# Crawl4AI vs Zyte

Both fetch web pages for your code. Zyte prices each website by one of five tiers it sets. Crawl4AI charges by the work each page needed, never charges a failed call, and comes from the team that wrote the open-source crawler.
Facts last checked 12 Nov 2026

Crawl4AI vs Zyte: the short answer
Crawl4AI charges by the work each page needs ($0.50 per 1,000 browser pages on any site) and nothing for a failed call, a site's 404 page included; Zyte prices each site by a tier it sets, $1.01 to $16.08 per 1,000 browser pages, and bills a site's 404 page as a successful response. Crawl4AI needs no commitment and can be cancelled at any time; Zyte's discounts need a $100 to $500 monthly commitment, and its terms allow a fee of at least 50% of the remaining value to leave a contract early. Crawl4AI runs in the EU, Singapore and the US with SSO, SCIM and an audit log; Zyte publishes no region choice and none of these controls. Agents set Crawl4AI up from one message, and 93 recipes return named sites such as LinkedIn as rows for 1 credit.

## Which one fits

Different tools fit different jobs. Here is when each one is the better choice.

### Choose Zyte if

- You want a live browser your code drives with Playwright or Puppeteer, over CDP.
- You already write Scrapy spiders and want them hosted on Scrapy Cloud.
- Your code already speaks HTTP proxies and you want Zyte as a proxy endpoint.
- You fetch mostly simple pages at high volume with a $200 or $500 commitment, where their tier 1 HTTP price costs less.

### Choose Crawl4AI if

- You build with AI agents: one message sets Crawl4AI up in Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Windsurf, Gemini CLI or OpenCode, and 17 MCP tools let the agent run recipes, price a call first and manage its budget.
- You want to pay for the work a page needed, and nothing for a failed call. Zyte bills a site's 404 page as a successful response.
- You need named sites as rows: 93 recipes, a LinkedIn profile for 1 credit. Zyte's policy forbids using its service to scrape LinkedIn.
- You want no commitment and no contract lock: cancel any time, 14-day refunds, extra credits that never expire.
- You need data in the EU, Singapore or the US, and a team with an audit log from Builder.
- You want to run it inside your network on the same engine, Apache 2.0.

For enterprise teams

## The controls your security team asks for

Crawl4AI's Enterprise plan next to Zyte's. Zyte's side restates its own pages; click a line to see the quote.

| Control | Crawl4AI Enterprise | Zyte Enterprise |
|---|---|---|
| SSO (SAML, OIDC) | **✓ Yes** | Not published |
| SCIM user sync | **✓ Yes** | Not published |
| Teams, roles and audit log | **✓ From Builder ($99), no seat limit** | Owners and members; audit log not published |
| Zero data retention | **✓ Yes** | Not published |
| IP allowlist and key limits | **✓ Yes** | Key spending limits; IP allowlist not published |
| Static exit IPs | **✓ Yes** | Not published |
| Where data is processed | EU, Singapore or US, your choice | Region not published; may leave the EEA |
| Deployment | Cloud, dedicated fleet, inside your network, managed pipeline; one engine | Managed API, or data delivered by Zyte |
| DPA and invoice billing | **✓ Every Enterprise plan** | DPA published; invoices due in 21 days |
| Refunds | 14 days, if no credits were used | 7 days from signup, new customers only |
| Status page | Hourly uptime per service, public | 11 components; 14 incidents in 12 months |
| Uptime and response SLA | Typical: 99.9% a month; service down: first answer within 1 hour, 24/7; part broken: 4 business hours; a question: 1 business day; 5% of the month's fee back if missed, 10% under 99% | Enterprise: 1 hour on weekdays, 8 on weekends; uptime target not published |
| Support | A named engineer | Customer success managers, 24/7 |
| Security assurance | Controls monitored every day in Drata, with the evidence kept; dependencies watched for known vulnerabilities; SOC 2 audit by Sensiba under way, report target January 2027. Security pack on request: policies, audit status, DPA, questionnaire answers. | ISO 27001 certified |

## Same job, two calls

6 jobs an agent does every day. The call on each side, and the price of 1,000 of them at list. The label marks the side that costs less for that job.
**01 · One page to Markdown**a plain page
**Crawl4AI costs less$0.10/ 1,000

```
curl https://api.crawl4ai.com/scrape \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $KEY" \
  -d '{"url":"https://example.com","format":"md"}'
```

0.1 credit, Markdown included. $0.08 per 1,000 on Builder.

**Zyte $0.40–$2.34/ 1,000

```
curl https://api.zyte.com/v1/extract \
  --user "$ZYTE_KEY:" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url":"https://example.com",
       "markdown":true}'
```

The request at $0.13 to $1.27 by site tier, plus Markdown, priced as pageContent at $0.27 to $1.07.

**02 · A page that needs a browser**a JavaScript site
**Crawl4AI costs less$0.50/ 1,000

```
curl https://api.crawl4ai.com/scrape \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $KEY" \
  -d '{"url":"https://app.example.com","format":"md"}'
```

0.5 credit on any site. The answer says the page needed a browser.

**Zyte $1.01–$16.08/ 1,000

```
curl https://api.zyte.com/v1/extract \
  --user "$ZYTE_KEY:" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url":"https://app.example.com",
       "browserHtml":true}'
```

Browser pages by site tier: $1.01 to $16.08. A site's tier is shown after you enter its URL.

**03 · A site that blocks bots**proxies and a real browser
**Crawl4AI costs less$2.00/ 1,000

```
curl https://api.crawl4ai.com/scrape \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $KEY" \
  -d '{"url":"https://hard-site.example",
       "proxy":"extra"}'
```

2 credits for a hard page. A page we cannot get costs nothing.

**Zyte $8.04–$16.08/ 1,000

```
curl https://api.zyte.com/v1/extract \
  --user "$ZYTE_KEY:" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url":"https://hard-site.example",
       "browserHtml":true}'
```

Complex and Advanced sites (tiers 4 and 5) as browser pages. Residential addresses add a network charge.

**04 · Google results with ads**one results page
**Crawl4AI $1.00/ 1,000

```
curl "https://api.crawl4ai.com/serp?q=best+crm&country=us" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $KEY"
```

/serp: 1 credit for Google's own results page as data, with organic results, ads, maps and the AI overview.

**Zyte costs less$0.85/ 1,000

```
curl https://api.zyte.com/v1/search \
  --user "$ZYTE_KEY:" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"domain":"search.engine.com",
       "query":"best crm",
       "include":["organic"]}'
```

$0.85 per 1,000 first pages, organic results. AI overview is "coming soon" in the docs and supported on the product page. Ads and maps: Not published.

**05 · A LinkedIn profile as rows**name, title, company, history
**Crawl4AI costs less$1.00/ 1,000

```
curl https://api.crawl4ai.com/recipes/linkedin-profile \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $KEY" \
  -d '{"profile":"satyanadella"}'
```

A recipe: 2 units × 0.5 credit. The same named columns every time; one of 93.

**Zyte Not allowed/ 1,000

```
# Not allowed by Zyte's policy.
# Closest job, a product page:
curl https://api.zyte.com/v1/extract \
  --user "$ZYTE_KEY:" \
  -d '{"url":"https://shop.example/item",
       "product":true}'
```

Zyte's Acceptable Use Policy forbids scraping LinkedIn. The closest job is a product page with automatic extraction: the request plus $0.27 to $1.07.

**06 · Structured JSON from a page**your schema, filled by a model
**Crawl4AI costs less$1.87/ 1,000

```
curl https://api.crawl4ai.com/extract \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $KEY" \
  -d '{"url":"https://news.ycombinator.com",
       "instruction":"the top stories",
       "schema":{…}}'
```

Median of real calls this week: 0.5 credit for the page plus the model's tokens.

**Zyte $6.42–$7.22/ 1,000

```
curl https://api.zyte.com/v1/extract \
  --user "$ZYTE_KEY:" \
  -d '{"url":"https://news.ycombinator.com",
       "article":true,
       "customAttributes":{…}}'
```

Model tokens at $1.34 and $6.67 per 1M, plus a standard extraction field and the request. 3,000 tokens in, 300 out, tier 1.

## Crawl4AI vs Zyte, side by side

Each Zyte cell restates Zyte's own pages, read on 12 Nov 2026. Click it to see the quote and the page. "Not published" means those pages say nothing about it, not that it is missing.

|  | Crawl4AI Cloud | Zyte |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing |  |  |
| How you pay | Credits in every plan: Free, Starter $10, Builder $99, Scale $499 | Per response, by a site tier Zyte sets |
| 1,000 plain / browser / hard pages | $0.10 / $0.50 / $2.00 | HTTP $0.13–$1.27; browser $1.01–$16.08 |
| Failed calls | Free, blocked pages included | Bans free; a site's 404 page billed |
| A page already cached | Half price | Not published |
| Commitment | None; plans from $10 | $100 to $500 a month for 25% to 52% off |
| Free start | 1,000 credits every month, no card | $5 for the first month, then suspended |
| Refunds | 14 days, if no credits were used | 7 days from signup, new customers only |
| Cancel | Any time | Not during the term; exit fee of 50% or more |
| What you get back |  |  |
| Formats | Markdown, HTML, links, media, metadata, tables; engine and cache on every answer | HTML, browser HTML, Markdown; screenshots extra |
| Whole site | /site deep crawl (500 pages a call); /scan up to 50,000 URLs | No crawl endpoint published; your own spider |
| Search | /search 1 credit; Google results as data with /serp | Search API, priced per 10 results |
| Google results | Organic, ads, maps and AI overview; 1 credit | Organic; AI overview "coming soon" in docs |
| Named sites | 93 recipes; a LinkedIn profile 1 credit | No catalog; LinkedIn forbidden by policy |
| Documents | PDF, Word and Excel; a PDF costs one page | Files up to 100MB; PDF text not published |
| Change monitoring | Watch (beta) | Not published |
| Hard sites |  |  |
| Bot checks and CAPTCHA | Gets past them on hard sites; a page we cannot get costs nothing | Automatic CAPTCHA solving |
| Residential addresses | proxy extra: 4x only on a page it served | Extra charge by network use; price not published |
| Agents |  |  |
| MCP | Hosted, no install; key or OAuth; 17 tools | Hosted; 8 API tools and 26 Scrapy Cloud tools |
| Setup | One message sets it up in 7 coding agents | A sign-in line per client |
| Agent budget | Estimate, balance, spend cap and top-up as tools; cost on every answer | Price and usage tools; caps set by owners |
| Open source |  |  |
| License | Apache 2.0, 87,236 GitHub stars | Scrapy: BSD-3-Clause |
| Self-host | The same engine as the Cloud | Zyte API self-host not published |

Crawl4AI's prices come from its live price list, GET /v1/prices. Prices change; check each product's own pricing page before you decide.

The trade-off

## What each one does better

### Where Zyte does best

1. **Live browser sessions.** A remote browser your code drives over CDP with Playwright or Puppeteer.
2. **The Scrapy ecosystem.** Scrapy, its plugins, and Scrapy Cloud to host your own spiders.
3. **Proxy mode.** A proxy endpoint for code that already speaks HTTP proxies.
4. **Low price on simple sites.** Tier 1 HTTP pages cost $0.06 to $0.08 per 1,000 with a $200 or $500 commitment.

### Where Crawl4AI is the better choice

1. **Pay for the work, not the site tier.** $0.50 for a browser page on any site, nothing for a failed call or a site's 404, half price for a page we already hold.
2. **No lock-in.** No commitment, cancel any time, 14-day refunds, extra credits that never expire.
3. **Ready data from named sites.** 93 recipes, LinkedIn included, return fixed columns for about 1 credit.
4. **Made for agents and enterprise.** One message sets it up, 17 MCP tools run the budget, and three regions, SSO, SCIM and an audit log serve the security review.

Switch in one prompt

## Move your Zyte calls in minutes

Paste this into Claude Code, Cursor or Codex in your project. It finds your Zyte calls and moves them to Crawl4AI, one endpoint at a time, and keeps both working until you check the results.
Move this project's Zyte calls to Crawl4AI Cloud. Read https://crawl4ai.com/llms.txt first. 1. Find every call to the Zyte API or SDK. 2. Map each one: /v1/extract httpResponseBody → POST /scrape · /v1/extract browserHtml → POST /scrape · markdown: true → POST /scrape (format md) · customAttributes → POST /extract · product, article, jobPosting → POST /recipes/{name} · /extract · /v1/search → GET /serp · /search · geolocation, ipType → country, proxy · Scrapy spider crawl → POST /site · /scan. 3. Read the key from CRAWL4AI_API_KEY (YOUR_CRAWL4AI_API_KEY). 4. Keep the old path behind a flag; compare 20 real URLs on both; show me the diff.

| Zyte |  | Crawl4AI |
|---|---|---|
| /v1/extract httpResponseBody | → | POST /scrape |
| /v1/extract browserHtml | → | POST /scrape |
| markdown: true | → | POST /scrape (format md) |
| customAttributes | → | POST /extract |
| product, article, jobPosting | → | POST /recipes/{name} · /extract |
| /v1/search | → | GET /serp · /search |
| geolocation, ipType | → | country, proxy |
| Scrapy spider crawl | → | POST /site · /scan |

From both products' docs, 12 Nov 2026.

## Using both

Not either-or. Both speak MCP, so one agent can hold both. A team could keep Zyte for live browser sessions and its Scrapy spiders, and use Crawl4AI for recipes, Google results with ads and maps, and EU data.

## Frequently asked questions
How much does Zyte cost?

Zyte prices each website by one of five tiers it sets: $0.13 to $1.27 per 1,000 HTTP pages and $1.01 to $16.08 per 1,000 browser pages on pay-as-you-go, with 25% to 52% off for a $100 to $500 monthly commitment. Crawl4AI charges by the work each page needed: $0.10 per 1,000 plain pages, $0.50 per 1,000 browser pages and $2.00 per 1,000 hard pages, with no commitment.
Does Zyte charge for failed requests?

Zyte does not charge for bans, rate limits or invalid requests. Its docs say a site's 404 page, failed browser actions and extraction mismatches come back as successful responses, and successful responses are billed. On Crawl4AI none of these is charged.
Is there a Zyte free plan?

Zyte gives $5 of credit for the first billing month; its terms say unused amounts are lost, and its pricing docs say the account is suspended when the credit expires. Crawl4AI's Free plan gives 1,000 credits every month with no card.
Can I cancel Zyte at any time?

Zyte's terms say subscriptions "are not terminable by you during their term", renew for the same term, and an early exit can carry a fee of "at least 50% of the remaining value". Crawl4AI plans can be cancelled at any time, and extra credits never expire.
Can Zyte scrape LinkedIn?

Zyte's Acceptable Use Policy says users may not "use the Service to scrape any data from LinkedIn’s website". Crawl4AI has LinkedIn recipes for profiles, companies, jobs, people search and posts; a profile costs 1 credit.
Does Zyte have EU data residency?

Zyte's pages do not publish a region choice. Its DPA says Zyte "may from time to time transfer ... Service Personal Data outside of the EEA", and its browser sessions run from a single US region. Crawl4AI runs in the EU, Singapore and the US, and keeps account and billing data in the EU.
Is Crawl4AI only a crawler framework you build on?

No. A Zyte blog post lists Crawl4AI as a framework to build a crawler on, and leaves it out of its hosted Markdown APIs; that is out of date. Crawl4AI Cloud is a hosted API in three regions with a public price list: /scrape returns Markdown for 0.1 credit a page, /site crawls a whole site, proxies and browsers are in the page price, and a failed call costs nothing. The open-source engine is Apache 2.0, with 87,236 GitHub stars (GitHub, 2026-11-12), and it also runs inside your network.

Sources and method

1. [Zyte pricing ↗](https://www.zyte.com/pricing/)
2. [Zyte API pricing docs ↗](https://docs.zyte.com/zyte-api/pricing.html)
3. [Zyte docs: errors and billing ↗](https://docs.zyte.com/zyte-api/usage/errors.html)
4. [Zyte terms of service ↗](https://www.zyte.com/terms-policies/terms-of-service/)
5. [Zyte Acceptable Use Policy ↗](https://www.zyte.com/terms-policies/acceptable-use-policy/)
6. [Zyte DPA ↗](https://www.zyte.com/terms-policies/dpa/)
7. [Zyte MCP docs ↗](https://docs.zyte.com/zyte-web-data/mcp.html)
8. [Zyte status ↗](https://status.zyte.com)
9. [Crawl4AI prices ↗](https://crawl4ai.com/v1/prices)
10. [Crawl4AI legal ↗](https://crawl4ai.com/legal/)

We read these pages on 12 Nov 2026. Crawl4AI's facts come from its live price list, docs and terms. Something wrong or out of date? Write to hello@crawl4ai.com and we fix it.