Best for
Best proxies for a managed scraping API
A managed scraping API hands off the proxy rotation, retries and CAPTCHAs. You send a URL and get back the page, billed per request or per credit. You pay more per result than raw proxies, but you skip the part most teams get wrong.
1. 
ScraperAPI Simplest and cheapest to startOur pick
ScraperAPI is a dedicated managed API at $49/month, with 1000 free credits and a 7-day trial, so you can wire it in fast. The honest catch is its measured success on 12 hard anti-bot targets was only 33.8% in June 2026, so it is fine for ordinary sites but not the answer for the worst ones.
2. 
Bright Data Best on the hard targets
Bright Data's Web Unlocker and Scraping Browser are the strongest managed unblocking in this set, with SERP and Scraper APIs alongside. You pay for it, and the toolbox is deep enough that you will not touch half of it, but on sites that fight back it is the one that finishes the job.
3. 
Decodo (formerly Smartproxy) A SERP API that undercuts on price
If you mostly need search results, Decodo's SERP API runs about $0.32 to $1.25 per thousand requests with city and ZIP targeting, the cheapest in our set. For general scraping it also offers a site unblocker at a lower price than Bright Data.
The call
For a general managed API, start on ScraperAPI for the easy integration and low entry, and move to Bright Data's Web Unlocker for the targets it cannot crack.
If your job is search results specifically, Decodo's SERP API is the cheapest way in.
FAQ
What is a scraping API versus a proxy?
A proxy gives you an IP and leaves rotation, retries and CAPTCHAs to you. A scraping API does all of that and returns the page or clean data, billed per request.
Is ScraperAPI good for hard targets?
Not the hardest. It measured 33.8% on 12 strong anti-bot targets in 2026. For those, Bright Data's Web Unlocker is stronger.
Which is cheapest for search results?
Decodo's SERP API, at roughly $0.32 to $1.25 per thousand requests.
Other use cases
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