How to reduce scraping costs by reducing subscriptions

53% of SaaS apps remain underused or unused, costing businesses up to $21 million annually, according to research. Of all subscriptions, only 34% are actively used - meaning that the other 66% deliver minimal to no value. And the problem is deeper than one or two wrong tactical decisions - it’s a strategic issue that leads to misspent money that could have funded the company’s growth.

Also, when trying to make scraping or other tasks more budget-friendly, businesses would rather look for cheaper tool alternatives, sometimes even sacrificing quality or speed, but SaaS subscriptions rarely get attention, going on with eating away at the budget.

What exactly is wrong with subscriptions when it comes to scraping?

Subscriptions are stable and predictable - they renew once a certain period of time, usually a month or a year. For example, proxy subscriptions grant a volume of traffic. Also, a set of additional features is often included. The thing is that such plans are fixed - a particular amount of traffic, features companies may or may not need, but still pay for them.

Scraping isn’t predictable. There is seasonal traffic volatility, compliance-cased throttling, regional issues, project-dependent spikes in demand, AI training cycles, competitive monitoring bursts, and more - in other words, the need for services isn’t equal.

Let’s take proxies as an example again. For instance, there is a monthly plan that costs $3,000 and offers 1TB of traffic. A company pays in advance but uses only half of it, as there were no high-demand situations. There is no rollover, so half of the money was practically wasted. The next month, it’s $3,000 again, but this time, scraping is active, and 1TB of traffic isn’t enough, so the company buys more and needs to use it before the next billing date, or it will burn again. The costs grow, and the budget becomes unpredictable, especially when the company is scaling operations up.

Such a situation isn’t a rare occasion. The reason? It’s simple: often, subscriptions just don’t meet the reality of enterprise scraping.

There are also situations when teams within one company opt for identical tools that serve the same purpose, but instead of using and paying for one instrument, the business ends up paying for overlapping tools.

There are other disadvantages too - sometimes not that visible at all. Unattended subscriptions can cause security risks and higher compliance exposure.

Why businesses still opt for subscriptions?

The SaaS model is specific - CAC is high, and in order to maintain decent ROI metrics, companies need their customers to stay and use the service for as long as possible. On the other hand, every monthly payment means a business makes a decision - to pay or not - and a so-called payment friction rises. That’s a psychological term that describes the emotional act of deciding to spend money, and makes a person or company rethink and maybe refuse. That’s why subscriptions are designed to be unnoticeable and painless - they renew automatically, and there is no need to decide to pay and make an effort every month. To add the effect, notification letters regarding renewal sound more like a congratulation.

Convenience is a reason as well - businesses think they've got a solution to some problem, and there is no need to worry about it again. Another problem is the absence of a person in charge. Organizations think they make it better - set everything on auto-renewal, so employees don’t have to deal with a time-consuming routine; however, that only closes the trap. On top of that, having one solution at hand, it’s unlikely for businesses to look for other options, even if they exist and are better.

How to avoid subscription pitfalls

The first impulse may be to cancel everything. However, subscriptions aren’t totally bad - just some services don’t fit with the particular tasks, like scraping, when used in the form of a fixed monthly commitment. They are harmful only when they bring no value to a company, and it’s necessary to identify and stop such cases.

This is also not about one cleanup. It’s about identifying the causes why unused or unfitting subscriptions pile up and adjusting processes to avoid the situation from repeating.

• Carry on an audit - what subscriptions are active, how often they are used, and whether they are used to the full capacity.
• Conduct a survey to understand which tools employees rely on, their satisfaction rate, need for more features, etc. Cancel unused options.
• Create transparent standards for approving new purchases.
• Check for duplicate tools.
• Review usage reviews before renewal.
• Set rules for upgrading plans and purchasing premium features. Clear exceptions.
• Decide who would be in charge of every subscription.
• Regularly monitor the market for other options.

However, services that rely on a pay-as-you-go payment model are the best alternative. This way, charges would depend on the actual usage, and there would be no payments for the sake of payments. Going back to our example with proxies, DataImpulse is a provider worth attention. It offers never-expiring traffic at a reasonable price starting from $0.7/GB for enterprise plans. This way, there is no pressure to use proxies before they expire. At the same time, DataImpulse offers first-party legally-derived IPs, not resold from other providers. It means unique addresses with a clean reputation - right what scraping calls for. Other enterprise-friendly features include a 90+ million IP pool, rotating and sticky sessions, precise targeting options, 24/7 human support, and dedicated account managers for plans starting from 1TB of traffic. Visit their website to learn the details and get started.