Web scraping as a service. You order the data. We run the scrapers.
Tell us the sources, the fields and how often. Import.io builds the extractors, handles the anti-bot, the rendering and the site changes, checks every delivery against your schema, and lands clean data in your warehouse or API on schedule, under an SLA with fees at risk. You never touch a scraper.
The service behind retailers, brands, marketplaces and the data companies that serve themThree leading commerce-intelligence platforms outsource their capture to Import.io.
What is web scraping as a service?
Web scraping as a service is a way of buying web data where the provider owns the collection work: building and maintaining the extractors, handling difficult access, and delivering structured data on schedule. It is also commonly described as managed web scraping, fully managed web scraping, or managed web data extraction. The customer specifies the data and receives it. No code, proxies or scraper maintenance to manage.
It exists because scraping is easy to start and expensive to keep running. A script that works on Monday returns empty rows on Thursday because a retailer changed a class name, added a challenge, or started personalising prices by store. At a handful of sources that is an irritation. At fifty it is a job, and at two hundred it is a team.
Import.io has run web scraping as a service since 2012 for retailers, brands, marketplaces and the commerce-intelligence platforms that resell web data under their own names. The operating model is on the Managed Services page; this page is about whether it is the right way for you to buy.
Five ways to get web data. Four of them leave you holding the scraper.
Every option gets you data on day one. The difference shows up on day ninety, when three sources have changed and the feed is due at six.
| In-house scripts | Freelancer or agency | Proxy and unblocker APIs | Self-service tools | Import.io, as a service | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who builds the extractors | Your engineers | A contractor | Your engineers | Your analysts | We do |
| Who fixes it when a site changes | You, once someone notices | The contractor, if still engaged | You | You | We do, same day, before delivery |
| Anti-bot, rendering, logins | You assemble it | Varies | Access only | Partial | Included |
| QA before data reaches you | Rarely | Rarely | None | Basic | AI + human, every run |
| Schema contract and acceptance tests | No | Sometimes | No | No | Yes |
| SLA with fees at risk | No | Rarely | Uptime only | No | Coverage, freshness, correctness, response |
| Scales past 100 sources | With headcount | With headcount | With headcount | Limited | 72 sources under one SLA today |
| What you pay for | Salaries, proxies, infra | Hours or projects | Requests or GB, plus salaries | Subscription, plus your time | Per source maintained |
Comparison by category, not by vendor. For named alternatives see Import.io comparisons. If you want to build and control extractors yourself, the self-service platform is the right door.
What doing it yourself actually costs.
Put in your numbers. The calculator shows the year-one cost of building and keeping your own scrapers alive, which is the number a per-source quote should be compared with.
- BuildEngineering time to write, harden and test an extractor per source.
- MaintainHours per source per month spent on breakage, selector drift, new challenges and backfills.
- RunProxies, browsers, CAPTCHA services, storage and monitoring.
- Not in the numberThe empty dashboard on the Monday a source broke on Friday.
From a data requirement to a managed feed.
The category is simple: define the data, confirm the sources are feasible, then receive the feed. See exactly how Import.io Managed Services works →
Define the outcome
Share the sources or market, fields, cadence and destination.
Confirm feasibility
Import.io tests the source requirements and returns a scoped proposal.
Receive the data
The managed program is built and the agreed data is delivered to your destination.
What teams hand over to us.
The data that is too important to break and too tedious to maintain.
Competitor prices and stock
Store- and zip-level prices, promotions and availability across retailers, matched to your catalog, hourly or daily.
retailpricingDigital shelf and MAP
Content, search rank, reviews and every seller's price against MAP, with dated evidence for enforcement.
brandsmapFeeds for data products
The capture layer under a commerce-intelligence, risk or alt-data product, with pass-through SLAs and redistribution rights.
data companieswhite-labelAI training and retrieval data
Domain corpora to spec, continuous retrieval feeds and evaluation sets, with provenance on every document.
aicorporaListings, jobs and public records
Property, vehicles, job postings, permits, filings and registries, deduplicated to the entity with history.
listingsrecordsNews and media monitoring
Articles, mentions and coverage from thousands of outlets, structured and delivered for analysis.
mediamonitoring“As a business with ambitious growth expectations, it was imperative that we found a partner that could provide web data at scale as we move quickly to answer our customers' evolving needs. Import.io is that partner.”
“The data is pristine, and if something ever goes wrong, they're on it before we even get a chance to flag it.”
Web scraping service questions.
Short answers. Longer ones on the call.
What is web scraping as a service?
A way of buying web data where the provider builds, runs, QA's and maintains the scrapers and delivers structured data to you on a schedule. You specify the data; you never manage code, proxies or site changes.
How is it different from a web scraping tool?
A tool gives your team the means to build scrapers; your team still builds, fixes and runs them. As a service, Import.io owns all of that under an SLA. If you want control and have the people, use the self-service platform; if the data matters more than the scraping, use the service.
How much does web scraping as a service cost?
Priced per source maintained, with a fixed onboarding fee, on an annual agreement billed monthly. At very high volume it can be priced per query. You get a written quote within one business day of sending the source list, after feasibility is confirmed.
How fast can we get data?
Feasibility per source comes back in days. The first production delivery is typically two to three weeks from signature, after your sign-off against the acceptance tests.
What happens when a website changes?
The change is detected on the next run by QA against the baseline. The extractor is repaired the same day, AI proposes the fix and an engineer verifies it, and the delivery ships on schedule. You see it in your channel as resolved.
Can you scrape sites with anti-bot protection or logins?
Yes. Rendering, fingerprinting, challenges, residential egress in 190 locales and authenticated sessions under governed credentials are part of the service. Each source is confirmed in writing during feasibility.
How is the data delivered?
CSV, JSON or Parquet to S3, GCS, Azure Blob, Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks or SFTP, or pushed to your API or webhook, with a manifest on every delivery and change events if you want them.
Is web scraping as a service legal?
Collecting publicly available information is standard practice across industries. Import.io runs rate-aware collection, respects robots and terms, detects and removes personal data, and works under data processing agreements. Specific requirements are handled in scoping.
Can we resell or redistribute the data?
Yes, for data companies. Redistribution rights are written into the licence, SLAs are written to back your own commitments, and customer names are never shared.
Can we start with a pilot?
Yes. Most programs start with a scoped set of sources, prove the schema and QA, then expand. Send the list and say "pilot".