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Scraping infrastructure vs pay-per-lookup APIBright Data Alternative: Social Answers by the Lookup
Bright Data runs serious scraping infrastructure: ~90 social scrapers, a residential proxy network, and batch delivery into your warehouse. If what you actually need is one answer about one profile, post, video or advertiser, synchronous per-lookup pricing is the simpler shape.
Bright Data sells scraping infrastructure: per-record Web Scraper APIs and pre-collected datasets delivered in bulk to cloud storage, built for engineering teams running data pipelines. 1Lookup sells the same classes of social data as single synchronous lookups: a profile check, a post's engagement, a video's transcript, an advertiser's live ads, each flat-priced in credits shared with phone, email and IP validation, with nothing to build.
The social scraping jobs, priced per lookup
Each product below answers a question you would otherwise run a scraper job for, as one synchronous API call that also runs in bulk CSV where it makes sense.
Instagram & TikTok profile scrapers
Social Profile Check API
Handle in; followers, engagement, bio, external link and the verified, private and business flags out, across 10 platforms. Misses are free.
10 credits per matched profile
Post, Reel & video scrapers
Social Post Lookup API
A post URL in; likes, comments, shares, views, caption and author out, normalized across 10 platforms.
5 credits per matched post
Video content datasets
Video Transcript API
The spoken words of any public TikTok, Instagram, YouTube or X video as text. Only billed when a transcript exists.
5 credits per found transcript
Search & discovery crawls
Social Search API
Keyword search across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Threads, Pinterest and Reddit, up to 20 normalized hits per call.
5 credits per search with results
1Lookup vs Bright Data: the same criteria, side by side
Both products measured on identical criteria, with Bright Data’s numbers taken from its own published pricing.
| Criteria | 1Lookup | Bright Data |
|---|---|---|
| Contact-data coverage | EmailPhoneIP | EmailPhoneIP |
| Pricing model | Monthly plans with universal credits; core phone, email and IP lookups cost 1 credit, enrichment and intelligence products cost more | Per-record metered pricing on the Web Scraper API, which bundles ~90 ready-made social media scrapers (Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, X, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Reddit, Quora, Vimeo, Bluesky): $1.50 per 1,000 successfully delivered records pay-as-you-go, a Scale subscription at $499/mo with 384,000 records included ($1.30 per 1,000 additional), and custom Enterprise pricing. Billing is success-based - "no charges for failed deliveries." A separate pre-collected dataset marketplace (700+ datasets, 21B+ records) sells social datasets at up to $0.0025/record with a $250 minimum order and refresh-subscription discounts (monthly refresh saves 80%, quarterly 50%, biannual 25%). |
| Starting price | $99/mo for 20,000 credits ($4.95 per 1,000, down to $2.00 on Enterprise) | $1.50 per 1,000 records pay-as-you-go on the Web Scraper API (no subscription; ~$15 for 10,000 records). First published subscription tier is Scale at $499/mo with 384,000 records included. Dataset marketplace purchases start at a $250 minimum order. |
| Free option | Free single lookups via the online tools at 1lookup.io/tools, no account required | 5,000 Web Scraper API records/month free, no credit card required; the TikTok scraper page states the free allowance renews monthly on the 1st. Free data samples available before dataset marketplace purchases. |
| Free trial | 7-day free trial on every plan: $5 of credits on Starter, $20 on Growth, Professional, and Enterprise (card required, nothing charged up front) | The 5,000 records/month free tier serves as the trial (no credit card required); no time-limited trial of paid plans is advertised on the pricing pages. Scale plan is cancel-anytime. |
| Do credits expire? | Unused monthly credits roll over for 3 months; separately purchased credits last 1 year | No prepaid credit packs on the scraper API - pay-as-you-go is metered per successfully delivered record with user-set monthly spend limits; the free 5,000 records/mo renew monthly, and Scale's 384,000 records are a monthly allowance (rollover of unused records is not stated on the pricing page). |
1Lookup
Bright Data
Cost per 1,000: Bright Data and 1Lookup
Published rates only, drawn on one shared scale that starts at $0.
- 1Lookup rate card
- Bright Data published tiers
Bright Data, per published tier
50,000 social records (pay-as-you-go)
$1.50384,000 social records/mo (subscription)
$1.30100,000 Instagram records (pre-collected dataset, not live scraping)
$2.50
1Lookup, reference band (a range, not a bar from $0)
All 4 plans, 20,000 lookups/mo to 1,000,000 lookups/mo
Cost per 1,000
| Product | Volume tier | Price | Cost per 1,000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bright Data | 50,000 social records (pay-as-you-go) | $75 at $1.50 per 1,000 delivered records | $1.50 |
| Bright Data | 384,000 social records/mo (subscription) | $499/mo Scale plan (384,000 records included; $1.30/1k additional) | $1.30 |
| Bright Data | 100,000 Instagram records (pre-collected dataset, not live scraping) | $250 one-time from the dataset marketplace ("$250/100K records", up to $0.0025/record; $250 minimum order) | $2.50 |
| 1Lookup | 20,000 lookups/mo | $99/mo (Starter) | $4.95 |
| 1Lookup | 85,000 lookups/mo | $299/mo (Growth) | $3.52 |
| 1Lookup | 250,000 lookups/mo | $799/mo (Professional) | $3.20 |
| 1Lookup | 1,000,000 lookups/mo | $1,999/mo (Enterprise) | $2.00 |
What Bright Data costs at volume
| Volume | Bright Data price | Per 1,000 |
|---|---|---|
| 5,000 social records/mo (profile, post, or comment lookups) | $0 (free tier, no credit card required) | $0 |
| 50,000 social records (pay-as-you-go) | $75 at $1.50 per 1,000 delivered records | $1.50 |
| 384,000 social records/mo (subscription) | $499/mo Scale plan (384,000 records included; $1.30/1k additional) | $1.30 |
| 100,000 Instagram records (pre-collected dataset, not live scraping) | $250 one-time from the dataset marketplace ("$250/100K records", up to $0.0025/record; $250 minimum order) | $2.50 |
Bright Data is priced per delivered record ($1.50 per 1,000 pay-as-you-go, verified August 2026) and shines at warehouse scale; 1Lookup is priced per answered question (3 to 40 credits per lookup). Compare your real workload: millions of raw records point to Bright Data, thousands of specific answers point to per-lookup pricing.
Where Bright Data wins
- Widest social coverage of any scraping vendor on this page: ~90 ready-made scrapers across 11 platforms (Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, X, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Reddit, Quora, Vimeo, Bluesky) covering profiles, posts/Reels, comments, followers, and TikTok Shop
- Success-based billing at low per-record rates: $1.50/1k pay-as-you-go ($0.0015/record), only successfully delivered records are charged, with unlimited concurrency and bulk inputs up to 5,000 URLs per request
- Enterprise-grade unblocking infrastructure: 400M+ residential IPs across 195 countries with automatic proxy rotation, CAPTCHA solving, and JavaScript rendering, plus GDPR/CCPA compliance posture and a 99.99% uptime claim
- Pre-collected dataset marketplace as an alternative to live scraping: 700+ datasets with 21B+ records (1.1B+ Instagram records alone) at up to $0.0025/record, with scheduled refresh subscriptions and free samples; delivery to S3, Google Cloud, Azure, Snowflake, SFTP, or webhook in JSON/NDJSON/CSV/Parquet
Where 1Lookup wins
- Synchronous lookups: a profile, post, transcript or ad check returns as one JSON response in seconds, no pipeline, storage or proxy management
- Success-billed everywhere: a dead profile, deleted post or empty search bills 0 credits
- One balance across 40 products: social data spends the same credits as phone, email and IP validation
- Built as a lookup, not a pipeline: an API key and one JSON response per question, no dataset delivery, storage buckets or scraper monitoring
Bright Data pricing and product facts verified against brightdata.com as of August 2026. Prices change; always confirm on the vendor’s site. 1Lookup numbers come from the live rate card.
Who this is for
A quick, honest read on which tool fits your use case.
Choose 1Lookup if: you want social answers as single synchronous lookups: a profile, a post, a transcript, or an ad check billed per call from the same credit balance as phone, email, and IP validation, with no pipeline to build.
Consider Bright Data instead if: you are an engineering team pulling millions of raw social records into a warehouse and want batch scraping infrastructure with cloud-storage delivery.
Frequently asked questions
How do I get social media data without building a scraping pipeline?
1Lookup's social suite returns profile, post, transcript, search, ad library and audience data as flat-priced synchronous API calls. You POST a handle or URL and get JSON back in seconds. There is no proxy management, no dataset delivery to cloud storage, and no scraper to maintain: sign up, start the 7-day trial, and call the endpoint.
Is 1Lookup cheaper than Bright Data?
Not per raw record, and the distinction matters. Bright Data's Web Scraper API runs about $1.50 per 1,000 delivered records, which is far cheaper per record than any lookup API when you genuinely need millions of rows. 1Lookup's social lookups run 3 to 40 credits each, roughly one to twenty cents. The math favors 1Lookup when you need answers about specific profiles, posts or advertisers, and favors Bright Data when you are filling a warehouse.
When is Bright Data clearly the better choice?
When you are an engineering team collecting social data at bulk scale: millions of records, scheduled crawls, delivery to S3 or Snowflake, or pre-collected datasets. Bright Data's infrastructure, proxy network and dataset marketplace are built exactly for that, and its per-record rates at volume are hard to beat with any per-lookup API.
Does 1Lookup do bulk social lookups?
Yes, with the same per-lookup pricing. Social Profile Check, Social Post Lookup, Video Transcript, TikTok Audience Demographics and Link-in-Bio Lookup all accept CSV uploads with one column of handles or URLs, and rows that find nothing bill zero credits. What 1Lookup does not do is raw-record firehose delivery into cloud storage.
Do I need to pass KYC or a company review to use 1Lookup?
No. 1Lookup is self-serve: sign up, get an API key, start the trial. At Bright Data, the Web Scraper API is stated not to require KYC either, but direct access to the residential proxy network behind its unblocking requires a business-only know-your-customer review with a corporate email domain.
Is Bright Data worth it in 2026?
For bulk social-data collection, it is one of the strongest options: broad platform coverage, success-based billing, and a real free tier of 5,000 records a month. The gap a per-lookup API fills is everything below pipeline scale: checking the profile a signup claimed, pulling one post's numbers, reading one video's transcript, or screening a creator roster, priced per answer instead of per infrastructure.