What is the cheapest API that works on Indeed?

Sort the ranked table by cost per successful request and read down to the first provider still clearing Indeed this run. Lower priced APIs further down often fail too many requests for their sticker price to be meaningful.

Best Web Scraping APIs for Indeed: July 2026 Benchmark

Name: indeed.com Web Scraping API Benchmark
Creator: Scrapeway

Benchmarks run by the Scrapeway team · Last updated: August 14, 2026 · How we benchmark

Scrapfly is the best web scraping API for Indeed, with a 97% success rate across 8 web scraping APIs benchmarked against live Indeed pages in July 2026. 1 of the 8 cleared Indeed reliably enough to recommend.

Indeed is protected by Cloudflare plus its own proprietary layer of scraping defenses, so most scraping APIs either fail it or pay for it in speed and cost. The benchmark is refreshed twice a month, with no affiliate links and no sponsors.

Ranked by live Indeed success rate, best first:

🥇 Scrapfly: 97% success on Indeed
🥈 Firecrawl: 79% success on Indeed
🥉 Scraperapi: 75% success on Indeed

All 7 web scraping APIs for Indeed, ranked

#	Service	Success	Speed	Cost/1k		Code
1 🥇	Scrapfly	97%	8.9s	$8.95	(237) ★ 4.9	code
2 🥈	Firecrawl	79%	6.8s	$7.16	n/a	code
3 🥉	Scraperapi	75%	5.9s	$4.9	(62) ★ 4.6	code
4	WebScrapingAPI	72%	46.9s	$2.71	n/a	code
5	Zenrows	43%	6.7s	$6.9	(103) ★ 4.8	code
6	Scrapingbee	41%	1.9s	$3.25	(137) ★ 4.9	code
7	Scrapingant	2%	55.3s	$1.9	n/a	code

Data range Jul 31 to Aug 14

Ranking history: web scraping APIs for Indeed over time

Indeed target ranking history

The 7 web scraping APIs for Indeed, reviewed

1. Scrapfly: 97% success on Indeed

On Indeed	Speed	Cost/1k	Overall	From
97%	8.9s	$8.95	#1 of 7	$30/mo

Indeed pairs Cloudflare with its own layer of scraping defenses in front of its search and job pages, and the job data sits in an embedded JSON object (the window.mosaic / _initialData state) rather than the visible HTML. Scrapfly cleared 97% here by generating a genuine browser fingerprint and clearing the Cloudflare challenge, so it reaches the rendered page and the embedded JSON instead of a challenge screen. Because it only bills for successful requests, the block and challenge pages Indeed returns don't quietly run up the cost.

At $8.95 per 1,000 successful requests and 8.9s average response time, the figures are strong for an API capable of clearing Cloudflare. The 97% success rate is the headline, and the ranking history above shows how that rate has held across previous runs.

Pros:

Highest success rate in the test, clearing Cloudflare's challenge and Indeed's own layer
Only charges for successful scrapes, so challenge pages cost nothing
One asp flag plus residential proxies handles Indeed with little tuning
First class SDKs for Python, TypeScript, Go, and Rust, plus a Scrapy extension

Cons:

Credit cost per request rises once ASP, JavaScript rendering, or residential proxies are enabled
The entry (Discovery) plan caps concurrency at 5, so large search crawls need a higher tier
The free tier is a single batch of 1,000 credits, enough to prototype but not to benchmark at volume

2. Firecrawl: 79% success on Indeed

On Indeed	Speed	Cost/1k	Overall	From
79%	6.8s	$7.16	#2 of 7	$16/mo

Firecrawl's draw on Indeed is its output format. It returns structured markdown rather than raw HTML, so a pipeline feeding an LLM or RAG system skips the parsing step on Indeed's job markup. Rendering a full browser on every page and generating that markdown carries a cost and latency premium over lighter, HTTP based options, so that saving has to be worth the premium for your use case. On Indeed it cleared 79% this run.

Pros:

Returns markdown built for LLM pipelines, saving a parsing step for AI and RAG pipelines
Runs a real browser, which covers pages that need JavaScript execution

Cons:

Cost is the top user complaint in reviews
Renders a full browser on every page, which adds latency

3. Scraperapi: 75% success on Indeed

On Indeed	Speed	Cost/1k	Overall	From
75%	5.9s	$4.90	#3 of 7	$49/mo

Scraperapi is built around a fast request path. When it clears a request it tends to return quickly, which suits latency sensitive lookups that can absorb retries. Indeed's Cloudflare layer and its own checks have to be cleared before the embedded job JSON is reachable, and the scorecard carries how it did on that this run. On Indeed it cleared 75% this run.

Pros:

Fast when it clears, with a simple integration
Broad language SDK support

Cons:

Login required flows and form filling are off limits
Geotargeting is gated by plan (US and EU only until the Business tier)

4. WebScrapingAPI: 72% success on Indeed

On Indeed	Speed	Cost/1k	Overall	From
72%	46.9s	$2.71	#4 of 7	$19/mo

WebScrapingAPI covers a broad range of language SDKs behind a simple REST interface, so it drops into most stacks without a client library, and it supports async and batch submission for queued jobs. The scorecard carries this run's speed and cost. On Indeed it cleared 72% this run.

Pros:

Broad language SDK range behind a simple REST interface
Async and batch submission for queued jobs

Cons:

Cloudflare's block pages are easy to keep paying for unless you check content
Support tickets often go unanswered for days, per user reviews

5. Zenrows: 43% success on Indeed

On Indeed	Speed	Cost/1k	Overall	From
43%	6.7s	$6.90	#5 of 7	$69/mo

Zenrows is a general purpose scraping API with JavaScript rendering and session support, positioned as a generalist rather than a specialist on any single axis. It renders a real browser and supports sessions, and on Indeed it cleared 43% this run. It fits when you want one general purpose tool for Indeed plus other targets rather than optimizing hard for cost, speed, or maximum reliability.

Pros:

Real browser rendering and session support for targets that need JavaScript execution
One general purpose tool spans Indeed and other targets

Cons:

Cost climbs on heavy or large scale usage, the recurring user complaint
Premium proxy geographic coverage is unclear

6. Scrapingbee: 41% success on Indeed

On Indeed	Speed	Cost/1k	Overall	From
41%	1.9s	$3.25	#6 of 7	$49/mo

Scrapingbee is fast and cheap per request, with JavaScript rendering for lighter targets. Indeed is a hard case for it, because Cloudflare's challenge has to be cleared in a real browser and Indeed's own layer scores the session, and every request that gets blocked partway through still costs credits. On Indeed it cleared 41% this run.

Pros:

Fast response times
Low sticker cost per request

Cons:

Cloudflare's challenge and Indeed's own layer penalize an HTTP first approach
Credits burn quickly once JavaScript rendering or premium proxies are enabled
No plan tier between the small and large options

7. Scrapingant: 2% success on Indeed

On Indeed	Speed	Cost/1k	Overall	From
2%	55.3s	$1.90	#7 of 7	$19/mo

Scrapingant bundles JavaScript rendering and session support at a low entry price, with a smaller feature surface than the larger providers. On Indeed it cleared 2% this run.

Pros:

Low sticker price
JavaScript rendering included

Cons:

Smaller feature surface and fewer integration options than the larger providers
Billing covers requests that return block or challenge pages, so failures still cost credits
Small provider with a thin public track record

COMPARISON

About scraping Indeed

Indeed is the largest job board on the web, and the data people scrape from it is mostly recruitment detail. That means job titles, hiring companies, locations, salary ranges where listed, posting dates, full job descriptions, apply links, and company ratings and reviews. Most of this lives on search results pages (the /jobs?q=...&l=... URLs) and on individual job detail pages.

Indeed renders its pages on the server but keeps the structured job data in an embedded JSON object rather than the visible markup. The reliable place to read it is the inline state (the window.mosaic / _initialData variable), which holds the search results and job records in one object, so parsing that JSON is cleaner than scraping individual DOM nodes. Search results paginate through the start URL parameter.

HTTP ANALYSIS

Indeed is protected by Cloudflare plus its own proprietary layer of scraping defenses. See the Cloudflare benchmark page for how Cloudflare detects bots. The practical detail for scraping Indeed is that its blocks and challenge pages can return without a hard error status, so success has to be measured on response content, not status codes.

indeed_scraper.py

import json
from parsel import Selector

# install using `pip install scrapfly-sdk`
from scrapfly import ScrapflyClient, ScrapeConfig, ScrapeApiResponse

# create an API client instance
client = ScrapflyClient(key="YOUR API KEY")

# create scrape function that returns HTML parser for a given URL
def scrape(url: str, country: str="", render_js=False, headers: dict=None) -> Selector:
    api_result = client.scrape(ScrapeConfig(
            url=url,
            headers=headers,
    ))
    return api_result.selector

# example search page url:
url = "https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=python&l=Seattle%2C%20WA"
selector = scrape(url, country="US")

# Indeed jobs can be found in Javascript variable as an array of job objects:
data = selector.re(r'window.mosaic.providerData\["mosaic-provider-jobcards"\]=(\{.+?\});')
data = json.loads(data[0])
jobs = data["metaData"]["mosaicProviderJobCardsModel"]["results"]
print(len(jobs))
15
from pprint import pprint
pprint(jobs[0])