Get The Data
Or You Don’t Pay.
Enterprise platforms are heavy
A compliance review before full access. Per-gigabyte, per-record, per-order pricing across separate dashboards. Datasets route through sales.
The result: you wanted data this afternoon. You got a platform to learn.
One endpoint, one credit
Sign up and call the same minute. One credit per query that returns results, empty costs nothing.
One key. One schema. One balance.
Here’s how you’ll get the data
Three steps. About two minutes. No review queue.
Mint a key
Email signup. The key works the same minute.
Call one endpoint
13 Google types plus LinkedIn. Swap type= to change surface.
Scale without a sales call
Every pack is a button, $49 to the biggest. Credits never expire.
Where Bright Data wins
We are a small company and they are the giant of this space. Pretending they have no edge would waste your time, so here is theirs, stated plainly.
Scale. One of the largest proxy networks in the world, plus scrapers and datasets for a huge range of sites. If you need one vendor for the whole web, nobody else matches the breadth.
Enterprise compliance. SOC 2 and ISO 27001 on their site, and a customer review before full access. Procurement teams want exactly that paperwork. We do not have those certifications yet.
The legal track record. Two well-known public-data wins in 2024, against Meta and against X Corp, both about scraping public, logged-out pages. That record helps this whole industry, including us.
Where Bright Data slows you down
The same things that make them right for enterprises can slow a builder down. All of this is on their own site.
Onboarding has a compliance review. Their own compliance pages describe a know-your-customer step before full access. Good protection for their enterprise buyers, slow when you want data this afternoon.
Many products, many pricing units. Proxies bill per gigabyte, scraper APIs per record, datasets per order, each with its own dashboard and plan tiers. Powerful once learned, and a lot to learn for one lead list.
Datasets lean on sales. Custom dataset work routes through a "talk to a data expert" step, and marketplace datasets can carry minimum order sizes. Fine for a contract buyer, heavy for a test.
All of the above comes from Bright Data's public product and compliance pages. If anything here is stale or unfair, email support@crustapi.com and I will fix it.
How CrustAPI is different
We do one narrow thing: clean public data from Google and LinkedIn, through one small API, with billing a 5th grader could audit.
Self-serve, top to bottom
Sign up, get a key, call the API. Every pack, from $49 to the biggest, is a button in the dashboard. No sales call, no onboarding queue, no account team between you and the data.
Billed only on success
One credit per query that returns results. A query that fails or comes back empty costs nothing. You never pay to learn that a search had no answer.
Credits never expire
Buy a pack in January, finish it in December. There is no monthly burn and no use-it-or-lose-it clock. Bursty projects can pause without losing a cent.
Speed is published, and measured: Maps answers in about 1 second, web search p50 is about 1.2 seconds, and reviews come back in about 0.3 seconds. One image search returns about 97 images for a single credit.
Deep dives: Google Search API · Google Maps scraper API · Google Reviews API · LinkedIn people search API
A real call, not a mockup
A real run from the date above: three businesses in 780 milliseconds, three credits. Here is one as CSV, then as JSON. The phone is masked on this page; the API returns it in full.
The same pattern reaches every surface. Reviews for a place, or a public LinkedIn profile, are each one line:
A Bright Data SERP API alternative
Many people land here shopping for one product: Bright Data's SERP API. It deserves its own table. Their numbers come from their own pricing page, checked August 4, 2026.
| CrustAPI /v1/search | Bright Data SERP API | |
|---|---|---|
| Engines and surfaces | Google only, but 13 search types deep: web, maps, places, reviews, news, shopping, images, videos, lens, scholar, patents, autocomplete, webpage | 7 search engines (Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yandex, Baidu, Yahoo, Naver) across 195 countries |
| Published price | $1.96 per 1,000 at entry ($49 / 25k), down to $0.40 per 1,000 at scale, prepaid | $1.50 per 1,000 requests pay-as-you-go; the $499/month Scale plan includes 380k, then $1.30 per 1,000 |
| Billing unit | 1 credit per query that returns results (Maps bills 1 credit per business returned) | Per request, billed on successful delivery |
| Empty results | Free. A query that returns nothing costs nothing | Their "pay only for success" exempts failed requests; a delivered page with zero results is still a billed success |
| Does unused volume keep? | Purchased credits never expire | Plan volume is monthly; pay-as-you-go terms are on their site |
| Free tier | 3,000 queries a month, no card | 5,000 requests a month, no card. Bigger than ours, credit where due |
| Getting started | Email signup, the key works the same minute | Platform signup, with their compliance (KYC) onboarding for full access |
The plain summary: need Bing, Yandex, or Naver, or SERPs in 195 countries? Use theirs. Working Google only? Our 13 types go deeper, the billing has one unit, and this month's credits are still valid next year.
Bright Data figures from their public SERP API pricing page, August 4, 2026. If they change, email support@crustapi.com and this table gets fixed.
How do the two companies compare?
These are different shapes of company, so the fairest table compares how each one feels to buy from and build on.
| CrustAPI | Bright Data | |
|---|---|---|
| Getting started | Email signup, key works right away, 3,000 free queries a month with no card | Signup plus a compliance (KYC) review as part of onboarding for full access |
| Product surface | One API: 13 Google types + LinkedIn, one key and one credit balance | Many products: proxies, unblocking tools, scraper APIs, and datasets, each with its own pricing unit |
| Billing unit | 1 credit per query that returns results; failed and empty queries free | Depends on the product: per GB, per record, or per dataset order |
| Credit expiry | Purchased credits never expire | Pay as you go and plan tiers, depending on the product |
| Datasets | No dataset shop today; the API is the product | Large dataset marketplace; custom work goes through a data-expert conversation |
| Scope | Google and LinkedIn public data | Much of the public web, plus the proxy network itself |
| Compliance paperwork | None to show; young one-person company | SOC 2 and ISO 27001 listed on its site |
| Support | Email the founder: support@crustapi.com | Enterprise support and account teams |
Bright Data details come from its public product and compliance pages. Something wrong or out of date? Email support@crustapi.com and it gets fixed.
Which one should you pick?
Or let your AI do it
Plug in our MCP server. Your agent pulls the data and pays per result by itself.
→
MCP
Common questions
Scope and shape. Bright Data sells the whole web-data stack for enterprises, with a compliance review during onboarding. CrustAPI sells one small API for Google and LinkedIn public data. Sign up with an email, the key works right away, and credits never expire.
No. We sell the data itself as JSON, and everything behind the data is our problem, not yours. If what you actually need is raw proxy infrastructure to run your own scrapers, Bright Data is the right shop and we are the wrong one.
For Google work, yes. Their SERP API covers 7 search engines across 195 countries at $1.50 per 1,000 requests. CrustAPI covers Google only, through 13 search types: empty queries are free and credits never expire. Need Bing, Yandex, or Naver? Use theirs. Deep Google data with one billing unit? That is what we build.
Nothing. You are billed only for queries that return results: a query that errors or returns zero results costs zero credits. You only pay when data comes back.
No. Purchased credits never expire, and the free tier gives 3,000 queries every month with no card. Packs run from $49 for 25,000 up to $100,000 for 250 million, all self-serve.
For public, logged-out LinkedIn data, yes: people search (beta), profiles, companies, jobs, and posts, with a verified email on people results when one can be found. We compared the two head to head, with real calls and their public pricing, on our Bright Data LinkedIn alternative page.
Background, not legal advice. Both companies read public, logged-out pages with no accounts and no fake profiles. Bright Data won public-data cases against Meta and X Corp in 2024, decisions that turned on specific terms. The fair read: logged-out, public-only collection has repeatedly defeated computer-fraud and contract claims, and the law is still developing. Check your own use with a lawyer.
Clay
Get The Data Or You Don’t Pay.
Try the small one first. Bright Data will still be there if you outgrow us. Run a real query tonight and check the math on your own bill.
Related: Bright Data LinkedIn alternative · SERP API · Google Maps scraper API · LinkedIn API