Lobstr.io alternative
A Lobstr.io alternative for people who want the list, not the crawl
Lobstr is a good cloud crawler across many sites. We are one filtered index of Nordic firms you can count before you spend a credit.
Filter and count firstDeduplicated across searchesExports never expire
What Lobstr.io is
Lobstr is a cloud scraping platform. You set up a job, point it at a site, and it runs on a schedule you pick.
Their unit of work is a squid. A squid is a saved scraper with your settings on it. You add tasks to it and press go.
For Google Maps you can feed a squid two ways. Use smart filters for category, country, state, city and post code. Or paste Maps URLs, one at a time or as a file.
The scheduling is the good part
A squid can run once or on repeat. Their docs list minutes, hours, days, weekdays, weeks and months, with a time zone.
Runs go out multi-threaded, with up to twenty parallel slots per squid. That is a real engineering answer to a real problem.
Output goes to CSV, Google Sheets, Amazon S3, SFTP or email. They also ship a Python SDK, a command line tool and an MCP server. We ship none of those three.
What their Maps scraper returns
Their Google Maps export covers 35 or more data points per listing. Their docs name the set.
- Name, category and a split address down to post code
- Phone, website and email with a validation status and date
- Facebook, Instagram and booking links
- Coordinates, price range and business status
- Rating, review total and the per-star breakdown
- Opening hours, popular times, images and descriptions
Credits work on unique results. Their site says one credit buys one unique result, and duplicates inside a run cost nothing.
Who Lobstr suits
Lobstr fits an engineer or a data team. You want many sources, not one. You want a schedule, a webhook and an S3 bucket.
It also fits anyone whose target sits outside Maps. Lobstr scrapes LinkedIn Sales Navigator, X, YouTube, Google Search and more. We do one source.
If your job is "keep this feed fresh from six sites", Lobstr is a better tool than we are. That is not the job most local agencies have.
FindAndClose and Lobstr.io, row by row
Checked against their own site and docs. Rows where their build is stronger say so.
| FindAndClose | Lobstr.io | |
|---|---|---|
| Shape of the productthis is the whole argument | A stored index you query | A crawler you schedule |
| Sites coveredMaps, LinkedIn, X, YouTube and more | Google Maps only | Many sites |
| Scheduled repeat runsminutes through months, with a time zone | No | Yes |
| Parallel run slots | No | Up to 20 per squid |
| Delivery to S3, SFTP or Google Sheets | No | Yes |
| Python SDK, CLI and MCP server | No | Yes |
| See the row count before you spend | Yes | Run first, count after |
| Deduplicated across every search you runnot just inside one run | Yes | Unique per run |
| Country and region breakdown on tap | Yes | Build it per task |
| Filter for firms with no website | Yes | Filter the output |
| How long results live on their serverstheir own retention window | Yours forever, on your disk | 7 to 28 days by plan |
| Fixed 64-column export contract | Yes | Fields vary by scraper |
| Suppression list across future exports | Yes | Not published |
| Pricing unit | Lead credits per month | Credits, one per unique result |
Lobstr.io's pricing and features last checked on 26 July 2026. We re-check every month. Rows shaded grey are ones where they beat us.
Lobstr publishes a retention window of 7 days on the free plan and up to 28 days on higher plans. A file you download is yours either way; the difference is what sits on their servers.
- Pick the trade Type it and take the match. One trade or twenty, on every plan.
- Pick the place Country, region, municipality, city. No plan gates the geography.
- The count moves first The number updates before you spend anything. Looking is free.
- Filter to the ones worth calling Has email, has phone, has a website, has a contact page. Combine them freely.
- Contacts are masked until export You can see a row exists and judge it. The address itself is the product.
- Export what you are looking at The file is exactly this filter set, with nothing dropped in between.
The real trade-off: a crawler gives you rows, an index gives you a list
Both tools end in a CSV. The gap is everything that happens before the CSV.
A crawler starts from nothing each time you press go. It reads what the site shows it, and hands back what it read.
An index starts from a file we already hold. You filter it, watch the count move, and only then spend anything.
What that changes in practice
- You can size the job first Pick a trade and a country, and read the count. No run, no credits, no wait.
- You never buy the same firm twice Two searches that overlap still give you one row. Dedup happens across your whole account, not inside a single run.
- The filters sit before the export No website, has phone, has email, mobile numbers, socials on the site. You cut the file down before it becomes rows you paid for.
- The schema never moves Sixty-four headers in one order. A crawler that adds a field changes your file shape.
Where a crawler wins
Freshness on demand. If you want this street, this hour, a crawler is the honest answer.
Breadth of source. We hold Maps. Lobstr will read a site we have never touched.
Plumbing. S3, SFTP, a Python SDK and an MCP server are all real work, and we have not built them.
Where the index wins
You are picking a market, not a street. You want every plumber in a country, sorted by review count.
You want the same file next quarter with the new firms marked. A first-seen date on each row gives you that for free.
You want one bill and no run to babysit. The count on the page is the count in the file.
Neither shape is smarter. Pick a crawler when the question changes every week. Pick an index when the market stays put and you want to work it.
Questions people ask when comparing us with Lobstr
Do you have scheduled runs like a Lobstr squid?
No. We do not ship a scheduler you can point at an hour of the day.
The index refreshes on a rolling crawl of our own, and each row carries a first-seen date. If your workflow needs a cron job you control, Lobstr is the better fit.
Can you scrape sites other than Google Maps?
No. Google Maps is our only live source today.
Apple Maps and Bing Maps sit on the roadmap and are not shipping. We will not list them as live until they are.
What does deduplication across searches mean?
Search plumbers in Oslo, then plumbers in Viken. The two areas overlap on the map, so a naive crawl hands you some firms twice.
We match on the Google ID, so a firm you already hold does not come back as a second row or a second credit.
How does your credit model compare with theirs?
Lobstr charges one credit per unique result, and duplicates in a run cost nothing. That is a fair model and we like it.
We sell a monthly bundle of lead credits: 10,000 on Starter, 50,000 on Growth, 250,000 on Scale. Credits roll over one month on Growth and three on Scale.
What happens to my data on your servers?
Your export stays available to re-download, and the copy on your disk is yours whatever you do next.
We do not delete customer exports after a cancellation. Check any list tool on this point before you build a process on it.
Do you offer an API?
Yes, from the Growth plan. Growth allows 10 requests a second, Scale allows 50, and Enterprise allows 200.
There is no Python SDK and no MCP server. If those matter to your stack, say so and we will tell you where we are. See the plans.
Read next
The other routes to Maps data, and the lists people build with them.
- FindAndClose vs D7 Lead Finder Bulk searches vs a fixed file
- Chrome Maps scrapers compared When the extension is enough
- FindAndClose and Clay Source here, enrich there
- Google Maps scraper: the four routes The plain guide
- Every list we publish The full index
- Plumbers in Norway 605 records
- Electricians in Norway 602 records
- Accountants in Norway 851 records
Count the list before you spend a credit
Pick a trade and a country, read the number, then decide. Fourteen days, 100 leads, no card.
- 14-day free trial
- 100 leads included
- No credit card