Bright Data alternative

A Bright Data Alternative Built for Predictable Per-Request Pricing

Bright Data runs the largest proxy network in the industry and ships mature Web Unlocker and Web Scraper API products used by large enterprises. FineData is a different bet: a pay-as-you-go scraping API with transparent token costs, self-serve signup, and no minimum monthly commitment — aimed at small-to-mid teams and independent developers, not at replacing Bright Data's fleet-scale proxy business.

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Who this page is for

Use this comparison if you want a REST scrape endpoint you can call today, pay only for the features you turn on, and avoid a sales cycle for routine volume. Pricing and feature facts for Bright Data below come from their public pricing and docs pages — not from private benchmarks or unpublished tests.

If you need a dedicated residential network at hundreds of millions of IPs, formal KYC workflows, SSO, a named account manager, or a legal/compliance review that only a category leader can support, Bright Data remains the stronger fit. That gap is real; this page does not paper over it.

FineData fit

Indie builders, agencies, and mid-market product teams that want POST /api/v1/scrape, Bearer auth, additive token pricing, MCP for AI agents, and Bring-Your-Own-Proxy — without an annual contract.

Bright Data fit

Enterprises that need the industry's largest proxy pool (Bright Data publicly cites 400M+ monthly residential IPs), pre-built scraper catalogs, unlimited concurrency on Unlocker/Scraper plans, Enterprise SSO, premium SLA, and dedicated account management.

Pricing & feature snapshot

Bright Data figures refer to their publicly listed Web Unlocker API and Web Scraper API plans (similar structure on both product pricing pages). FineData figures are current published plan and token rates.

Dimension	FineData	Bright Data (public)
Primary product compared	Web scraping API (token-based)	Web Unlocker API / Web Scraper API (per successful request or record)
Free tier	$0/mo · 1,000 tokens · 2 concurrent · datacenter proxies · no card	5,000 free credits/mo shared across Web Unlocker, SERP API, Web Scraper API, and Scraper Studio · no card
Pay-as-you-go	$0.55 / 1k tokens · 10 concurrent · all scraping modes · BYOP · no monthly minimum	$1.50 / 1k successful requests · pay only for success · spend limits · unlimited concurrency
Committed / Scale plan	Personal $47/mo (100k tokens) through Scaling $699/mo (10M tokens); Team S/M/L in between	Scale from $499/mo (~383k-384k included requests/records) · $1.30 / 1k overage · cancel anytime
Enterprise	Scaling tier + dedicated proxy pools / 24/7 priority support; custom volume via sales as needed	Custom volume discounts · account manager · premium SLA · priority support · SSO
Billing model	Tokens per request (base 1 + additive feature tokens)	Per successful request/record on Unlocker & Scraper APIs; separate per-GB proxy network plans
Concurrency	Plan-capped (2 to 400 depending on tier)	Unlimited concurrency listed on Free/PAYG/Scale Unlocker & Scraper plans
JS rendering / CAPTCHA / proxies	Optional add-ons with published token surcharges (JS +5, stealth +7/+25, residential +3, captcha +10)	Automated proxy management, full browser rendering, CAPTCHA solving included in Unlocker/Scraper plan access
Proxy network scale (public)	Managed proxies by plan + Bring-Your-Own-Proxy; not positioned as a mega-network vendor	400M+ monthly residential IPs · 1.3M+ datacenter · 1.3M+ ISP · 7M+ mobile (proxy network pricing pages)
AI / agent tooling	Schema or natural-language extraction · MCP (`finedata-mcp` / `@finedata/mcp-server`)	Public MCP offering documented to draw from the same free-credit pool via Web Unlocker; Scraper Studio / AI agent tooling on free tier
Delivery extras	Batch up to 100 URLs · webhooks · screenshots · geo via `proxy_country` · sessions · BYOP	Batch & scheduled collection · job management APIs · JSON/CSV parsing · webhook or API delivery · geotargeting · custom headers
Uptime / support (listed)	SLA from 99% (Personal) to 99.9% (Team L); priority / dedicated support on higher tiers	Marketing pages list 99.99% uptime + 24/7 live support on Unlocker feature set; Premium SLA on Enterprise
Auth / endpoint	`Authorization: Bearer fd_...` · `POST https://api.finedata.ai/api/v1/scrape`	Bright Data Control Panel zones / API credentials (see their docs); separate products for Unlocker, Scraper, SERP, Browser, proxies

Pricing accurate as of July 28, 2026, always verify on Bright Data's site (Web Unlocker, Web Scraper API, free-tier docs). Premium domains, custom headers/cookies, and proxy-network per-GB rates can change effective cost on their side; FineData token add-ons change cost by feature flags you enable.

How FineData tokens work

Every scrape starts at 1 base token. Optional capabilities add a published surcharge so a simple datacenter fetch stays cheap and a headful antibot run is priced explicitly — without bundling everything into a flat per-request CPM.

TLS fingerprinting

+2 tokens (on by default)

JS rendering (Playwright)

+5 tokens

Stealth antibot

+7 tokens (Cloudflare / DataDome class)

Stealth headful

+25 tokens (hardest targets)

Residential / mobile proxy

+3 / +4 tokens

Captcha solving

+10 tokens (auto-detects type, picks provider)

Published monthly tiers for reference: Free ($0 / 1k tokens), PAYG ($0.55/1k), Personal ($47 / 100k), Team S ($142 / 1M), Team M ($284 / 3M), Team L ($399 / 5M), Scaling ($699 / 10M).

Where Bright Data is stronger

A fair alternative page names the gaps. Bright Data is the largest and most established player in this category. For many enterprise RFPs, that maturity is the deciding factor.

Proxy pool scale

Their public proxy pages advertise 400M+ monthly residential IPs plus multi-million datacenter, ISP, and mobile inventories. FineData does not claim comparable owned-network scale. If your architecture depends on raw proxy capacity as a product, buy from a network specialist — Bright Data is built for that.

Enterprise compliance & ops

Residential/mobile access on their network includes a documented KYC/compliance process. Enterprise Unlocker/Scraper plans list SSO, premium SLA, priority support, and a named account manager. Those procurement and legal-review surfaces matter when security teams gate vendors.

Product breadth

Beyond Unlocker and Scraper API, their catalog includes SERP API, Scraping Browser, Scraping Functions, Datasets, Insights, and a large pre-built scraper library. One vendor covering that surface area is a real advantage for platform-consolidation buys.

Unlimited concurrency (listed)

Public Unlocker and Scraper plans advertise unlimited concurrency even on PAYG. Our concurrency is intentionally plan-capped. Teams that must burst without a concurrency ceiling should treat that as a Bright Data strength on the public rate cards.

Where this API is a better fit

Self-serve economics

Pure PAYG at $0.55 per 1k tokens with no contract, plus a free tier that does not require a card. Built for teams that would rather ship than schedule a demo for routine volume.

Pay only for flags you set

Additive tokens make residential, stealth, JS, and captcha costs visible before you send the request. Useful when most of your traffic is cheap HTML fetches and only a slice needs heavy antibot.

BYOP + agent-native

Bring-Your-Own-Proxy keeps IP spend on contracts you already own. MCP packages on PyPI and NPM wire the same scrape API into agent workflows without inventing a second stack.

Frequently asked questions

Is FineData a full Bright Data replacement?

No. Bright Data is the category's scale and compliance leader, with the largest public proxy footprint and a full enterprise suite. This product is a scraping API alternative for teams that prioritize transparent token pricing and self-serve access — not a claim to match Bright Data's network size or enterprise procurement surface.

How does Bright Data's public Unlocker pricing compare to tokens?

On Bright Data's public Web Unlocker / Web Scraper API pages (fetched July 28, 2026), PAYG is listed at $1.50 per 1k successful requests/records, with a Scale plan from $499/mo including roughly 383k-384k units and $1.30/1k overage. FineData bills tokens (PAYG $0.55/1k tokens) where feature flags raise the token count per call. The units are not identical — success-based CPM versus additive tokens — so compare against your actual feature mix rather than treating 1 request as 1 token.

Did you benchmark success rate or speed against Bright Data?

No. This page uses only Bright Data's own public pricing and marketing/docs feature lists. We do not publish success-rate, latency, or target-site benchmarks of their service. Always validate any vendor against your own traffic under your own agreements.

What about Bright Data's raw proxy pricing?

Separate from Unlocker/Scraper API, their proxy network pages list residential plans billed per GB (public PAYG and monthly Scale tiers with included GB) plus ISP and datacenter IP plans. FineData is not a per-GB proxy reseller; when you need their mega-pool as infrastructure, buy proxies from them (or another network) and optionally attach your own pool via BYOP on the FineData scrape path.

How do I authenticate to the FineData API?

Send Authorization: Bearer fd_your_api_key to POST https://api.finedata.ai/api/v1/scrape. Do not use an x-api-key header. Full request shapes live in the docs.

Is there a minimum spend?

On FineData, no — Free and PAYG require no monthly commitment. Bright Data's Unlocker and Scraper public pages also offer PAYG without a monthly commitment (higher CPM than Scale) and a recurring free-credit pool for new accounts; their Enterprise and proxy Scale products follow different commercial terms. Confirm current minimums on their billing docs before you commit budget.

Try the scrape API without a sales call

Create an account, spend the free 1,000 tokens, and read the request schema in the docs. Keep Bright Data when you need fleet-scale proxies and enterprise compliance — use FineData when you want transparent per-request control.

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