Comparison · Unblocking APIs

Scraping API Alternative

An unblocking API solves retrieval. Retrieval is real work and it is not most of the work.

Unblocking APIs return the page. You send a URL, they handle proxies, rendering and blocking, and you get HTML or JSON back. Everything after that is yours — parsing, schema, product matching, QA, change detection, monitoring and repair. Actowiz does that layer, which is where most of the ongoing cost of web data actually sits.

Teams evaluating an unblocking API against a managed service are comparing a component to a system. Both are legitimate purchases, but they are not substitutes and the pricing looks deceptively similar.

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Free pilot on your own sources, returned in 24 hours. Delivered in your existing schema so you can diff it against what you have today.

The short version

An unblocking API and Actowiz are different products, not competing versions of the same one. This page sets out where each one wins, including where we lose. If the honest answer is that you should not use us, it is on this page.

Where we are the wrong choice →

Our Data Powers

B2C Marketplace

amazon

D2C + Marketplace

NYKAA

D2C + Marketplace

Walmart

FMCG Marketplace

udaan

Food Delivery

Uber Eats

Quick Commerce

blinkit

Taxi Aggregator

Uber

E-Commerce

Tmall

Side by side

Which one fits your situation

An unblocking API returns the page. Whether that is enough depends on who is going to write and maintain everything after retrieval.

Choose them when

An unblocking API is the better fit if…

You have engineers who want to own the collection logic. If parsing and schema are decisions your team wants to make, an API gives you exactly that and a managed service takes it away.
Your parsing requirement is genuinely simple and stable. A handful of fields off pages that rarely change is a job an API plus a small script handles well.
Your volumes are low or spiky. Per-request pricing beats a retainer when usage is small or intermittent.
You need retrieval inside a product you are building, where the extraction logic is your own intellectual property.
You already have parsing infrastructure and only the blocking problem is unsolved. Then blocking is the thing to buy.
You want to prototype quickly before deciding whether the data is worth an ongoing commitment. An API is the cheapest way to find out.

Choose us when

Actowiz is the better fit if…

Nobody on your side wants to write or maintain parsers. That is the actual decision, and it is a staffing question more than a technology one.
You need schema stability across hundreds of sources. Consistent field names, types and join keys across sources that structure their pages differently is the work an API leaves with you.
Site changes must not become your incidents. We detect and repair them; a broken parser on your side is your outage.
You need product matching across sources with confidence scoring. No unblocking API provides this and building it is a real project.
You want predictable monthly cost rather than a bill that scales with request volume, especially as scope grows.
You need coverage and fill rates reported, so you know which fields are reliable rather than discovering a sparsely-populated column in production.

Being straight about it

Where we are honestly the wrong choice

Written by us, so weigh it accordingly. Here is where an unblocking API is the right purchase and we are not.

Do not buy from us if any of these apply

You have engineers who want to own collection. Then an API is the right purchase and a managed service is the wrong one. This is not a close call and we would say so on the first call.
Your requirement is a few fields from stable pages. That does not need us, and paying a retainer for it would be poor value.
Volumes are low or intermittent. Per-request pricing wins clearly at small scale.
The extraction logic is your product's intellectual property. You should own that, not outsource it.
You are prototyping and do not yet know whether the data is useful. Find out with an API first; commission a feed once you know.

Detail

Point-by-point comparison

What an unblocking API includes against what a managed feed includes, with the boundary drawn at retrieval.

An unblocking API versus Actowiz managed service — operational comparison
Consideration	An unblocking API	Actowiz managed service
What you get back	The page — HTML or rendered JSON	Structured data in your schema
Parsing	Yours to write and maintain	Ours
Site changes	You discover and fix them	We fix them; you are not notified of routine breaks
Schema and join keys	Yours to design	Agreed with you upfront, matched to your warehouse
Product matching	Not included	Included, with confidence scores
QA	Yours to build	Per-field fill rates and coverage reporting
Pricing	Per request or per credit — scales with volume	Fixed monthly retainer
Engineering needed	Yes — ongoing, not one-off	None on your side

All third-party names and marks are the property of their respective owners. This is our own comparison, is not endorsed by any provider named, and reflects publicly available information as of August 2026. Provider capabilities and pricing change — check their own site for current details, and hold us to the same standard.

Practical next step

How to evaluate this properly, in five steps

How to work out the total cost of each route, including the engineer time an API price excludes.

We scope the whole layer, not the retrieval
Send sources, fields, volumes and your current schema. Every source comes back classified feasible, partial or not feasible in writing, with the coverage we expect per field.
Schema matched to what you already have
If you have been running your own parsers, send one output file. We mirror the field names and types so downstream jobs do not change.
Free pilot on your own sources
Within 24 hours, with per-field fill rates. If our coverage is worse than your existing parser on a field, you will see it in the pilot.
Parallel run while you decommission
Keep your parsers running alongside ours for an agreed period and diff the outputs. Turn yours off when the diff is clean, not when we tell you it is.

The 24-hour sample — run on your sources, not ours

Before you switch anything, we run your existing sources in your existing schema and hand you the output. Compare it against what you have today. If ours is not better on the fields you care about, that is a useful answer and it cost you nothing.

Real extraction from your actual sources
Returned within 24 hours
Coverage and QA note included
You keep the data either way
No card, no trial clock
Named engineer on the call

Get my free sample Book a 20-min scoping call Reply within one business day. Reference calls available under NDA.

How we engage

Three ways to engage us

Same collection pipeline and QA underneath. The difference is who holds the schedule and how the data reaches you.

Managed service (most common)

We own the collection, the QA and the delivery. You receive clean data on a schedule and never touch a scraper.

Dedicated engineer assigned to your account
Site changes fixed by us, not reported to you
Scheduled delivery to your warehouse or S3
Named contact on Slack or email

Best fit: Teams who need the data, not the infrastructure.

API access

The same collection pipeline exposed as an authenticated REST endpoint your systems query directly.

On-demand and scheduled endpoints
Rate limits agreed to your load profile
Sandbox keys for integration testing
Versioned schema with deprecation notice

Best fit: Product and engineering teams building on live data.

One-time or project extraction

A defined pull for a specific question — market sizing, diligence, a pitch, a one-off audit.

Fixed scope agreed in writing upfront
Single delivery with full QA report
Methodology documented for your records
Converts to managed if you want continuity

Best fit: Research, strategy and diligence work with a deadline.

Pricing

Every engagement is quoted individually, because the honest answer depends on your scope: how many sources, how many records, how often, and how the data reaches you. We scope it with you, run a free pilot on your own sources, and then quote a fixed monthly figure — no per-request metering and no overage billing when volumes move. Request a quote and you will have a number after one call.

Service commitments

What we commit to, in writing

Contractual, not marketing copy. These appear in the engagement document.

Service level commitments written into every managed engagement
Commitment	What we hold ourselves to
Pilot turnaround	A real sample from your own sources within 24 hours of scoping, at no cost.
Go-live	Production collection running within 5–10 business days of sign-off.
Delivery punctuality	99.5% on-schedule delivery, measured monthly and reported to you.
Breakage response	Source layout changes triaged same business day; critical sources inside 4 hours.
Data quality	Schema validation on every run plus sampled human QA before any delivery leaves us.
Escalation	A named engineer and an account owner, not a shared ticket queue.
Change requests	Field additions and source changes handled inside the retainer, not re-quoted.
Exit	Your historical data exported in full on request. No lock-in, no export fee.

Why teams pick Actowiz for this work

Engineers, not a dashboard. You get people who fix breakages, not a self-serve tool you maintain yourself.
We tell you what we can't do. Scope limits and coverage gaps are stated before you sign, not discovered in month three.
QA is part of the service. Schema validation and sampled human review run before delivery, every run.
Compliance is documented. Sources, method and lawful basis written down so your legal team can review them.
Fixed monthly cost. No per-request metering, no surprise overage on a month when a competitor adds SKUs.
Six years, 40+ countries. Long-running production pipelines across retail, travel, mobility and finance.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

The questions that come up when teams are comparing options.

Per request, almost always yes. In total cost of ownership, frequently not — because the API price excludes parsing, schema, QA, monitoring and repair, and those are ongoing engineering costs rather than one-off.

The honest way to compare is to price the API request volume plus the engineer time to build and maintain the layer above it. If that engineer time is near zero because your requirement is simple, the API wins on cost and we would tell you so.

Parsing every source, designing and maintaining a consistent schema across sources that structure pages differently, product matching, QA and fill-rate monitoring, change detection, and repair when a site changes.

The last one is the recurring cost people underestimate. Sites change without notice, and a broken parser is a silent data gap until someone notices a report looks wrong.

We operate our own collection infrastructure and use commercial services where appropriate. That is an implementation detail rather than a differentiator, and we would not pretend otherwise.

What you buy from us is not retrieval; it is the parsed, matched, QA'd and maintained layer above it, in your schema, with someone accountable when a source changes.

Yes, and it is often the sensible order. Prototype with an API to find out whether the data answers your question, then commission a feed once you know it does and the maintenance burden has become visible.

Teams usually contact us at the point where parser maintenance has started consuming an engineer's week. That is a reasonable trigger.

Yes. We can take the sources that break most often and leave you the stable ones, which is a common split.

We would also run in parallel and diff outputs before you decommission anything, so a switch is validated on data rather than on our assurance.

Then say so and we will tell you honestly whether a retainer makes sense. For one or two stable sources with simple parsing, it usually does not.

We would rather decline a small engagement than take one that leaves you feeling you overpaid for something an API and a script would have handled.

Hear It Directly from Our Clients

Watch how businesses like yours are using Actowiz data to drive growth.

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1 min

★★★★★

"Actowiz Solutions offered exceptional support with transparency and guidance throughout. Anna and Saga made the process easy for a non-technical user like me. Great service, fair pricing!"

Thomas Galido

Co-Founder / Head of Product at Upright Data Inc.

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2 min

★★★★★

"Actowiz delivered impeccable results for our company. Their team ensured data accuracy and on-time delivery. The competitive intelligence completely transformed our pricing strategy."

Iulen Ibanez

CEO / Datacy.es

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1:30

★★★★★

"What impressed me most was the speed — we went from requirement to production data in under 48 hours. The API integration was seamless and the support team is always responsive."

Febbin Chacko

-Fin, Small Business Owner