5 of credit for the first billing month, with no card per the site (20). A person signs up in a browser, and the MCP route needs a browser sign-in too (0).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-payments):

The published rubric, also on the [x402 page](https://www.anchorterminal.com/x402/).

- 40, a machine payment protocol (x402, MPP or L402) on the tool's own endpoints. 10 to 30 when it covers only some endpoints or only goes through a third party, and the note says which.
- 20, per-call or per-unit pricing published without a login. 10 for public plan-only pricing, 0 for "contact sales" or prices behind a login.
- 20, a free tier or trial that doesn't need a card.
- 20, autonomous onboarding, meaning an agent can get access without a person signing up in a browser (keyless use, x402, a programmatic key API).

Payment platforms and agent wallets rarely charge for their own API over a machine protocol, so the first line has steps for them, and the highest one that applies counts. 40 when x402, MPP or L402 runs on all their own endpoints, 30 when it runs on part of their own API, 25 when their merchants can accept one, 20 for running a facilitator, 15 for paying as a buyer, and 0 when the only protocol is their own. Merchant acceptance sits above a facilitator because the platform's own customers can charge agents through it, while a facilitator settles for sellers who wire up the protocol themselves. The counter-argument (a facilitator does more for the protocol as a whole) has a point. Each note says which step applied.

Open-source software you run yourself is scored on its hosted or paid option if it has one. A free, self-hosted package with nothing to buy gets 20, 20 and 20 for the last three lines, and 0 to 40 for the first only if it ships a payment protocol.

## 3. Agent ergonomics, 72 out of 100, up to 4.6 more on the total

Why it scored 72: Graded on the REST API, with the MCP server noted. A request names the outputs it wants, so an agent can ask for extracted fields or `pageContent` in place of full HTML, but HTML and bodies come whole, up to 10 MB. Zyte MCP lists 34 tools at once, 26 of them for Scrapy Cloud (15 of 25). No pagination applies to a single-URL call. Search takes `maxResults` from 10 to 100, and the Stats API pages and filters (14 of 20). Errors are problem+json with a stable `type` path, and the docs say which to retry and which to fix (20). Calls are reads, failed and rate-limited requests are free, and retries are safe. We could not read the MCP tool annotations, which need a sign-in (14 of 20). A call needs only `url` and one output flag. The only official client is Python, with a Scrapy plugin (9 of 15).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-ergonomics):

- 0 to 25, context cost. For MCP, the number and size of the tool definitions (25 for ten or fewer compact tools, 15 for 11 to 30, 5 for more than 30, plus up to 10 back for toolsets, dynamic loading or read-only subsets). For APIs, whether responses can be sized (field selection, limits, summaries).
- 20, pagination, filtering and output-size controls.
- 20, actionable, documented error responses, codes and messages an agent can recover from.
- 20, idempotency or safe retries, and for MCP the `readOnlyHint` and `destructiveHint` annotations.
- 15, sensible defaults, few required parameters, and official SDKs in at least two languages.

Models are read for tool use, structured output, prompt caching, context length, batch and SDKs. Frameworks for how much code and how many defaults a tool-calling agent with MCP needs.

## 4. Reliability, 85 out of 100, up to 3 more on the total

Why it scored 85: Graded as a hosted API. status.zyte.com runs on Atlassian Statuspage with ten components and incident history (20). In the 90 days to 9 October 2026 it lists two Zyte API incidents, both degraded browser rendering with higher latency and 520 errors, on 10 to 11 September and 13 September, neither marked as an outage, plus two Scrapy Cloud scheduling incidents (20 of 30). Rate limits are published as 3,000 requests a minute per key on standard plans and 10,000 on Enterprise, though per-site limits aren't (15). 429, 503 and 520 carry `Retry-After`, and the docs give a backoff table and say which responses to retry (15). Enterprise plans list service level agreements for support response times. No uptime SLA is published (5 of 10). Zyte API is generally available, and Zyte MCP launched on 30 September 2026 with no beta label (10).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-reliability):

Hosted APIs, MCP servers, models and platforms.

- 20, a public status page with component history (Statuspage, Instatus, BetterStack or the vendor's own).
- 0 to 30, the incident record for the last 90 days on that page. 30 for a clean record or trivial incidents only, 20 for minor incidents only, 10 for one major outage (an hour or more of a core API down, or errors across the board), 0 for several. 5 when there's no history we could read, and the note says so.
- 15, rate limits documented with numbers.
- 15, documented 429 or overload handling (Retry-After, backoff guidance), and idempotency keys or safe-retry guidance where writes are involved.
- 10, an SLA published for any paid tier.
- 10, the surface agents use is generally available, not beta or preview.

Local packages, SDKs, frameworks and stdio MCP servers.

- 20, installs from an official package with supported runtimes stated.
- 25, a public CI and test suite, passing on the default branch.
- 0 to 25, open crash or regression issues relative to activity (25 for few and handled, 0 for many, old and unanswered).
- 15, semver discipline and breaking changes called out in a changelog.
- 15, version 1.0 or later, or declared stable.

Protocols are read from their reference implementations, the public facilitators or servers, spec stability and test vectors.

## 5. Transparency & trust, 66 out of 100, up to 3 more on the total

Made of editorial 58, provenance 73.

Why it scored 66: A closed service with terms last updated on 22 September 2026 that name Zyte Group Limited and contain a Zyte API section. The Python client is BSD 3-Clause (15 of 30). The privacy policy (30 August 2024), a DPA and a sub-processor list are public, with retention stated for support tickets (4 years) and invoices (7 years). Retention of request data and scraped content isn't stated, and the terms let Zyte use Service Data for product development and product training (17 of 30). Site tier changes get two weeks' notice and the Smart Proxy Manager retirement was announced with a date, but there is no standing API deprecation policy and the terms allow changes with or without notice (10 of 20). The sub-processor list names 36 companies with addresses and purposes, and the privacy policy names the United States and Ireland as processing locations (16 of 20).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-transparency):

- 0 to 30, source availability and licence clarity. 30 for open source under an OSI licence, 15 for closed with clear terms, 0 for unclear terms.
- 0 to 30, data handling and retention statements that agree with each other (privacy policy, DPA, retention periods, subprocessors).
- 0 to 20, a deprecation policy or notices with dates.
- 0 to 20, telemetry disclosed with an opt-out (local software), or subprocessors and data locations disclosed (hosted).

The other half of Transparency and trust is the provenance score, computed from checked facts (below). The category score is the mean of the two.

Provenance checks not met in full (half of this category, computed from checked facts):

- Terms of service: read, states 5 of the 7 things a reader expects, and has 2 clauses that cost points (4.3 of 10)
- Privacy policy: read, states 6 of the 8 things a reader expects (8.5 of 10)
- Changelog: not found (0 of 10)
- security.txt: not found (0 of 10)

## 6. Schema & documentation, 85 out of 100, up to 2.4 more on the total

Why it scored 85: The reference prints an OpenAPI 3.0.3 document for `POST /v1/extract`, though the Search API's `/v1/search` is documented in tables outside it (25). docs.zyte.com has an llms.txt and Markdown twins of its pages (10). The operation description states which output fields can be combined and which can't, and field descriptions give defaults (17 of 20). Inputs are typed, with 51 enums and required fields marked. `customAttributes` takes a free-form schema (13 of 15). The spec has a dozen request examples, and each error status has a problem+json example (15). The path is versioned `/v1` and the spec says 1.0.0, but we found no dated changelog for the API in the docs sitemap of 150 pages (5 of 15).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-schema):

APIs and MCP servers.

- 25, a machine-readable contract (a public OpenAPI file or similar; for MCP, typed JSON Schema inputs on every tool).
- 10, llms.txt or Markdown docs served for agents.
- 0 to 20, descriptions that say what a tool is for, when to use it and when not to, read from the tool definitions in the source or the API reference.
- 0 to 15, typed inputs with enums, constraints and required fields, and no free-form JSON blobs.
- 0 to 15, examples and documented error responses.
- 15, versioning and a public changelog.

Models are read from the API reference, the OpenAPI file, llms.txt, the structured-output and tool-use docs and the model cards. Frameworks from docs a model can follow, typed interfaces, examples and the API reference.

## 7. Maintenance & community, 77 out of 100, up to 2 more on the total

Why it scored 77: Zyte MCP launched on 30 September 2026 and the Agentic Web Data plugin reached 0.4.0 on 5 October (30). Dated releases in the last 90 days are plugin 0.3.0, 0.3.1 and 0.4.0 (17 and 22 September, 5 October) and `python-zyte-api` 0.11.0 on 23 July (20). There is no public API changelog. Support runs through tickets and a Discord server, and we did not read GitHub issues (8 of 15 for a closed service). `python-zyte-api` is current, with Python 3.10 or later, and covers one language. We could not reach the MCP registry (12 of 15). The client repository has test and publish workflows and merged a dependency update on 8 October 2026. We did not see CI results (7 of 10).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-maintenance):

- 0 to 30, time since the last release, or the last published model or API change for a closed service. 30 within 30 days, 20 within 90, 10 within 180, 0 older.
- 20, at least three releases or dated changelog entries in the last 90 days.
- 0 to 25, responsiveness. Issues and pull requests answered on GitHub (the open issues and how recent the replies are). For closed services, a public changelog and a support or community channel that answers, 0 to 15.
- 15, presence in the official MCP registry under a verified namespace (MCP servers), or current official SDKs (APIs and models).
- 10, package health, current dependencies and CI.

Models are read for deprecation notice periods and model churn rather than release counts.

## What we couldn't check

What we couldn't read counted as absent. Publishing it on a page a plain HTTP fetch can read (not only in a browser) lets the next check count it.

- Whether the x402 route works. The Python client documents `api-x402.zyte.com`, and our one unauthenticated request got 401 and no 402. We sent no further requests
- unchecked: the MCP tool definitions and annotations, which need a Zyte sign-in. The count of 34 comes from the docs table
- unchecked: the official MCP registry. registry.modelcontextprotocol.io timed out twice
- unchecked: the PyPI project pages, which returned a short page with no release data. Versions and dates come from the repository tags
- unchecked: GitHub stars and issue responsiveness for zytedata/python-zyte-api
- unchecked: the ISO 27001 certificate page and the security policies and controls pages linked from the trust centre
- Whether an uptime SLA exists for Enterprise plans. The docs describe support response times only

## Weaknesses

- Request price depends on the target site's tier, from $0.13 to $1.27 per 1,000 HTTP requests and $1.01 to $16.08 with a browser on pay-as-you-go
- No dated changelog or deprecation policy for the API was found in the 150-page docs sitemap, and the terms allow changes with or without notice
- The terms let Zyte use Service Data, data feeds and code from the services for product development and product training
- The official client documents x402 at `api-x402.zyte.com`, but our one unauthenticated request there on 9 October 2026 got 401 and no payment challenge
- Zyte MCP lists 34 tools, 26 of them for Scrapy Cloud, and some delete schedules and collections with no undo
- No security.txt, no paid bug bounty, and one official client language (Python)

## What costs an agent a turn today

The notes we give agents before they call it. Each one is a workaround an agent shouldn't need.

- Send the API key as the Basic auth username with an empty password to `https://api.zyte.com/v1/extract`. Set only one of `httpResponseBody` or `browserHtml`, or one extraction field
- Ask for `httpResponseBody` before `browserHtml`. Browser requests cost about eight to thirteen times more per tier
- Retry 429, 503 and 520 after the `Retry-After` seconds, with backoff. They aren't billed. Don't retry 400, 401, 422 or 451
- Read `statusCode` in a 200 response. A target site's 404 comes back as a successful, billed Zyte API response
- Have the owner set a blocking spending limit on the key you use. A 403 `/auth/account-suspended` means the limit or the trial month ended

## When it's done

Send what changed and where it's published as a dispute (https://www.anchorterminal.com/builders/#disputes, or `POST https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/contact` with `"kind": "dispute"`). Disputes are answered in public, and the listing is checked again by the same checklist. Paying for an audit or a listing claim changes nothing here.