Comparison · competitor data retrieved 2026-09-01
FlightPowers vs ScrapeBadger Google Flights API
ScrapeBadger is a pay-per-use web scraping API covering 20+ Google surfaces (Flights, Maps, News, Shopping, Trends, Scholar, and more) under one account and one credit balance. FlightPowers is a monthly-subscription specialist on flights and hotels alone. This page is about when pay-as-you-go beats subscriptions, and when it does not.
The one-paragraph version
Pay-per-use vs monthly subscription
ScrapeBadger charges per successful request with credits that never expire (PAYG model) or discounted subscription plans from $49/month. FlightPowers charges a fixed monthly fee from $10, billed whether you use it or not. If your workload is occasional batch jobs with no baseline volume, pay-per-use wins: you pay $0.53 for 500 searches once a quarter, then nothing. If your workload is steady monthly volume, a subscription wins: 2,500 searches every month costs $10 flat on FlightPowers or $2.63 PAYG (but realistically a $49+ subscription) on ScrapeBadger.
Pricing
Credits that never expire vs monthly quotas
Their model quoted from their pricing page; ours rendered from the same data that drives our /pricing page.
ScrapeBadger Google Flights API
| Model | Price | Cost per search | Expiry |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free trial | 1,000 credits (≈142 searches) | $0 | Never (no credit card required) |
| Pay As You Go | From $10 | $0.00105 per search (7 credits @ $0.15/1k) | Never |
| Subscription | From $49 / month | Lower per-credit rate (not published) | Monthly refresh (optional rollover) |
Pay-per-use that actually works: ScrapeBadger PAYG credits do not expire. Buy $10 worth, use them over six months, top up when you run out. No "use it or lose it" pressure, no wasted quota at month-end.
Only successful requests are charged: Failed requests (timeouts, blocks, empty results) cost zero credits. At scale, where failure rates affect effective cost per result, that policy matters. We count every call toward quota regardless of outcome; they bill only for data you received.
FlightPowers (Google Flights Live API on RapidAPI)
| Plan | Price / mo | Requests | $ / 1k req | Overage | Rate limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BASIC | Free | 10 / mo | — | hard cap | — |
| PRO | $10 | 2,500 / mo | $4.00 | $0.003 / req | 150 / min |
| ULTRArecommended | $25 | 10,000 / mo | $2.50 | $0.003 / req | 250 / min |
| MEGA | $50 | 50,000 / mo | $1.00 | $0.001 / req | 500 / min |
Swipe the table sideways for overage and rate limits.
Every plan on this API includes all of its endpoints; flights and hotels are separate subscriptions. Read from the live listing on 2026-08-26; the listing is authoritative.
Fixed monthly pricing: PRO at $10 for 2,500 requests is $0.0040 per search; ULTRA at $25 for 10,000 is $0.0025. Paid plans have soft quotas: overages bill at $0.003/req (PRO/ULTRA) or $0.001/req (MEGA). The free tier is 10 requests, hard cap.
When does each model win on cost?
| Workload | ScrapeBadger cost | FlightPowers cost | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| 500 searches once a quarter | $0.53 when used, $0 otherwise | $10–$25 every month | ScrapeBadger (PAYG) |
| 2,500 searches every month | $2.63 PAYG or $49+ subscription | $10 / month (PRO plan) | FlightPowers |
| 10,000 searches every month | $10.50 PAYG or $49+ subscription | $25 / month (ULTRA plan) | FlightPowers |
| 100 searches sporadically | $0.11 per use, $0 baseline | $10 minimum (or 10-req free tier) | ScrapeBadger (PAYG) |
Rule of thumb: if your baseline is zero and you run batch jobs occasionally, PAYG wins because you pay nothing when idle. If your baseline is predictable monthly volume (fare monitoring, a live product, daily agent scans), a fixed subscription wins because the per-search cost is lower and you are billed that cost anyway.
The decision
Which should you pick
Choose ScrapeBadger when
- Your workload is occasional batch jobs with no baseline volume: pay-per-use beats a monthly subscription.
- You need Google Flights and Google Maps and Google News under one account and one credit balance.
- You want to scan 200 dates in one API call instead of looping 200 times.
- You want only successful requests to be charged (a genuinely better billing policy than ours).
Choose FlightPowers when
- Your workload is steady monthly volume (fare monitoring, a live product, daily agent scans): fixed subscriptions beat PAYG on total cost.
- You are running 2,500–10,000 searches/month and want a predictable bill ($10 or $25 flat).
- You need explicit search status (ok | empty | partial | degraded) to distinguish "no flights" from "search failed."
- You scan date ranges in bursts and want published per-minute rate limits (150 to 500/min).
Questions, answered plainly
- When is ScrapeBadger pay-as-you-go model cheaper than FlightPowers?
- For occasional batch jobs with no baseline volume. If you run 500 searches once a quarter, ScrapeBadger PAYG at 7 credits per search (3,500 credits ≈ $0.53 at $0.15/1k credits) costs you $0.53 when you use it, $0 the rest of the time. A monthly subscription on FlightPowers bills $10 or $25 every month whether you use it or not. Conversely, if you run 2,500 searches every month, our $10 PRO plan is $10 flat; ScrapeBadger equivalent is 17,500 credits ≈ $2.63 PAYG or a $49+ subscription.
- How much does ScrapeBadger cost per search?
- 7 credits per successful flight search (scrapebadger.com, retrieved 2026-09-01). At PAYG rates ($0.15 per 1,000 credits), that is $0.00105 per search. At subscription rates (which are discounted but not published per-credit on their pricing page), the per-search cost is lower but requires committing to $49/month minimum. Compare that to our $10 PRO at $0.004 per search or $25 ULTRA at $0.0025 per search.
- Does ScrapeBadger charge for failed requests?
- No. Their pricing page explicitly states: "Failed requests (timeouts, blocked responses, empty results) are never charged. Credits are deducted only when the API returns a successful, data-containing response." That is a genuinely customer-friendly billing policy and worth acknowledging. We count every call toward quota regardless of outcome.
Predictable monthly pricing for predictable volume
$10 gets you 2,500 searches, flat. No per-credit arithmetic, no expiry tracking, no topping up.
Free tier: 10 requests/month. No card to try.