How much does Web Scraping cost?

Martin Perez -

Web scraping can unlock a whole world of data.

And with all that data, also comes a lot of value. You can use this data to uncover business insights, conduct research, build your next application, etc.

As a result, you might be wondering how much web scraping costs.

The answer depends on how you decide to approach your web scraping needs. Let’s break it all down.

How does web scraping work?

Let’s start with a quick review of the basics. In order to understand the costs behind web scraping, we have to talk about how web scraping works.

The main objective of a web scraper is to extract information from a webpage or website. As a result, there are several ways to scrape data. From scraping it manually, to using software scrapers that automate the process.

Want to learn more about? Read our guide on how web scraping works.

How much does Web Scraping cost?

There are several ways to approach web scraping and each method has a different cost structure.

Let’s review some of the most popular methods.

Outsourcing

Outsourcing your web scraping projects is actually quite common. If your project is quite straight forward and requires very little explanations and customization, this might be your way to go.

However, keep in mind that these projects will be billed to you based on hourly rates.

For example, the average hourly rates for web scraping jobs in Upwork ranges from $30 to $60 in the low end and around $100 in the high end.

For longer or ongoing projects, this could quickly escalate costs.

Building your own web scraper

You might want to take matters into your own hands. Why not try to build your own web scraper?

There are several ways to build a web scraper, from using Python to coding your scraper in Excel. It all depends on what your web scraping needs are.

If you decide to ho down this path, there are several things you’d need to consider.

  • What programming language or platform will you use to build your scraper?
  • Who will build you web scraper? Will you build it yourself or hire someone to do it?
  • What are the costs of outsourcing your web scraping development?
  • Does your web scraper need to work on only one website or multiple different kinds of website?
  • What is the timeline of your project? Do you have enough time to build a web scraper and tackle bugs, errors and more?

As you can see, building your own web scraper can be quite a big project to tackle. It all depends on your project needs and your company resources.

In most cases, you might want to go with a faster, cheaper and simpler solution.

Using an existing web scraper

In most cases, using an existing web scraper might be the best solution for your web scraping needs.

Many web scrapers have been developed and improved over several years, making them capable of scraping many different kinds of websites. These also come with the benefits of fewer bugs and errors as well.

When it comes to cost, it varies depending on the web scraper you choose and your project needs. Many web scrapers have free plans and paid plans with flat fees for your projects, which gets rid of pricey hourly rates.

The best web scraper

At this point, you might be wondering what’s the best web scraper out there.

The truth is that it depends. After all, each web scraping project is different and will require different web scraping features.

However, there are ways easily find the best web scraper for your project.

In fact, we’ve written a guide on how to find the best web scraper for your project.

Closing Thoughts

When it comes to recommending a web scraping tool for your business. We obviously recommend ParseHub, our fully featured web scraping tool which is also free to use.

Even better, we have an awesome support team that can walk you through the process of building your web scraping projects. This way, you’ll never be alone while scraping.

Just contact us via the live chat on our site and we’ll be happy to assist you.