URL credits, parallel tasks and limits

URL credits

One processed page uses one URL credit, regardless of how many records or selector values are extracted from that page.

  • One listing page returning 100 products uses one URL credit.
  • Opening 100 product-detail URLs uses 100 URL credits.
  • A sitemap that loads listing and detail pages uses credits for both.

Automatic retries of Empty and Failed pages do not consume additional page credits.

Test scrape

Test scrape processes up to 500 links without consuming URL credits. The limit is based on links processed, including links that return no data.

Plan allowance and parallel tasks

Project and Professional plans have monthly URL-credit allowances. Scale has unlimited URL credits; practical throughput is instead driven mainly by the number of concurrent scrapers and the time each job takes.

Each running scraping job uses one parallel task. If all tasks are occupied, additional jobs wait in the queue. Priority controls which waiting job starts next and never interrupts a running job.

Stopping a job immediately frees its parallel task. The job can be continued at any time, and scraping resumes from the point where it stopped.

Current limits

Limit Value
Start URLs per sitemap - browser extension 10,000
Start URLs per sitemap - Web Scraper Cloud 20,000
Selectors per sitemap 100
Custom start URLs per generated scraping job 20,000
Custom start URLs per launch 200,000
Test scrape 500 links
Continuous JavaScript execution per URL 10 minutes

When 200,000 custom start URLs are launched, Cloud automatically splits them into 10 scraping jobs of up to 20,000 URLs each.

10-minute JavaScript execution limit

The 10-minute limit applies to continuous JavaScript execution, such as prolonged scrolling or repeated Element Click actions. It is not a 10-minute limit on total extraction time for the URL.

If the limit is exceeded, the page is recorded as Failed with the reason Timeout.

Estimate usage

Count every page the scraper needs to load. For example, 20 listing pages followed by 500 product-detail pages use approximately 520 URL credits.

For Scale, estimate throughput from concurrent scrapers, Request interval, Page load delay, driver choice, target-site response speed and required interactions rather than from a monthly URL allowance.

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