Bright Data API review

The actions you pay for, as Bright Data prices them.

US dollars, as Bright Data's pricing page shows them on 25 Oct 2026. Monthly and annual billing are shown apart.

Free tier 5,000 credits/month (~$7.50) shared across Web Unlocker, SERP, Web Scraper API (1 credit per request/record), Scraper Studio (1 credit per page load) and Browser API (5 credits per MB, ~1 GB); MCP draws from the same pool; no rollover; resets on the 1st. Proxies excluded: one-time $2 trial credit (7 days) plus a $5 bonus when a payment method is added (30 days). Not issued on custom-PAYG or pre-commit plans. Prepaid wallet, hard stop when unfunded.

Scraper API: 5,000 running jobs per dataset, 1-minute sync wait (then HTTP 202 + snapshot_id), 1 GB input per job, and 25 HTTP 429 responses within 5 minutes blocks your IP on every API call until support clears it.

Bright Data uses API key. The steps below follow Bright Data's own docs.

1. Create a Bright Data account. API access starts on the Web Scraper API Scale plan.
2. A default API key is created at signup. More: Control panel > Account settings > Users and API keys > Add API key (admins only; each user can have only one key, total keys cannot exceed account users; every key is shown only once; set user, permission Admin/Finance/Ops/Limit/User, and an expiry or Unlimited)
3. Send it with every request: header Authorization: Bearer <API key>; proxies use native username/password (billed the same). MCP accepts ?token= in the URL.
4. Make a first call: Web Scraper API async job: collect by URL or discover (by keyword, user_name, search filters) using a pre-built scraper. Keep the key in an environment variable, never in the command.
   Copy

   curl -X POST "https://api.brightdata.com/datasets/v3/trigger?dataset_id=..." \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer $BRIGHTDATA_API_KEY" \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{}'

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Four things to settle first, each read off Bright Data's own pages.

• Confirm the API is on your planAPI access starts on the Web Scraper API Scale plan. Free tier: 5,000 credits/month (~$7.50) shared across Web Unlocker, SERP, Web Scraper API (1 credit per request/record), Scraper Studio (1 credit per….
• Keep the key out of your codeAPI key. It is sent as: header Authorization: Bearer <API key>; proxies use native username/password (billed the same). MCP accepts ?token= in the URL..
• Design around the rate limitScraper API: 5,000 running jobs per dataset, 1-minute sync wait (then HTTP 202 + snapshot_id), 1 GB input per job, and 25 HTTP 429 responses within 5 minutes blocks your IP on every API call until support clears it.
• Know the catch before you scale25 HTTP 429 responses within 5 minutes from one IP blocks that IP on every API request until support clears it; batch inputs into one /trigger instead of many small jobs (docs/products/scrapers/limits).