ScrapingBee locks you into monthly credit packs that expire. Shell City charges $0.001 per page — only when you actually scrape. No minimum spend. No wasted credits.
No credit card. No subscription.
ScrapingBee's $49 starter pack gives 5,000 credits. If your agent only scrapes 1,200 pages this month, you lose the rest. Shell City charges only for what you scrape.
With ScrapingBee, rendering JavaScript burns through 5 credits per page instead of 1. On the $49 plan, that's only 1,000 JS-rendered pages — at an effective $0.049/page rate.
ScrapingBee returns raw HTML by default. Your agent has to parse it. Shell City returns clean markdown, ready for LLM context. Less processing, less cost.
| Shell City | ScrapingBee | Firecrawl | Bright Data | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost per page (basic) | $0.001Cheapest | $0.001–$0.049 | $0.002–$0.004 | $0.004+ |
| JS rendering cost | $0.001/page | $0.049/page (5x credits) | $0.002–$0.004 | Varies |
| Pricing model | Pay per use | Credit packs ($49–$999/mo) | Subscription tiers ($16–$500/mo) | Subscription ($499/mo min) |
| Monthly minimum | $0 | $49 minimum pack | $16/mo | $499/mo |
| Free tier | 1,000 free pages | 1,000 credits (trial only) | 500 credits (trial only) | 7-day trial |
| Unused credits | Never expire | Expire after 12 months | Expire monthly | Expire monthly |
| Output format | Clean markdown | Raw HTML (no markdown) | Clean markdown | Raw HTML |
| 10K pages/mo cost | $10 | $99 (Startup plan) | $56 (Growth plan) | $499+ |
| 50K pages/mo cost | $50 | $99 (Startup plan max) | $56 (Growth plan) | $499+ |
| 100K pages/mo cost | $100 | $249 (Business plan) | $500 (Business plan) | $499+ |
1,000 free pages. No credit card. No subscription.
| Feature | Shell City | ScrapingBee | Firecrawl |
|---|---|---|---|
| JavaScript rendering | ✓ Included ($0.001) | 5x credit cost ($0.049) | ✓ Included |
| Clean markdown output | ✓ Default | ✕ HTML only | ✓ Default |
| Structured data extraction | ✓ 5 credits | ✕ Not supported | ✓ Included |
| Anti-bot bypass | ✓ Included | Premium credits only | ✓ Included |
| Proxy rotation | ✓ Included | ✓ Included | ✓ Included |
| HTTP 402 auto-billing | ✓ Agent-native | ✕ | ✕ |
| Pay-per-use model | ✓ Always | ✕ Credit packs only | ✕ Subscriptions only |
| OpenAPI spec | ✓ | ✕ | ✓ |
| AI agent optimized | ✓ Built for agents | Developer-focused | Developer-focused |
| Batch/crawl mode | Coming soon | ✕ | ✓ Included |
Enter your expected monthly page volume to compare costs. ScrapingBee uses plan-based pricing — you pay for the whole plan even if you don't use all credits.
Shell City routes scraping requests through best-in-class providers under the hood. We negotiate volume pricing, pool capacity across all customers, and pass the savings directly to you.
You get the same anti-bot bypass and rendering quality you'd expect from premium providers — without their retail markup or subscription lock-in. Our margin comes from volume efficiency.
Think of it as buying wholesale instead of retail. Same infrastructure, better economics.
Get 1,000 free pages. No credit card. No monthly plan. Your agent starts scraping in 30 seconds.
Get your free API key →