Octoparse Review 2026: A Real Free Plan, Metered Extras and a Polarized Trustpilot
Octoparse is a no-code web scraping platform: a desktop app, 680+ templates, a cloud to run them on a schedule, and in 2026 an AI Assistant, an MCP server and a CLI. This review covers what each plan costs, what the add-ons add, how the refund and cancellation rules read, what public reviews say, and what is still unverified.
There are no affiliate links in this review. Every Octoparse link goes straight to octoparse.com.
| Made by | Octopus Data Inc., registered Dec 2015 |
| What it is | No-code web scraper: desktop app, templates, cloud, MCP, CLI |
| Paid plans | Standard from $69/mo; Professional $249/mo (billed yearly) |
| Enterprise | Custom |
| Free | $0, local runs, 10 tasks |
A no-code scraper with a real free plan and a long track record, but the plan price is only part of the bill, and public reviews split sharply between fans and angry ex-customers.
“Agentic Web Scraping for Anyone.” That is the current home-page headline for a product that started in 2016 as a point-and-click desktop scraper.
Octoparse turns web pages into spreadsheets and databases without code. You build a task in the desktop app (Windows or Mac) with Auto-detect, or start from one of the ready-made templates, run it on your own computer for free, or pay to run it on Octoparse Cloud with scheduling, IP rotation and CAPTCHA solving. In 2026 it also added an AI Assistant, an MCP server for ChatGPT and Claude, and a command-line tool in beta.
Three things temper the pitch. First, the price on the card is the floor: residential proxies cost $3 per GB, CAPTCHA solving $1 to $1.50 per thousand, and the advanced templates are billed per result, all on top of the plan. Second, the Trustpilot page shows 4.1 from 96 reviews, but 57% of reviews are five stars and 31% are one star, with the angry ones about cancelling and billing. Third, the vendor's own pages disagree with each other on small things such as how many templates exist, what a plan costs in the help center and whether the refund is a guarantee. The company was also sued by Meta in July 2022 over scraping Facebook and Instagram; the outcome is not confirmed here.
Not a hands-on test: JAVIS has not signed up for, installed or paid for Octoparse for this review. It is built from Octoparse's own site, pricing page, release notes and help center, the public Trustpilot page and Hacker News, all checked on 15 Oct 2026.
Four ways to build a scraper, two places to run it, one set of export options.
The About page describes four starting points: the Templates Gallery, Octoparse Desktop, an AI Assistant and the Open Platform. Whichever you pick, the run happens either on your own machine or on Octoparse Cloud, and that choice is what the plans mostly sell.
Swipe sideways to read the full diagram.
A decade-old, mid-sized vendor in a crowded category, with adoption numbers that are all its own.
Vendor figure, About page. Registrations are not active users.
Vendor figure, About page. The month is not named.
About page. Other pages say 500+ and 200+.
Vendor figure, About page.
Octoparse says it was founded in 2015 by five people in a small Silicon Valley apartment, is headquartered in Irvine, California, and has about 200 team members. The user and record counts above come from the vendor's About page and no independent audit is quoted here. Octoparse also names the review sites G2, Capterra and Crunchbase as places to find it. A Chile-based Amazon reseller is its featured customer story, monitoring 200,000+ products a day across 20 crawlers, again in the vendor's words.
| When | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Dec 2015 | Octopus Data Inc. registered | About page |
| 15 Mar 2016 | Octoparse launches publicly with Desktop and Cloud | About page |
| 2022 | Open API and first templates published | About page |
| 6 Jul 2022 | TechCrunch reports Meta has sued Octopus Data over Facebook and Instagram scraping | TechCrunch |
| 1 Aug 2024 | Fee increase on all premium plans, after prices were held since 2016 | Help center notice |
| 15 Aug 2025 | Version 8.8.0 adds Phantom and Chrome local modes and a Standard plan with 3 cloud nodes | Release notes |
| 2026 | MCP Server, CLI beta and AI Assistant added | About page |
| 31 Aug 2026 | Version 10.2.1: Field Fixer, checkpoint resume, Smart Decision Engine | Download page |
No analyst market-size figure is quoted here, because none was found from a source that could be checked.
Trustpilot shows a polarized 4.1, and the praise and the complaints are about different things.
On 15 Oct 2026 the public Trustpilot page for Octoparse shows 4.1 from 96 reviews, 32 of them in the last 12 months. The profile is claimed, the company invites customers to review and, per the page, has not replied to negative reviews. One March 2026 reviewer alleges support offered 15 extra days for a five-star review; that is one user's claim. Trustpilot says it does not fact-check reviews. The split is the story: 57% give five stars and 31% give one, with only 12% in the middle.
| Stars | Share of 96 reviews |
|---|---|
| 5 | 57% |
| 4 | 6% |
| 3 | 2% |
| 2 | 4% |
| 1 | 31% |
Three recent or notable reviews, paraphrased with date and name as shown on the page:
Said Octoparse gets the job done, that the team is responsive and understands requirements, and that they gave specific guidance for tasks the reviewer built.
Said support always replied quickly, built a custom report scraper on request and fixed a subscription issue.
Complained that cancelling a free account was not possible, said the instructions given did not match the product, and called the billing practice shady. Older than the other two and one person's account.
Pattern: the praise on the page is about responsive support and custom help; the one one-star review in the visible sample is about cancelling and billing. This pattern comes from the four reviews shown first, not from all 96.
Octoparse's pricing page also displays ratings of 4.8 on G2, 4.7 on Capterra, 4.7 on GetApp and 4.7 on Software Advice. Those are the vendor's display of third-party scores and are not independently confirmed here, so treat them as unverified.
Hacker News has older and thinner evidence. Three comments, all dated, are shown below. The two oldest predate the current desktop version by years.
Used it for a client at a little under $100 a month, cloud runs feeding the client's database two or three times a day, and called it reliable after a few early problems. Seven years old.
Tried it as a non-programmer and found the scraping not stable. Nine years old and about an older version.
Pointed out that it reads the page's HTML structure and cannot visually process or OCR a dynamic page, so the page needs a structured, predictable DOM.
The home page carries testimonials with names and dates between Aug 2024 and Sep 2025 (one from a Team Lead, Data Engineering, one from a Creative Producer who exports to Google Sheets). They are selected by Octoparse and are not independent.
Free, then two self-serve paid plans at $69 and $249 a month billed yearly, then Enterprise.
Free
No card, local runs only
- 10 tasks, 1 device
- 10,000 rows per export
- 50,000 rows a month
- Self support
Standard
Billed yearly; $83 billed monthly
- 100 tasks, 3 devices
- Up to 3 concurrent cloud runs
- IP rotation, CAPTCHA solving
- Scheduling, Data Export API
Professional
Billed yearly; $299 billed monthly
- 250 tasks, 5 devices
- Up to 20 concurrent cloud runs
- Cloud monitoring, Advanced API
- Priority support, 1-on-1 training
Enterprise
Contact sales
- 750+ tasks
- 40+ concurrent cloud runs
- Team collaboration
- Dedicated success manager
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
| Plan | Monthly | Quarterly | Yearly (total) | Yearly per month | Tasks | Cloud runs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | - | - | - | 10 | None (local only) |
| Standard | $83 | $239 | $829 | about $69 | 100 | Up to 3 |
| Professional | $299 | $779 | $2,999 | about $250 | 250 | Up to 20 |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom | Custom | 750 or more | 40 or more |
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
| Feature | Free | Standard | Professional | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Devices | 1 | 3 | 5 | 5 or more |
| Users | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 admin, 2 or more agents |
| Data exported a month | 50K | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Rows per export | 10,000 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Cloud extraction | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| IP rotation, residential proxies, CAPTCHA solving | No | Yes (proxies and CAPTCHA metered) | Yes (metered) | Yes (metered) |
| Scheduling | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Export to Google Sheets | Service account | Service account | Service account and OAuth | Service account and OAuth |
| Save data to Google Drive, Dropbox, S3 | Not listed | Not listed | Listed on the plan card | Listed on the plan card |
| Pay-per-result template discount | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Support | Self support | Standard | Priority, 1-on-1 training | Dedicated success manager |
Not an affiliate link. It opens Octoparse's official website.
The plan is the floor: proxies, CAPTCHA solving and premium templates are billed by use on top.
The pricing page lists the metered items under “Enhance your scraping with add-ons.” A help-center article explains that Octoparse has fixed plan fees and optional usage-based charges, and that the second kind depends on volume and is less predictable.
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
| Add-on | Price on the pricing page | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Residential proxies | $3 per GB | Metered by use. Octoparse's credit page lets you track daily consumption and per-task proxy use. |
| CAPTCHA solving | $1 to $1.50 per 1,000 | Help center: $1.50 per 1,000 for Cloudflare, $1 for other types, and failed attempts still use credits. |
| Pay-per-result templates | $0.001 to $3 per 1,000 results | For complex or protected sites. Professional and Enterprise get a discount. |
| Crawler Setup | Starts at $399 | Octoparse builds a crawler to your requirements. Quote based. |
| Data Service | Starts at $599 | Octoparse's team handles the data work. Quote based. |
| Scenario | Arithmetic | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Standard, yearly, no add-ons | $829 / 12 | about $69 a month |
| Standard, yearly, 20 GB proxy and 10,000 Cloudflare CAPTCHAs in a month | $69.08 + (20 x $3) + (10 x $1.50) | about $144 that month |
| Standard, monthly billing instead of yearly | $83 x 12 = $996 vs $829 | $167 more over a year |
| Professional, quarterly instead of yearly | $779 x 4 = $3,116 vs $2,999 | $117 more over a year |
| Cost per task slot, yearly | $69.08 / 100 vs $249.92 / 250 | about $0.69 vs $1.00 |
| Free plan, 50,000 rows a month at the 10,000 per export cap | 50,000 / 10,000 | at least 5 exports a month |
One more pricing fact worth knowing: a help-center notice says prices had been held since 2016 until a fee increase on 1 Aug 2024, with existing customers moved to the new rate at their first renewal in 2025. It is a reminder that a plan price is not permanent.
A 14-day trial, a five-day refund window that is not a guarantee, and one painful complaint pattern to avoid.
The cancellation story matters because it is where the one-star Trustpilot review in the visible sample is about. The help center is explicit about the process, and a few details are easy to miss.
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
| Topic | What the pages say | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Free trial | 14-day trial of Standard or Professional; payment method required; one plan per user | You can try the paid tier, but a card is on file from day one. |
| After the trial | Renews automatically and charges unless cancelled; cancel at least one day before renewal | Set a calendar reminder the day you start. |
| Refund headline | Pricing page: 5 day money back guarantee on all plans | The headline says guarantee. |
| Refund policy | Case by case; eligible within 5 days of a new paid plan or of an accidental renewal; not guaranteed; payments after the 14-day trial do not qualify as new subscriptions | The detail is narrower than the headline. |
| Fees on refunds | Payment-processor fees of about 4% are deducted; a $299 refund is about $287 | You do not get every dollar back. |
| Cancel | Account User Center, Plan and Subscription, Cancel Subscription, Cancel Now; PayPal users must cancel on Octoparse, not in PayPal | Do it on the site and keep the confirmation email. |
| After cancelling or expiry | Account reverts to Free; cloud data stays on the server for 3 months but cannot be exported without renewing | Export your cloud data before you cancel. |
Start free on your own computer, move to Standard only when you need the cloud, and price the add-ons before you commit.
Auto-detect and templates cover the common cases; the desktop workflow editor covers the odd ones.
The Octoparse approach is visual. In the desktop app you paste a URL, Auto-detect proposes the data fields and the pagination, and you refine them by clicking, by XPath or with the new Field Fixer AI check that arrived in version 10.2.1 (31 Aug 2026). Version 10.1.0 (1 Jul 2026) added scraping through your own local browser so you can reach sites you are already logged into, and improved Auto-detect for shadow DOM and nested iframes. Checkpoint resume lets a run that stopped early continue instead of starting over, and the Smart Decision Engine works around blocked pages by switching the local IP or user agent.
The help center teaches the same flow in lessons: Lesson 1 is “Start with Auto-detect”, Lesson 2 optimizes the task and Lesson 3 refines the data. Since version 8.8.0 (15 Aug 2025) local runs can use three modes.
| Local mode | How it runs | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Standard (built-in browser) | Embedded in the app; high stability but less resistant to anti-scraping | Regular data collection |
| Phantom | No interface or browser call | Sites without login and with minimal anti-scraping |
| Chrome | Uses your local Chrome; closing the browser ends the task | Login or CAPTCHA pages |
If you do not want to build anything, the Templates Gallery lists maintained scrapers for Amazon, Google Maps, Google Search, X (Twitter), TikTok, YouTube, Indeed, Yellow Pages and eBay, among others. Several are labelled “Template Bundle”, and the pricing page says some advanced ones are billed per result.
| Where | Template count stated |
|---|---|
| About page | 680+ maintained templates |
| Pricing page (Standard plan) | 500+ preset scraping templates |
| MCP and CLI pages | 200+ templates |
Pick a template or build with Auto-detect, test locally, then schedule on the cloud and export to a sheet.
An illustrative workflow built from the documented features, not a record of a JAVIS run.
In 2026 Octoparse bolted on the agent-era doors: an MCP server, a CLI in beta and an AI Assistant.
The MCP page pitches it simply: ask ChatGPT or Claude for the top five wireless headphones on Amazon with prices, and Octoparse runs a template and returns a table in the chat. The CLI page targets developers and CI pipelines with stable exit codes and JSONL streaming. Octoparse also says it does not resell, redistribute or train on the data it extracts for customers.
| Way in | What it is | Cost note |
|---|---|---|
| MCP Server | Hosted at mcp.octoparse.com; works with ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, Gemini CLI and others | Free weekly quota, no card, per the MCP page |
| CLI (beta) | npm install; runs locally with a bundled engine; JSON, JSONL, CSV, XLSX, XML output | Free trial, no card; paid after |
| Data Export API and Advanced API | Retrieve results programmatically | Standard has the Data Export API; Professional the Advanced API |
| AI Assistant | Describe the data; an agent builds a reusable scraper | Part of the 2026 platform; plan limits not detailed here |
Reliability and savings figures that only the vendor can check.
CLI page, vendor figure
CLI page, vendor figure
CLI page, “OS benchmarks”, not explained
CLI page says 8, About page says 10+
The CLI page also claims teams report replacing in-house scraping stacks at one eighteenth of the cost of headcount, in its own Best value tile; its three named testimonials give no cost figure. Both are marketing claims. A 99.97% availability number for 90 days is only meaningful if you can see the status history, and none is quoted here.
Scraping has legal edges, and this vendor has been on the wrong end of one.
On 6 Jul 2022 TechCrunch reported that Meta had sued Octopus Data, the US subsidiary of a Chinese company, in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. Meta alleged that Octoparse, sold as software and as a service, collected data from Facebook and Instagram using customers' own logged-in access, in breach of Meta's terms and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and that it tried to avoid detection. A later Hacker News comment from 2024 lists Octoparse among scrapers Meta has litigated against. JAVIS could not confirm how the case ended, so no outcome is stated here.
| Question | Answer from the sources | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Was there a suit? | Yes, filed July 2022 per TechCrunch | Read the report before scraping social platforms |
| How did it end? | Not confirmed in sources found for this review | Check the court docket if it matters to you |
| Does the plan include a legal shield? | None is described on the pricing page | Assume you carry the risk |
| Where does your data live? | Local runs stay on your computer; cloud data is stored by Octoparse for about 3 months after a plan ends | Choose local mode for sensitive data |
| Compliance claims | The home page says the cloud is compliant with GDPR, CCPA and EU data protection laws | Vendor statement; ask for documents if you need them |
Whether you may collect and reuse a given site's content is your responsibility: check robots.txt, terms of service and local law, and avoid personal data you have no right to hold. Using your own login on a platform whose terms forbid scraping is the specific pattern the 2022 suit described.
Non-programmers who need recurring tables of public web data.
- Analysts, marketers and researchers who do not write code
- Anyone who can use a maintained template for their target site
- Teams that want local runs first and the cloud later
- People who want an MCP route to web data inside Claude or ChatGPT
- Buyers who want one flat price with no metered extras
- Anyone planning to scrape logged-in social platforms
- Developers who prefer code-first libraries and APIs
- People who need an independent G2 or Capterra rating checked before buying
Metered extras, cancellation friction and pages that disagree.
Proxies at $3 per GB, CAPTCHA at $1 to $1.50 per 1,000 and per-result templates add to the plan price.
31% of Trustpilot reviews are one star, with cancelling and billing a theme in the visible sample.
The pricing page says guarantee; the policy says case by case and not guaranteed.
One help article still shows $75 and $208 plan prices; the pricing page shows $69 and $249.
680+, 500+ and 200+ appear on different pages.
Sued by Meta in July 2022; the outcome is not confirmed.
No cloud, no scheduling, 10,000 rows per export on Free.
It reads the page structure, so heavily changing pages need repair.
JAVIS did not run it for this review.
Marketplaces, other no-code monitors and browser-control tools.
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
| Product | Best when you need | What the source says (15 Oct 2026) | JAVIS review |
|---|---|---|---|
| Octoparse | No-code scraping with a free local plan and templates | Free; $69 and $249 a month billed yearly; add-ons metered | This article |
| Apify | A marketplace of ready-made scrapers (Actors) | Free $0 with $5 of monthly platform credit; Starter $19, Scale $199 and Business $999 a month plus pay as you go; $0.20 per compute unit on Free and Starter | Apify review |
| Browse AI | No-code robots that scrape and monitor | Free with 50 credits a month; Personal $19 and Professional $69 a month billed annually; unlimited robots on every plan | Browse AI review |
| Browser Use | An open-source agent that drives a browser | See the JAVIS review | Browser Use review |
| Playwright MCP | Browser control for agents through MCP | See the JAVIS review | Playwright MCP review |
How they differ on price: Octoparse sells a plan plus metered add-ons ($69 and $249 a month billed yearly), Apify charges for compute on top of a platform plan from $19, and Browse AI sells credits measured in pages and rows from $19 a month billed annually. Octoparse's free plan runs on your own computer, according to its pricing page. Pick on how you will pay for volume, not on the entry price alone.
Other tools in the category, not reviewed by JAVIS yet and not evaluated here, include ParseHub, Thunderbit, Firecrawl and Bright Data.
This review has no affiliate links, and Octoparse did not see it.
Octoparse lists an affiliate program and a referral program on its site. JAVIS has no approved Octoparse affiliate link, so every Octoparse link in this article goes straight to octoparse.com, with no tracking parameters.
Hands-on status: JAVIS has not signed up for, installed or paid for Octoparse for this review. Facts come from Octoparse's own pages, its help center, the public Trustpilot page, TechCrunch and Hacker News, as of 15 Oct 2026.
Start on the Free plan with one real page you need.
Open octoparse.comThe plan tables above come from the pricing page.
Open the pricing pageComparing scraping and agent tools? These reviews cover the nearest ground.
Each card opens a published JAVIS review.
Questions people actually ask before paying
How much does Octoparse cost in October 2026?
Per octoparse.com/pricing on 15 Oct 2026: Free $0; Standard from $69 a month billed yearly ($83 monthly, $239 quarterly, $829 a year); Professional $249 a month billed yearly ($299 monthly, $779 quarterly, $2,999 a year); Enterprise custom.
Is there a free plan?
Yes: 10 tasks, 1 device, local extraction, up to 10,000 rows per export and 50,000 rows a month, no credit card.
Is there a free trial?
A 14-day trial of Standard or Professional exists per the help center, needs a payment method and renews automatically unless cancelled.
Can I get a refund?
The pricing page says 5 day money back guarantee, while the refund policy says requests are case by case within 5 days of a new paid plan or an accidental renewal, with payment-processor fees of about 4% deducted.
What extras cost money?
Residential proxies at $3 per GB, CAPTCHA solving at $1 to $1.50 per 1,000, pay-per-result templates at $0.001 to $3 per 1,000 results, Crawler Setup from $399 and Data Service from $599.
Does it work with Claude or ChatGPT?
Yes, through an MCP server with a free weekly quota, per the Octoparse MCP page.
What do users say?
Trustpilot shows 4.1 from 96 reviews on 15 Oct 2026, with 57% five-star and 31% one-star reviews.
Was Octoparse sued?
Meta sued Octopus Data in July 2022 over scraping Facebook and Instagram, per TechCrunch. The outcome is not confirmed in the sources used here.
Is Octoparse an affiliate product here?
No. This review has no affiliate links.
Where this came from, and when.
Pricing and plans: octoparse.com/pricing, including its FAQ and compare-plans table, and help-center articles on plans, trials, refunds, cancelling, expiry and usage-based charges, 15 Oct 2026.
Product and claims: octoparse.com home, About, download (release notes), MCP, CLI and Enterprise pages, and the help-center home, 15 Oct 2026.
Independent evidence: the public Trustpilot page for octoparse.com on 15 Oct 2026; Hacker News comments dated 14 Nov 2017, 14 Feb 2019 and 31 Oct 2023; TechCrunch, 6 Jul 2022. G2, Capterra and Product Hunt could not be opened and are not quoted as independent scores. The G2, Capterra, GetApp and Software Advice scores on the pricing page are labelled as vendor-displayed.
Images: eight photographs of public pages taken by JAVIS on 15 Oct 2026 (the Octoparse home, pricing, download, MCP and About pages, the refund-policy article, the help center and the Trustpilot page), plus one illustration published by Octoparse and its social image, both labelled as vendor material. Related cards use JAVIS's own featured images.
Video: one video from the official Octoparse YouTube channel, embedded in its help-center Lesson 1.
Competitors: Apify and Browse AI prices come from apify.com/pricing and browse.ai/pricing as of 15 Oct 2026; Browser Use and Playwright MCP details are in their JAVIS reviews.
Store ratings: none included; Octoparse is a desktop app with no mobile store listing found.
JAVIS Fit Score (71/100): an editorial composite scored out of 20 on five criteria. Price clarity 13: a clear public ladder, but metered add-ons, a stale help page and refund wording that differs from the headline. Capability breadth 17: templates, desktop builder, cloud, AI assistant, MCP, CLI and API. Independent evidence 14: 96 Trustpilot reviews with a polarized split, but G2 and Capterra could not be verified. Security and data control 13: local mode and vendor compliance claims, but a 2022 legal history and 3-month cloud retention. Cost control and fit 14: a real free plan, but metered extras. It is judgment, not a measurement.
What this review does not cover: real extraction success rates, performance under load, a technical security review, the pay-per-result template catalog in depth and competitor features beyond the headline prices.
