Social Fetch vs Scrapfly
Scrapfly is a developer-focused scraping platform: scrape API, cloud browser, screenshots, and extraction helpers on one credit balance. Social Fetch is a social data API. Both speak HTTP; only one ships TikTok and Instagram as productized endpoints.
Last updated: 2026-07-21
At a glance
The rows teams scan first before reading the full page — how each product expects you to integrate, who runs the upstream fetch, and what billing looks like at a headline level. Numbers and sources are in the pricing section below; this table is the orientation pass.
| Social Fetch | Scrapfly | |
|---|---|---|
| Core product | Social media data API | Web scraping API + browser + screenshot + extraction |
| Billing | PAYG packs; Scale $1.65/1k | Monthly plans from $30 (Discovery) with credit costs per feature |
| Base scrape cost | 1 credit per completed standard social lookup | 1 credit datacenter; 25 residential; +5 JS; ASP may upgrade cost |
| Social endpoints | 137 ops / 17 platforms | Any URL — you define extraction |
| Overflow | Buy another pack | Pro+ can pay-as-you-go extra credits in 10k batches |
| Best fit | Production social features in your app | Building and operating custom scrapers with managed anti-bot |
Scrapfly is strong when you are writing the scraper
Scrapfly's pitch is transparent cost headers, an anti-scraping protection (ASP) mode, cloud browsers, and a single API key across scrape/screenshot/extraction products. For engineers building custom collectors — price monitors, directory crawls, research agents — that toolkit is the product.
You choose proxy pool, rendering, and budgets. The API tells you what each call cost. That level of control is exactly what social-native APIs intentionally hide: you should not need to know whether TikTok needed residential IPs today.
Social pages push you into expensive credit stacks
Public social sites are aggressive about bots. The Scrapfly path that works often combines residential proxies and JS rendering — 25 + 5 credits before ASP adjustments. On Discovery ($30 / 200k credits), that is roughly $4.50 per 1,000 such pages before you parse anything.
Social Fetch's Scale rate is $1.65 per 1,000 completed standard lookups with the parse already done. You are not tuning `proxy_pool` or `cost_budget` headers for creator onboarding.
If your volume is mostly easy datacenter HTML, Scrapfly's 1-credit base looks cheap. Social entity pages rarely stay in that bucket.
Who owns breakage when Instagram changes
Scrapfly's success criteria is "we fetched the URL." After a layout or anti-bot shift, your Cheerio or Playwright maps fail while Scrapfly still bills a successful page. That is correct for a scrape API — and expensive for a product team on-call.
Social Fetch's success criteria is a documented profile or post object. When a network shifts, we patch extractors upstream; your code keeps reading the same fields. Migrating scrapers that only pull Instagram/TikTok/YouTube metrics usually means deleting field maps and calling `GET /v1/{platform}/profiles/{handle}`.
Keep Scrapfly for everything that is not a supported social entity.
When to stay on Scrapfly
Stay if you need cloud browser sessions, screenshot APIs, crawler products, or extraction against sites we do not cover. Stay if ASP and cost estimators are how your team operates scrapers day to day.
Switch the social slice when those scrapers have narrowed to "pull Instagram/TikTok/YouTube metrics for the app" and you are tired of credit spikes after anti-bot changes.
Who should pick which
Short lists pulled from the sections above — not a scorecard. If your situation matches the right column, Scrapfly is probably the better buy even if Social Fetch wins more checkboxes down the page.
When Social Fetch is the better fit
- Social profiles and posts are application inputs, not HTML science projects
- You would rather we absorb platform breakage than page your on-call
- Predictable per-lookup pricing without residential credit multipliers
- PAYG social credits beat another monthly scraper subscription for spiky product traffic
- Stable fields matter more than scrape knobs and cost headers
When Scrapfly is the better fit
- You are building custom scrapers and want managed anti-bot with visible per-call cost
- Screenshots, cloud browser, or crawler APIs are part of the same workflow
- Targets are mostly non-social sites where datacenter proxies are enough
- You need fine-grained control over proxy pool, geo, and render settings
- Your team already standardized on Scrapfly for general extraction
Feature-priced scrape credits vs flat social lookups
Scrapfly plans (July 2026): Free 1,000 credits; Discovery $30/mo (200k); Pro $100/mo (1M); Startup $250/mo (2.5M); Enterprise $500/mo (5.5M). Per-request cost stacks features: datacenter base 1 credit, residential 25, browser rendering +5, with ASP able to raise the final bill. A residential + JS social page can cost 30 credits — 30× a bare datacenter fetch. Social Fetch keeps standard profile lookups at one credit.
| Scenario | Social Fetch | Scrapfly |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | 100 credits, no expiry | 1,000 credits, no card, no time limit |
| Entry paid plan | $25 PAYG pack (10k) | $30/mo Discovery (200k credits) |
| Datacenter HTML fetch | N/A | 1 credit (~$0.15/1k on Discovery prepaid math) |
| Residential + JS page (30 credits) | N/A | ~$4.50/1k pages on Discovery credit math |
| 1,000 structured social profiles | ~$1.65 | Variable scrape cost + your schema layer |
| Failed requests | lookup_failed / 503 not charged | Documented as free on failed scrapes |
Scrapfly pricing from scrapfly.io/pricing and scrapfly.io/docs/scrape-api/billing (July 2026). Credit matrix: datacenter 1, residential 25, render_js +5; ASP may change effective cost. Extra credits billed per 10k on eligible plans.
Feature checklist
Yes means the capability is on the default path for most users. Partial usually means a different SKU, a marketplace listing that covers only some endpoints, or a workaround you have to wire yourself. A green check for Scrapfly does not mean it belongs in your stack — match each row to the workflow you are actually shipping.
| Capability | Social Fetch | Scrapfly |
|---|---|---|
| Synchronous REST JSON (no actor run polling) | ||
| One API key for all platforms | ||
| Unified schema across platforms | ||
| Public OpenAPI specification | ||
| Official TypeScript SDK | ||
| Interactive API playground | ||
| TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Reddit, X in one vendor | ||
| Pay-as-you-go without required monthly subscription | ||
| PAYG credits never expire | ||
| Web fetch (markdown/HTML) in same product | ||
| Native scheduling / batch pipelines | ||
| Webhooks & large dataset export |
Bottom line
The pricing table and feature checklist above are for narrowing the field. This section is the pick-one answer for Social Fetch vs Scrapfly. If their integration shape fits your roadmap better, take it — the prose and “when they win” lists above name those cases on purpose.
Scraper control panel vs social API contract
Scrapfly gives developers levers: proxies, rendering, ASP, cost headers. Social Fetch removes those levers for social data and returns a stable JSON contract instead. If you love operating scrapers, Scrapfly fits. If you want creator and post objects in production, Social Fetch fits. Many teams should use both for different URL classes.
If Social Fetch is still in the running, run one real endpoint before you buy a subscription elsewhere. The playground uses the same API key and response envelope as production — you will know in a few minutes whether the JSON shape fits your code.
Questions about this pairing
What teams ask when Social Fetch and Scrapfly land on the same shortlist — migration, billing surprises, and whether the integration model changes when you add a second platform. For cross-vendor framing, start on the compare hub.
- Is Scrapfly cheaper than Social Fetch?
- For simple datacenter HTML, Scrapfly's 1-credit fetches can be far cheaper per page. For social pages that need residential + JS (often ~30 credits), Scrapfly can exceed Social Fetch's $1.65/1k before parsing. Compare the configuration you actually need, not the marketing "credits included" number.
- Does Scrapfly have TikTok or Instagram APIs?
- You can scrape those sites as URLs. Scrapfly does not replace a social-native endpoint catalog with normalized profile schemas like Social Fetch.
- Does Social Fetch expose scrape cost headers?
- No. You see credit debits on completed lookups in our billing model. We do not bill by proxy type or render flags because you do not select them.
- Can Scrapfly PAYG replace Social Fetch packs?
- Scrapfly's extra-credit PAYG is overflow on top of a monthly plan (Pro+). Social Fetch PAYG packs are the primary path and never expire. Different idea of "pay as you go."
- Which should AI agents use?
- Agents that need arbitrary page content lean Scrapfly (or similar). Agents that need structured social entities lean Social Fetch — fewer tokens spent on HTML and fewer broken selectors.
- Do you compete on web markdown fetch?
- Social Fetch includes web fetch routes for URL-to-content jobs in the same product, but our primary wedge is social platforms. Scrapfly goes deeper on anti-bot scrape controls for hard general web targets.