TL;DR
- Apify:
- $49-499/mo. Monthly with compute unit limits.
- FairCrawl:
- $0.002-0.01/page. No subscription. Full features from day one.
A Apify alternative that charges what it costs.
Apify charges $49-499/mo. The infrastructure to run web scraping — servers, APIs, storage, delivery — costs roughly $0.001/page. FairCrawl charges $0.002-0.01/page. No subscription. No seat limits. No annual contract.
Why people leave Apify
Complex compute unit pricing
Steep learning curve for custom actors
Expensive for simple scraping tasks
FairCrawl vs Apify
| FairCrawl | Apify | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Pay per use | Monthly with compute unit limits |
| Price | $0.002-0.01/page | $49-499/mo |
| Free tier | Free actions included | $5/mo free compute |
| Contract | None | Monthly available |
| Zero-usage month | $0 | Still charged |
| Feature gating | All features included | Some features gated |
| Infrastructure cost | $0.001/page | Not disclosed |
What it actually costs to run
The infrastructure cost for web scraping — servers, APIs, storage, delivery — is roughly $0.001/page. Apify charges $49-499/mo.
Fair charges $0.002-0.01/page — cost plus a small margin.
When to choose which
Choose Apify if
Teams needing complex scraping workflows with pre-built actors
Choose FairCrawl if
You want web scraping without a subscription. FairCrawl charges $0.002-0.01/page. Use a lot? Pay a little more. Use nothing? Pay nothing. All features included from the first use.
Where Apify gets expensive
- Compute units are hard to estimate
- Overkill for simple data extraction
Switch from Apify. Keep the features. Lose the subscription.
FairCrawl — $0.002-0.01/page. No subscription. No seat pricing. No annual contract. Your first actions are free.
Related comparisons
Fair is the anti-subscription. 13 tools, one account, pay for what you use.