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.

Context: ScrapingBee gotcha (documented in proxlane's integration docs): render_js defaults to TRUE at 5 credits per request - the opposite default from ScraperAPI. If you omit it on static pages, every request silently costs 5 credits instead of 1. Set render_js=false explicitly for plain HTML targets. Related cost tiers from the same docs: premium_proxy is 25 credits with JS (10 without), stealth_proxy is 75 credits and requires JS - and stealth is incompatible with some features like infinite_scroll.