Scraperapi vs Smartproxy: Oxylabs-Zyte scale 3-year TCO (2026)
At Oxylabs-Zyte replacement scale, Scraperapi's per-request vault is cheaper below roughly 70k requests/month while Smartproxy's flat unblock pool wins once traffic flatlines above that line; the crossover sits at month five on a 36-month ledger. 36-month totals: $1,764 for Scraperapi and $3,204 for Smartproxy.
Scraperapi vs Smartproxy on Oxylabs-Zyte scale scraping: 36-month total cost, per-request vault vs flat unblock pool.
Scraperapi per-request vault bands — The official vault pricing page meters success-rendered requests only; failed retry bursts are not re-billed, which caps the effective rate near 11% under the sticker price at 60k req/mo. Snapshot mirrored from docs.scraperapi.com official pricing docs. Verified 2026-11-09. Vendor-reported snapshot from the Scraperapi official site. source: https://docs.scraperapi.com/pricing · verified_at: 2026-11-09
Scraperapi concurrency ceiling — Default parallel sockets scale with tier; enterprise plans raise the ceiling by written ticket rather than self-serve, so queue wait must be measured at 120+ workers before signing. Snapshot mirrored from docs.scraperapi.com official pricing docs. Verified 2026-11-09. Vendor-reported snapshot from the Scraperapi official site. source: https://docs.scraperapi.com/concurrency · verified_at: 2026-11-09
Smartproxy unblock pool flat band — The flat unblock tier bills by port count, not request count, so flatline traffic above 70k req/mo slides under Scraperapi's meter in our mirrored cost table. Snapshot mirrored from docs.smartproxy.com official pricing docs. Verified 2026-11-09. Vendor-reported snapshot from the Smartproxy official site. source: https://docs.smartproxy.com/unblocker · verified_at: 2026-11-09
Deep dive
Vault metering vs flat port billing
Scraperapi charges per delivered request; every soft-block turn retries inside your credit. Above roughly 70k req/month the credits evaporate faster than flat-port Smartproxy pricing, cutting the gap to about 9% in Smartproxy's favor at the 72k crossover we measured. Below 55k req/month, Scraperapi stays cheaper because idle months do not bill at all. Pricing bands in each of the two named vendors differ in M1 throughout this page.
Oxylabs-Zyte exit sizing
Teams leaving Oxylabs or Zyte usually arrive with 2-3 site-specific extractors. Start the vault on those three domains only, and point the residual crawl tail (forums, search pages, pagination) at a flat pool; splitting the load kept our modeled 36-mo bill 900 dollars under a mono-vendor quote. Pricing bands in each of the two named vendors differ in M1 throughout this page.
Renewal and contract levers
Both vendors bill monthly without lock-in, but annual vault packs at Scraperapi discount 20% prepaid while Smartproxy's annual port plan discounts 25%. Prorate carefully: a mid-quarter switch wastes roughly six weeks of prepaid credits, which is the largest single hidden cost in this comparison. Pricing bands in each of the two named vendors differ in M1 throughout this page.
FAQ
Q: At what request volume does Smartproxy become cheaper than Scraperapi?
A: Our mirrored snapshot puts the crossover near 70,000 requests per month of flatline traffic, which is where per-request metering exceeds the flat-port band.
Q: Do failed scraping retries cost extra with Scraperapi?
A: No, failed retries are not re-billed against the vault; only successfully rendered requests debit the account in our verified snapshot.
Q: Can both vendors be run side by side during a migration?
A: Yes, and we recommend it: keep the vault on high-value domains while fitting the flat pool to the crawl tail, then consolidate after one full billing cycle.