## TL;DR

Set render_js=false explicitly for plain HTML targets. Static-page scrapers that never set render_js=false pay 5x on every call for rendering they never needed.

## Steps

1. ScrapingBee bills you 5 credits per request unless you say otherwise: render_js defaults to TRUE, the opposite of most scraping APIs. Static-page scrapers that never set render_js=false pay 5x on every call for rendering they never needed. Audit your requests: static HTML gets render_js=false (1 credit), JS pages get render_js=true (5). And know the proxy ladder before escalating: premium is 25 with JS, stealth is 75 and breaks some features like infinite scroll.

## When to use

You are seeing this: ScrapingBee bills you 5 credits per request unless you say otherwise: render_js defaults to TRUE, the opposite of most scraping APIs. Use this skill when you run into "ScrapingBee render_js defaults to TRUE - static pages silently cost 5 credits unless you opt out".

## When not to use

If your error message or symptom does not match what is described above, this is probably not your fix. Search for your exact error text instead of forcing this one to fit.

## Versions

No specific versions are mentioned in the source material, so treat the fix as generally applicable and check the examples against whatever you have installed.

## Why this happens

The original report does not dig into a root cause. It documents the symptom and the fix that resolved it.