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How do I add a backup to Scrapfly instead of paying for residential?

Keep Scrapfly on its datacenter pool, where a page with a browser costs 6 credits ($0.55 to $0.90 per 1,000 pages, by plan), and send the pages that fail there to UpRock instead of retrying them on the residential pool. A residential page with a browser costs 30 credits, $2.73 to $4.50 per 1,000 on plan and $10.50 past the Pro quota, while UpRock charges $0.50 per 1,000 pages whatever the page needs.

Updated · Read as markdown

What Scrapfly does well

Scrapfly is a scraping platform with one API key and one credit balance across five APIs: Web Scraping, Cloud Browser, Crawler, Extraction and Screenshot. The Web Scraping API renders JavaScript, returns raw HTML, clean HTML, text or markdown, and has an Unblocker (formerly ASP) that adjusts proxies, browser and headers for each target. Around it: extraction with pre-trained models, CSS or XPath templates and LLM prompts; full-page screenshots; Cloud Browser sessions you drive with Playwright or Puppeteer; scheduled jobs and webhooks; a monitoring dashboard with alerts; per-request cost budgets and per-site throttlers; SDKs for Python, TypeScript, Go and Rust plus a Scrapy extension; a CLI; and a hosted MCP server. It lists SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 and HIPAA, and gives 1,000 free credits with no card.

If you want extraction, screenshots and a remote browser in the same account, Scrapfly covers a lot. Keep it.

What a page costs by proxy pool and plan

Scrapfly's billing docs make the proxy pool the base cost of a page, 1 credit on the datacenter pool or 25 on the residential pool (never both), plus 5 when a browser renders it. Here's what 1,000 pages cost on each self-serve plan's included credits, checked 25 Oct 2026 (Discovery is $30 a month for 200,000 credits, Pro $100 for 1 million, Startup $250 for 2.5 million, Enterprise $500 for 5.5 million):

RequestCreditsDiscoveryProStartupEnterpriseUpRock
Datacenter pool, no browser1$0.15$0.10$0.10$0.09$0.50
Datacenter pool with a browser6$0.90$0.60$0.60$0.55$0.50
Residential pool, no browser25$3.75$2.50$2.50$2.27$0.50
Residential pool with a browser30$4.50$3.00$3.00$2.73$0.50

Past the monthly quota, Pro, Startup and Enterprise keep going at $3.50, $2.00 and $1.20 per 10,000 credits (capped by default at half the quota), and Discovery stops. That changes the bottom rows the most:

RequestPro, past quotaStartup, past quotaEnterprise, past quota
Datacenter pool with a browser$2.10$1.20$0.72
Residential pool with a browser$10.50$6.00$3.60

On the datacenter pool, Scrapfly costs less than UpRock without a browser on every plan, and about the same with one on the bigger plans. On the residential pool it costs more on every plan. Unused credits don't roll over.

The Unblocker blurs those rows. Its docs say it can move a request to a better proxy pool or turn on a browser by itself, and that some targets carry fees that aren't published; the pricing page lists it at 5 credits and the MCP docs at 10 to 30. The real cost of each request comes back in the X-Scrapfly-Api-Cost header, and cost_budget puts a ceiling on it.

How Scrapfly reports a page it couldn't get

Scrapfly puts the reason in the JSON body (result.error.code) and in x-scrapfly-reject-* headers, and its SDKs raise a typed error that carries the code. When the site itself refused, the API still answers HTTP 200 with ERR::SCRAPE::BAD_UPSTREAM_RESPONSE, and the site's own status is in result.status_code. Here's how we'd route the codes that matter, from Scrapfly's error catalog (checked 25 Oct 2026; codes without a prefix are ERR::SCRAPE::):

What you seeWhat it meansSend to UpRock?
BAD_UPSTREAM_RESPONSE, site status 403 or 429The site refused or rate-limited the requestYes
BAD_UPSTREAM_RESPONSE, site status 5xxThe site failedYes
BAD_UPSTREAM_RESPONSE, site status 404 or 410The page is gone (billed)No: it's the site's answer
ERR::PROXY::POOL_NOT_AVAILABLE_FOR_TARGETThe domain needs at least the residential poolYes, instead of paying 25 credits
COST_BUDGET_LIMITThe page would cost more than your cost_budgetYes
ERR::ASP::*The Unblocker didn't get the page (except SHIELD_NOT_ELIGIBLE, an option it can't combine)Yes
OPERATION_TIMEOUT, UPSTREAM_TIMEOUT, DRIVER_TIMEOUT, ERR::PROXY::TIMEOUTSomething timed outYes
NETWORK_ERROR, NO_BROWSER_AVAILABLE, DRIVER_CRASHED, ERR::PROXY::RESOURCES_SATURATIONTrouble on Scrapfly's side or its networkYes
TOO_MANY_CONCURRENT_REQUEST, QUOTA_LIMIT_REACHED, ERR::THROTTLE::*Your concurrency, quota or throttle limitYes
COUNTRY_NOT_AVAILABLE_FOR_TARGET, ERR::PROXY::POOL_UNAVAILABLE_COUNTRYNo proxies in that country for this requestYes
HTTP 401A missing or invalid keyFix the key (the code sends it to UpRock meanwhile)
DOMAIN_NOT_ALLOWED, ERR::PROXY::UNAVAILABLEScrapfly restricts the domain (its docs mention mainly government sites)No: respect it
DNS_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED, SSL_ERRORThe site itself is brokenNo

The 30% rule in the billing docs is one more reason to move a stubborn page elsewhere rather than retry it: if more than 30% of your traffic fails over an hour or more, Scrapfly bills the failures.

Scrapfly and UpRock side by side

ScrapflyUpRock
Price per 1,000 pages$0.09 to $4.50 on plan, up to $10.50 past the Pro quota, by pool and browser (tables above)$0.50 by card or USDC, $0.40 with UPT
Residential25 credits a page instead of 1No surcharge: every page is one credit
Failed requestsNot billed, with exceptions: 404, 410 and other listed statuses, and the 30% ruleNot documented yet
Countries70 datacenter and 77 residential in its proxy docs; 190+ on its pricing page63, or a region
Where requests come fromDatacenter and residential proxy pools; the docs we read don't say how the residential IPs are sourcedDevices whose owners opted in
Extraction, screenshots, remote browser, crawlerYesNo. One page per call
Cost controlscost_budget per request, project limits, per-site throttlersPrepaid credits
Concurrency5 to 100 requests at once, by planNot published yet
MCP serverHosted, API key or OAuth2Yes, remote (streamable HTTP)
VideoNot one of its five APIsSearch public video by moment, $1 per 1,000 searches
To try it1,000 free credits, no cardPrepaid credits

Where Scrapfly is better: extraction, screenshots and remote browsers in one account, fine control over what each request may cost, more countries, failed scrapes that mostly cost nothing, cheap datacenter pages, compliance certificates and a free allowance. Where UpRock fits: the pages that fail on Scrapfly's datacenter pool, so they don't move to the 25-credit residential pool, and one price per page whatever the page needs.

The fallback, in TypeScript and Python

Every version ask Scrapfly for markdown from the datacenter pool with a browser (6 credits), with cost_budget at 6 so a page can never cost more. They also turn off Scrapfly's own retries and give it 90 seconds, so a page it can't get fails over quickly; leave retry on and use a 155-second client timeout if you'd rather give Scrapfly more tries. The codes worth a second network go to UpRock and the rest raise. Both use Scrapfly's SDKs; the TypeScript SDK has no request timeout, so that version races its own. UpRock gets one POST /v1/crawl request with your key in an Authorization: Bearer header; the MCP and CLI tabs do the same through UpRock's MCP server (TypeScript) or CLI (Python).

// npm i scrapfly-sdk   (Node 18+)   env: SCRAPFLY_API_KEY, UPROCK_API_KEYimport { ScrapflyClient, ScrapeConfig, ScrapeResult, errors } from "scrapfly-sdk";​const scrapfly = new ScrapflyClient({ key: process.env.SCRAPFLY_API_KEY ?? "" });​// Scrapfly error codes (scrapfly.io/docs/scrape-api/errors, checked 25 Oct 2026) worth a// second network: the domain needs the residential pool, the page is over budget, a// timeout, trouble on Scrapfly's side, your concurrency or quota, a country it lacks.const TRY_UPROCK = new Set([  "ERR::PROXY::POOL_NOT_AVAILABLE_FOR_TARGET",  "ERR::SCRAPE::COST_BUDGET_LIMIT",  "ERR::SCRAPE::OPERATION_TIMEOUT",  "ERR::SCRAPE::UPSTREAM_TIMEOUT",  "ERR::SCRAPE::DRIVER_TIMEOUT",  "ERR::PROXY::TIMEOUT",  "ERR::SCRAPE::NETWORK_ERROR",  "ERR::SCRAPE::NO_BROWSER_AVAILABLE",  "ERR::SCRAPE::DRIVER_CRASHED",  "ERR::PROXY::RESOURCES_SATURATION",  "ERR::SCRAPE::TOO_MANY_CONCURRENT_REQUEST",  "ERR::SCRAPE::QUOTA_LIMIT_REACHED",  "ERR::SCRAPE::COUNTRY_NOT_AVAILABLE_FOR_TARGET",  "ERR::PROXY::POOL_UNAVAILABLE_COUNTRY",]);// Also every ERR::ASP:: (the Unblocker didn't get the page) and ERR::THROTTLE:: code.// The rest are answers: DOMAIN_NOT_ALLOWED and PROXY::UNAVAILABLE (a restricted domain),// a broken site (DNS_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED, SSL_ERROR), bad parameters.​// A site's own status, from BAD_UPSTREAM_RESPONSE: 404 and 410 are the site's answer.const siteWorthRetrying = (status: number) =>  status === 403 || status === 408 || status === 429 || status >= 500;​function worthUpRock(err: unknown) {  if (!(err instanceof errors.ScrapflyError)) return true; // network error or our timeout  const code = String(err.args.code ?? "");  // Errors from the API itself carry no code: send on a bad key (401) or a rate limit (429).  if (!code) return /"http_code":\s*(401|429)\b/.test(err.message);  if (code === "ERR::SCRAPE::BAD_UPSTREAM_RESPONSE")    return siteWorthRetrying(Number(err.args.http_status_code));  if (code === "ERR::ASP::SHIELD_NOT_ELIGIBLE") return false;  return TRY_UPROCK.has(code) || /^ERR::(ASP|THROTTLE)::/.test(code);}​async function viaUpRock(url: string, country: string) {  // One call: UpRock loads the page on a real device in that country, tries a fresh device  // every 7 s (up to 3 tries) and returns markdown. Failed calls aren't billed.  const res = await fetch("https://edge.uprock.com/v1/crawl", {    method: "POST",    headers: {      Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.UPROCK_API_KEY}`,      "Content-Type": "application/json",    },    body: JSON.stringify({ url, country }),    signal: AbortSignal.timeout(90_000),  });  const page = await res.json();  if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`UpRock ${res.status} ${page.code}: ${page.error}`);  return page.markdown ?? "";}​// The SDK's scrape() has no timeout of its own.async function scrapeWithin(config: ScrapeConfig, ms: number) {  let timer: ReturnType<typeof setTimeout> | undefined;  const timeout = new Promise<never>((_, reject) => {    timer = setTimeout(() => reject(new Error(`no answer in ${ms / 1000} s`)), ms);  });  try {    return (await Promise.race([scrapfly.scrape(config), timeout])) as ScrapeResult;  } finally {    clearTimeout(timer);  }}​export async function read(url: string, country = "US") {  const config = new ScrapeConfig({    url,    format: "markdown",    render_js: true, // +5 credits    proxy_pool: "public_datacenter_pool", // 1 credit; the residential pool is 25    cost_budget: 6, // never more than a datacenter page with a browser    country: country.toLowerCase(),    retry: false, // fail over instead of waiting out Scrapfly's own retries,    timeout: 90_000, // after 90 s of trying  });  try {    const res = await scrapeWithin(config, 95_000); // Scrapfly's timeout + 5 s    return { via: "scrapfly", markdown: res.result.content };  } catch (err) {    if (!worthUpRock(err)) throw err;    console.warn(`Scrapfly: ${(err as Error).message.slice(0, 160)}; trying UpRock`);  }  return { via: "uprock", markdown: await viaUpRock(url, country) };}​// node read.ts https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP DEconst [url = "https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP", country = "US"] =  process.argv.slice(2);const page = await read(url, country);console.log(page.via, page.markdown.slice(0, 200));

Tested 25 Oct 2026 against the live UpRock API with an invalid Scrapfly key: Scrapfly answered 401 Invalid API key, the TypeScript SDK raised BadApiKeyError and the Python SDK ApiHttpClientError, and both versions fell back to UpRock. Without an account, the routing of the other codes follows Scrapfly's published error catalog, and the cost tables follow its pricing and billing pages. On 6 Nov 2026 we ran the HTTP and MCP versions again with an UpRock API key in an Authorization header: with an invalid Scrapfly key, each fell back to UpRock and got the page.

FAQ

Why does a residential page cost so much more on Scrapfly?

Scrapfly's billing docs make the proxy pool the base cost of a request, 1 credit on the datacenter pool or 25 on the residential pool, and a browser adds 5. So a residential page with a browser is 30 credits, five times a datacenter page with a browser.

Does Scrapfly charge for failed scrapes?

Mostly not. Its billing docs exclude a list of status codes from its failed-scrape protection, among them 400, 401, 404, 410 and 422, and bill failures anyway if more than 30% of your traffic fails over an hour or more. Its pricing page puts it more simply, saying upstream 4xx and 5xx and failed scrapes are free.

Can I stop the Unblocker from moving a page to the residential pool?

Yes, with cost_budget. Scrapfly's docs say the Unblocker may upgrade the proxy pool or turn on a browser, which raises the cost, and a request whose cost would pass the budget fails with ERR::SCRAPE::COST_BUDGET_LIMIT instead. The code on this page sets the budget to 6 credits and sends that error to UpRock.

Which countries does Scrapfly cover?

Its pricing page says 190+ proxy countries. The country lists in its proxy docs name 70 for the datacenter pool and 77 for the residential pool. UpRock covers 63 countries, or a region such as EU or APAC, at one price.

Does Scrapfly have an MCP server?

Yes, a hosted one at mcp.scrapfly.io/mcp, with tools for scraping, screenshots, Cloud Browser sessions, block checks, monitoring and docs search. It takes an API key or OAuth2.

Other use cases to explore

References

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How do I add a backup to Scrapfly instead of paying for residential? | UpRock AI