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Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.lobstr.io/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

Credits are the usage currency in lobstr.io. Every scraper run consumes credits as it collects data, and every plan includes a monthly credit allowance you can spend across your Squids.

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What credits buy

Overview of what credits are spent on in lobstr.io
The credit cost of a scraping job depends on the Squid and which features you enable. In general:
  • Scraped rows — each result a Squid collects consumes credits. This covers both basic data collection and any additional data functions you enable. For example, on a LinkedIn leads scraper, collecting a profile from a search result is one function, and visiting the profile to pull extra details is a separate function — each adds to the row’s credit cost. The exact amount varies by scraper and which functions are turned on.
  • Email enrichment — available on scrapers that don’t already return emails in their scraped data. Enrichment costs 9 credits per email found and validated. Emails that can’t be found, or that fail validation, don’t cost credits. lobstr.io’s enrichment has a bounce rate of less than 3% (accuracy above 97%).
  • Email validation — available on scrapers where emails already appear in the scraped data but aren’t pre-verified (e.g. Google Maps Leads Scraper pulling emails off business websites). Each email that passes validation costs 2 credits. Emails that fail validation don’t cost credits.
  • Phone enrichment — finds a contact’s work phone number from sources outside the scraped page. Costs 300 credits per valid work phone number found. If a phone number is already part of the scraped data (for example on Google Maps or Leboncoin listings), that isn’t enrichment — it’s billed as part of the scraped row, not as phone enrichment.
Every product page on lobstr.io/store has a pricing calculator showing exactly how many credits your chosen inputs and enrichment options will consume. Use it before launching a large run to estimate your cost. For plan-level pricing, see the pricing page.

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Viewing your credit balance

Your remaining credits and renewal countdown are always visible at the bottom of the left sidebar in your dashboard.
Credits left counter and resets-in timer in the lobstr.io sidebar
For a more complete view, open Plans & Billing → My plan. The card shows your plan name, start and end dates, price, credits left out of your monthly total, and the next billing date.

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Tracking your credit consumption

When you want to know where your credits actually went — not just how many are left — lobstr.io gives you two complementary views: an account-wide Credits Usage dashboard, and a per-run Credits tab. Both share the same 7d / 30d / Monthly time-range toggle in the top-right.

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Account-wide: the Credits Usage page

Open Credits Usage in the left sidebar. The page has three tabs, each answering a different question.
A daily-spend chart with headline KPIs — the when of your consumption.
Credit Consumption tab showing KPI cards and the daily consumption chart
CardWhat it shows
Total CreditsCredits spent across all your Squids in the selected window, with a delta vs. the prior window
Total RunsHow many runs produced that spend, with a delta vs. the prior window
Avg / Active DayAverage daily spend on days you actually ran something
Credits RemainingCredits left in your current billing cycle
The chart below plots daily consumption — quickest way to spot the day a spike happened, then click through to the runs from that day.

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Per-run: the Credits tab on a run

Every run detail page has a Credits tab that breaks down the cost of that single execution.
Credits tab on a run detail page showing Total Credits, Total Results, Avg Cost per Result, plus the Distribution donut, Cost by function bars, and Cost insight card
Three summary cards sit at the top:
  • Total Credits — credits this run consumed.
  • Total Results — rows the run produced.
  • Avg. Cost / Result — credits divided by results. This is the number to watch when a run feels expensive.
Below, three cards work together to attribute every credit to a specific function:
  • Distribution — a donut chart showing the share of the run’s total credits taken by each function.
  • Cost by function — a per-function bar list with the exact credit count and percentage. Functions can be base scraping (e.g. Export Listings, Export Listings (No Phone)), Get Phone Numbers, email enrichment, email validation, etc.
  • Cost insight — a one-line plain-English summary calling out the dominant function (for example: “Export Listings (No Phone) accounts for 76% of this run’s cost (132).”).
Debugging a run that cost more than you expected? Compare the Avg. Cost / Result between the two runs of the same Squid:
  • If the Avg. Cost / Result is the same but Total Credits is higher → the Squid simply scraped more rows this time (more tasks, deeper pagination, a wider input list).
  • If the Avg. Cost / Result jumped → an enrichment function got toggled on between the two runs (or a more expensive setting was added). Open Cost by function to see exactly which function is responsible.

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Credit allocation modes

lobstr.io lets you choose how your monthly credits are distributed across the billing cycle.
With Daily Allocation, your monthly credits are divided by the remaining days in your billing cycle, giving you a fixed daily budget.
Daily credit allocation mode
Ideal if you scrape on a consistent daily schedule and want to avoid burning through your budget in one run.Example: 3,000 credits remaining with 10 days left = 300 credits per day.

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How to switch allocation modes

You can change mode at any time from your account settings.
Switch between Daily and Monthly allocation in Usage settings
1

Open Settings

Click Settings in the left sidebar of your lobstr.io dashboard.
2

Go to Usage settings

Select Usage settings.
3

Choose your mode

Under Credit allocation mode, select either Daily or Monthly.
Switching modes doesn’t add or remove credits — it only changes when you can access them.

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Spreading a large job across multiple days

If you’re on daily allocation and a Squid needs more credits than your daily quota, configure it to pause automatically when credits run out and resume the next day.
1

Open Squid Settings

Navigate to your Squid and click Settings.
2

Enable end-run behavior

Find the When to end run section and turn on End run once all tasks consumed.
Enable End run once all tasks consumed
3

Save and launch the run

Click Save & Exit, then press Launch. When today’s credits are exhausted the run pauses; tomorrow, when credits refresh, it resumes where it stopped.
For the detailed walkthrough with screenshots of every state transition, see How Credit Allocation Affects Your Billing.