Most web scraping APIs sell you credits, then quietly take back whatever you did not use. Burn 60% of your monthly allowance and the other 40% evaporates on the next billing date. If you are searching for web scraping API credits that don't expire, you have probably hit that wall already — so this post covers why expiry is the industry default, what it actually costs you, and how CrawlForge prices the alternative.
Why Do Most Scraping API Credits Expire?
Because most scraping APIs are sold as subscriptions, and subscription accounting wants a clean monthly reset. A fixed allowance that expires makes revenue predictable, keeps no credit liability on the books, and turns every unused credit into pure margin. The industry term for that margin is breakage, and expiring credits are how vendors generate it.
The model is fine when your usage is flat. Scraping usage rarely is: it comes in bursts — a one-off dataset build, a competitor research sprint, a migration — followed by quiet weeks. On an expiring plan the burst months force an upgrade or overage fees, and the quiet months donate the allowance back to the vendor. Either way, you are paying for your peak month twelve times a year.
The CrawlForge Model
CrawlForge treats credits as something you bought, not something you rent. Four rules:
- One-time credit packs never expire. Buy a pack in the dashboard — no subscription required — and the credits sit there until you spend them, whether that takes a week or a year.
- Paid-plan credits roll over. On Hobby, Professional, and Business, all unused monthly credits carry forward and never expire while the subscription is active.
- Cancelling never wipes your balance. Unused credits survive cancellation.
- The free tier is one-time, not monthly. Sign up and you get 1,000 credits with no credit card required; they never refill, and they never vanish either.
The packs:
| Pack | Price | Per 1,000 credits |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 credits | $3 | $3.00 |
| 5,000 credits | $14 | $2.80 |
| 10,000 credits | $27 | $2.70 |
| 25,000 credits | $62.50 | $2.50 |
For bursty workloads this is the whole pitch: buy exactly the burst, spend it on your own schedule, and pay nothing in the quiet weeks. Paid plans add optional auto-recharge — a top-up that fires only when the balance runs low — and the full plan grid is on the pricing page.
What 1,000 Credits Actually Buys
CrawlForge meters all 28 tools per call, at 1–10 credits depending on the work involved. So a 1,000-credit pack — or the free signup grant — translates to:
| Tool | Credits per call | Calls per 1,000 credits |
|---|---|---|
fetch_url (raw HTTP fetch) |
1 | 1,000 |
scrape (markdown/HTML/text) |
2 | 500 |
extract_structured (schema JSON) |
3 | 333 |
search_web / stealth_mode
|
5 | 200 |
deep_research (multi-source) |
10 | 100 |
You mix and match against one balance, over MCP (Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor), REST, or the browser playground. And because none of it expires, "1,000 credits" means 1,000 page fetches whenever you get around to them — not 1,000 fetches this month or nothing.
How Firecrawl Handles the Same Question
Firecrawl — the best-known name in this space, YC-backed with an established community — is a solid product, and its pricing is the standard subscription shape. The free tier grants 1,000 credits per month, and unused credits do not roll over — Firecrawl's own pricing FAQ states that credits do not roll over on any self-serve plan, with rollover reserved for its Scale and Enterprise tiers. Paid plans (billed annually) run Hobby $16/mo for 5,000 credits, Standard $83/mo for 100,000, and Growth $333/mo for 500,000; there is no equivalent of CrawlForge's standalone one-time packs, and the same FAQ says outright that it does not offer a pay-per-use plan.
One caveat before you compare raw numbers: a Firecrawl credit buys one page, while CrawlForge bills 1–10 credits per tool call depending on the tool, so credit counts are not directly comparable between the two. What is directly comparable is the free-tier expiry policy: Firecrawl's free 1,000 credits reset monthly and unused ones lapse; CrawlForge's free 1,000 is a one-time grant that never expires. The feature-by-feature breakdown is in the CrawlForge vs Firecrawl comparison, with the wider field covered in CrawlForge vs Firecrawl, Tavily, and Exa.
When a Subscription Is the Better Deal
Honesty cuts both ways: at steady high volume, a subscription beats packs — including ours. CrawlForge Professional is $99/mo for 50,000 credits, about $1.98 per 1,000 — cheaper than even the largest one-time pack at $2.50. Business is $399/mo for 250,000, about $1.60 per 1,000, and plans also raise the rate limit: 2, 4, and 10 requests per second on Hobby, Professional, and Business versus 1 on free.
The rule of thumb: predictable volume in the tens of thousands of credits per month, subscribe; bursty or exploratory work, buy packs. And because CrawlForge plan credits roll over, subscribing does not reintroduce the use-it-or-lose-it problem the packs exist to solve — a slow month just banks credits for the next burst.
FAQ
Do CrawlForge credits expire?
No. One-time credit packs ($3 for 1,000 up to $62.50 for 25,000) never expire, and on paid plans all unused monthly credits roll over and never expire while the subscription is active. The free 1,000 signup credits are also permanent — they never refill, but they never disappear either. There is no use-it-or-lose-it mechanic anywhere in the pricing.
What happens to my credits if I cancel my subscription?
Nothing — cancelling a CrawlForge subscription never wipes unused credits, so whatever balance you have built up stays spendable, including plan credits rolled over from previous months. The one exception is choosing a full refund of an untouched billing period: the money goes back, and the credits that payment provided go with it. If you need more later, you can buy one-time credit packs without resubscribing.
Can you use a web scraping API without a subscription?
Yes. CrawlForge sells one-time credit packs — $3 for 1,000 up to $62.50 for 25,000 — in the dashboard with no subscription attached, and they never expire. Every account also starts with 1,000 free one-time credits, no credit card required. All 28 tools work on either footing, over REST, MCP, or the browser playground.
Do the free 1,000 credits expire or refill?
Neither. CrawlForge's free tier is a one-time grant of 1,000 credits at signup: it never refills monthly, and it never expires, with no credit card required and a rate limit of 1 request per second. Firecrawl's free tier works the other way around — 1,000 fresh credits each month, but unused ones do not roll over (noting a Firecrawl credit buys one page while CrawlForge tools cost 1–10 credits per call).
Start Without a Clock
The cheapest way to test any of this is the grant every account starts with: 1,000 one-time credits, no card, no expiry — enough for 1,000 raw fetches, 500 scrapes, or 100 deep-research runs. If they are still sitting there in six months, that is the feature working as designed.
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