Outscraper vs G Maps Extractor vs Map Lead Scraper: Best Google Maps Scraper Compared

Type “Google Maps scraper” into a search bar and you get a wall of tools that all promise the same thing: turn the businesses on a map into a spreadsheet of leads. The reality is that they are very different products with very different price tags and very different ideal users. Some are developer platforms billed per result. Some are cloud apps with monthly credits. Some are Chrome extensions you install and forget the cost of.

This guide compares the heavy hitters honestly: Outscraper, G Maps Extractor, Map Lead Scraper, the Apify Google Maps actors, and PhantomBuster. We will give you real pricing and real feature notes for each, and we will be upfront about where each one is the right answer. Then we will explain where our own free Chrome extension, Google Leads Scraper, fits, including the cases where it is not the best pick.

We make one of the tools in this comparison, so read us with that in mind. We have kept the numbers grounded in each provider’s published pricing and we flag where costs add up, because pretending otherwise would not help you.

The five tools at a glance#

Before the detail, here is the shape of the market.

Tool	Type	Pricing model	Emails	Best for
Outscraper	Cloud app and API	Pay per record (free tier, then volume)	Add-on, billed separately	Bulk and API use
Apify (Compass actor)	Developer platform and actor	Pay per result, plus add-ons	Add-on per result	Developers, custom pipelines
G Maps Extractor	Cloud scraper with extension	Monthly free credits, then paid plans	Yes, in export	Cloud scraping with a free start
Map Lead Scraper	Chrome extension	Free plan with monthly cap, then paid	Yes	Extension users wanting a free tier
PhantomBuster	Automation platform	Monthly plans by execution time and slots	AI credits, separate	Multi-channel automation
Google Leads Scraper	Chrome extension	Free	Yes, built-in enrichment	Local lead gen, scrape to verify

Now let us go tool by tool.

Outscraper#

Outscraper is a cloud service and API for scraping Google Maps and other sources. It is one of the most established names, and it is genuinely good at bulk extraction and at being driven programmatically.

Pricing. Outscraper uses a pay-per-record model with a free tier and volume discounts. As published: the first 500 Google Maps business records are free; from 501 to 99,500 records the rate is $3 per 1,000; and after you cross 100,000 records the rate drops to $1 per 1,000. That tiered structure rewards high volume.

The enrichment catch. The base Maps rate is $3 per 1,000, but enriched data costs more. Published guidance puts enriched records around $14 per 1,000, because enrichment services (email finding, contact data) are billed separately on top of the base scrape. A task that returns 1,000 Maps results plus enrichment is not 1,000 billed units; it can be considerably more. This is the part that surprises people: the headline rate is not the rate you pay once you want emails.

Verdict. Outscraper is a strong choice if you need large volumes, want an API, and are comfortable with metered, add-on-heavy pricing. For a freelancer pulling a few hundred local leads a week, the per-record model and enrichment surcharges are more machinery and cost than the job needs.

Apify Google Maps scraper#

Apify is a developer-first scraping platform. Google Maps scraping happens through “actors,” which are reusable scraping programs. The most popular is the official Compass Google Maps Scraper, and there are many third-party actors at different price points.

Pricing. The Compass actor is moving to pay-per-event pricing. As published, the base charge is around $4 per 1,000 places, with a small actor start fee per run (about $0.007) and a per-place charge (about $0.004) for each place scraped. Apply filters such as category, minimum rating, website availability, or title match, and an additional per-place charge is added. Emails and social data are an add-on, published around $2 per 1,000 on top of the base. Third-party actors vary widely; some advertise $0.50 per 1,000 results, others $1.50 per 1,000 with emails.

The trade-off. Apify is enormously flexible and scales to serious pipelines, but you are managing a platform: choosing actors, understanding event-based billing, and often paying a platform subscription on top of usage. That power is wasted on someone who just wants a CSV of plumbers in their city.

Apify alternative. If you came here searching for an Apify alternative, the honest framing is this: you want an Apify alternative when you do not need a developer platform. If your job is local lead generation and you do not want to reason about actors and per-event billing, a focused Chrome extension does the same first-mile job (find businesses, get fields, get emails) without the platform overhead or the meter. If you genuinely need custom pipelines, scheduled cloud runs, and programmatic control, Apify is the right tool and a lightweight extension is not a substitute.

G Maps Extractor#

G Maps Extractor is a cloud Google Maps scraper that pairs with a Chrome extension. It leans on a free-credits model to get you started.

Pricing. It offers 1,000 free credits per month with no credit card required, and lets you preview sample results before upgrading. Beyond the free monthly credits you move to paid plans. Exports cover CSV, Excel, and JSON.

Data. It extracts the expected business fields and includes reviews, photos, phone numbers, emails, and social profiles in exports, which is a fuller payload than a bare results scrape.

Verdict. G Maps Extractor is a reasonable pick if you like a cloud workflow, want a no-card free starting point, and are fine moving to a paid plan once you exceed 1,000 records a month. The ceiling on the free tier is the thing to watch: it is a free start, not a free tool.

Map Lead Scraper#

Map Lead Scraper is a Chrome extension with a strong reputation, with hundreds of positive reviews on the Chrome Web Store. It is one of the more reliable extension-based options.

Pricing. It offers a free plan with a 1,000 monthly leads export cap, then paid tiers above that.

Data. Its field coverage is broad: name, phone, email, social media links, website, domain, full address, street, municipality, categories, claimed status, price level, plus code, review count, reviews, review URL, photos, average rating, latitude, longitude, opening hours, featured image, CID, place ID, and Kgmid.

Verdict. If you want an extension, value a deep field set, and stay under roughly 1,000 leads a month, Map Lead Scraper is a credible free-tier option. As with G Maps Extractor, the free plan is capped, so heavy users will hit the paywall.

PhantomBuster#

PhantomBuster is a broader automation platform, best known for LinkedIn and multi-channel workflows, with Google Maps as one of many “phantoms.” It is less a Maps scraper and more an automation suite.

Pricing. PhantomBuster sells monthly plans priced on execution time, concurrent slots, and AI credits. As published, plans run roughly: a Start tier around $56 per month with 5 slots, 20 hours of execution time, and 10,000 AI credits; a Grow tier around $128 per month with 15 slots, 80 hours, and 30,000 credits; and a Scale tier around $352 per month with unlimited slots, 300 hours, and 90,000 credits. There is a 14-day free trial. Headline pricing across tiers spans roughly $69 to $439 per month depending on billing.

The trade-off. You are buying execution time, not records, which is a different mental model. If your needs are mostly Google Maps lead lists, you are paying for an automation platform whose value is in everything besides Maps scraping.

PhantomBuster alternative. If you want a PhantomBuster alternative purely for Google Maps lead generation, the platform is overkill: monthly plans priced on execution hours are hard to justify for “I want a CSV of local businesses.” A free, focused extension does that one job without a subscription. But if you genuinely need multi-channel automation across LinkedIn and other networks, PhantomBuster does far more than scrape Maps and an extension will not replace it.

Where Google Leads Scraper fits#

We built Google Leads Scraper for one specific person: someone who wants local business leads, with emails, ready for outreach, without a meter or a monthly bill.

• Free, and free in the honest sense. No credit card, no per-record charge, no monthly cap that quietly converts to a paywall at 1,000 leads. It runs locally in your browser, which is what makes genuine free sustainable. Cloud tools have servers to pay for, so they have to meter you; a local extension does not.
• Built-in email enrichment. Emails are part of the workflow, not a separately billed add-on the way they are on Outscraper and Apify. The scrape visits business websites to pull contact emails.
• Lead filters before export. Filter by has-website (or no-website for web designers), minimum rating, minimum review count, category, and city, so you export a targeted list rather than a raw dump.
• Automatic de-duplication. Overlapping searches do not produce duplicate rows.
• A scrape to verify funnel. This is the part most tools ignore. A scraped email is a candidate, not a confirmed inbox. We pair scraping with a business email verifier and a business phone number verifier so you send to addresses that actually deliver.

Here is the honest boundary: if you need to scrape 100,000 records, drive everything through an API, run scheduled cloud jobs, or automate across LinkedIn and other channels, we are not your tool. Outscraper, Apify, and PhantomBuster respectively are built for those jobs and will serve you better. We are the best pick for local lead generation at human scale, done in the browser, for free.

Full pricing comparison#

Numbers are each provider’s published pricing as of mid-2026; always confirm on the provider’s own pricing page before you buy, since rates change.

Tool	Free allotment	Paid entry	Email cost	Billing model
Outscraper	First 500 records	$3 per 1,000 (501 to 99,500)	Enriched approx $14 per 1,000	Pay per record
Apify (Compass)	Platform free credits	Approx $4 per 1,000 places	Approx $2 per 1,000 add-on	Pay per event plus plan
G Maps Extractor	1,000 credits per month	Paid plans above free credits	Included in export	Monthly credits
Map Lead Scraper	1,000 leads per month	Paid tiers above cap	Included	Monthly cap then paid
PhantomBuster	14-day trial	Approx $56 per month	AI credits, separate	Monthly by execution time
Google Leads Scraper	Unlimited (free)	Free	Built in, no surcharge	Free

The pattern is clear: the cloud and platform tools meter you somewhere, whether by record, by event, by credit, or by execution hour. That is not a criticism; it is the cost of running infrastructure on your behalf, and for high volume or programmatic needs it is worth it. For a freelancer or small agency pulling local leads, a free local extension avoids the meter entirely.

Full feature comparison#

Feature	Outscraper	Apify	G Maps Extractor	Map Lead Scraper	PhantomBuster	Google Leads Scraper
Runs as Chrome extension	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
No-code	Mostly	No	Yes	Yes	Mostly	Yes
API access	Yes	Yes	Limited	No	Yes	No
Structured business fields	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (broad)	Yes	Yes
Email enrichment	Add-on	Add-on	Yes	Yes	AI credits	Built in
Lead filters before export	Partial	Yes (paid events)	Partial	Partial	Limited	Yes
De-duplication	Yes	Varies	Varies	Varies	Varies	Yes
Scrape to verify funnel	No	No	No	No	No	Yes
Truly free (no cap, no card)	No	No	No (capped)	No (capped)	No	Yes
Best at scale	Yes	Yes	Medium	Low	Medium	Low

How to choose, by who you are#

The best Google Maps scraper depends entirely on your situation.

If you are…	Best pick	Why
A developer building a pipeline	Apify	Actors, events, full programmatic control
Pulling tens of thousands of records	Outscraper	Volume discounts, mature API
Running multi-channel automation	PhantomBuster	LinkedIn and beyond, not just Maps
Wanting a cloud tool with a free start	G Maps Extractor	1,000 free credits per month, no card
Wanting an extension with a free tier	Map Lead Scraper	Free up to 1,000 leads, deep fields
Doing local lead gen at human scale	Google Leads Scraper	Free, emails built in, scrape to verify

There is no single winner. There is a best fit for your job, and the worst outcome is paying platform prices for a freelancer’s task, or trying to run an enterprise pipeline on a browser extension.

The workflow that wins regardless of tool#

Whatever scraper you choose, the discipline that separates good outreach from spam is the same: scrape, then verify, then send.

1. Scrape a targeted list, filtered by category, city, rating, and website status. For the targeting logic, see How to Find Local Business Leads with Google My Business and Google Maps Scraping for Local SEO Agencies.
2. Verify every email through a business email verifier and every phone number through a business phone number verifier. Scraped contact data always contains catch-alls and dead addresses; verifying first protects your sender reputation.
3. Send from a clean list. Then build the outreach itself, covered in Build a Cold Outreach List from Google Maps.

If your prospecting also reaches creators and social profiles, a free social media scraper covers that surface with the same verify-before-you-send discipline. All of these tools sit within the lead-generation toolkit from Inflowave.

The hidden cost most comparisons skip: enrichment and verification#

Every pricing table in this space quotes the cost of finding a business. Almost none quote the cost of getting that business to a state where you can actually email it. That gap is where budgets quietly blow up, so it deserves its own section.

A raw Google Maps record is a name, a phone, an address, a category, and a rating. None of that lets you send a cold email. For outreach you need a deliverable email address, and on the cloud and platform tools that is a separate, metered step:

• On Outscraper, the base Maps scrape is $3 per 1,000, but enriched records are published around $14 per 1,000. If you want emails on 5,000 leads, you are not paying the headline rate; you are paying multiples of it.
• On Apify, emails are an add-on event, published around $2 per 1,000 on top of the roughly $4 per 1,000 base. Filters add per-place charges too. The final bill is the sum of several meters, not one.
• On PhantomBuster, enrichment consumes AI credits that are bundled into the monthly tier, so heavy enrichment can push you to a higher plan regardless of how many businesses you actually found.

Then there is the step almost no scraper includes at all: verification. An enriched email is still a guess until you confirm the inbox exists and accepts mail. Scraped and enriched lists are full of catch-all domains, role addresses like info@ and contact@, and inboxes that were abandoned years ago. Send to those at scale and your sender reputation degrades, which quietly tanks the deliverability of every future campaign, including to your good leads.

This is why we keep returning to the scrape, then verify, then send funnel. The cost that matters is not “dollars per business found”; it is “dollars per deliverable, contacted business.” A tool that finds leads for free but leaves you to pay for enrichment and verification elsewhere is not necessarily cheaper than a free tool that bundles enrichment and points you at a clean verification step. Run the full math, not just the scrape rate.

How to actually run a head-to-head test#

Pricing tables only get you so far. Before you commit money or a workflow to any of these tools, run the same small test through each one and compare the output, not the marketing. Here is a fair test you can run in an afternoon:

1. Pick one tight query you know well, for example “physiotherapists in Portland.” Run the identical search in every tool you are evaluating.
2. Cap the volume the same way, say the first 100 results, so you are comparing like for like.
3. Score field completeness. Out of 100, how many records have a usable phone? A website? A category? A rating? Gaps here are real quality differences, not rounding error.
4. Score email coverage and quality. How many records came with an email? Then run those emails through a business email verifier and record how many were actually valid. A tool that returns 80 emails of which 30 are invalid is worse than one that returns 55 of which 53 are valid.
5. Check de-duplication. Run a second overlapping query and see whether each tool collapses the repeats or hands you doubles.
6. Total the true cost. Add the scrape cost, the enrichment cost, and the time you spent cleaning. Divide by the number of verified, usable leads. That is your real cost per lead.

Do this once and the right tool for your situation becomes obvious, often more obvious than any feature table can make it. Tools that look expensive on paper sometimes win on cost per usable lead, and tools that look free sometimes lose once you count cleanup and failed sends.

Scaling considerations as your volume grows#

The right answer can change as you grow, and it is worth being honest about that so you do not pick a tool you will outgrow in a month or, worse, over-buy for volume you do not have.

• Under a few hundred leads a week: a free extension is almost always the right call. The metered tools’ minimums and platform fees are hard to justify, and the cleanup at this volume is manageable. This is the sweet spot for Google Leads Scraper.
• A few thousand leads a month: the capped free tiers on G Maps Extractor and Map Lead Scraper start to bind, and you face a choice between paying for those plans or running more searches through a free extension. Cost per usable lead is the deciding number.
• Tens of thousands of records, or programmatic needs: this is where Outscraper and Apify earn their pricing. Volume discounts, APIs, and scheduled cloud runs are real advantages a browser extension cannot match, and trying to force an extension to this scale is the wrong move.
• Multi-channel automation beyond Maps: PhantomBuster’s model makes sense here because Maps is one of many things it does. If Maps is the only thing you need, it is the wrong fit.

Pick for the volume you actually have, not the volume you hope to have. You can always move up the ladder when the numbers say so, and the test above tells you exactly when that moment arrives.

Reading between the lines of each pricing model#

It helps to understand why each tool is priced the way it is, because the billing model tells you who the tool is really for.

Pay per record (Outscraper) exists because the value is proportional to volume and the cost of serving a record is small and predictable. This model is honest and scales smoothly, but it means every lead has a price tag, which makes experimentation feel expensive and makes large lists genuinely costly once enrichment is added.

Pay per event (Apify) is the most granular model: you are billed for actor starts, for each place, and for each enrichment. It mirrors the platform’s true compute cost and gives developers precise control, but it also makes the final bill hard to predict for non-technical users, which is the trade for that flexibility.

Monthly credits or caps (G Maps Extractor, Map Lead Scraper) smooth the experience into a predictable subscription with a free on-ramp. The free tier is a sample, not a solution; it is sized to let you taste the product and then convert. Nothing wrong with that, as long as you go in knowing the cap is the point.

Execution-time plans (PhantomBuster) price the platform, not the records. You are renting automation hours and slots, which makes sense when you run many different automations, and makes no sense when you run only one.

Free local extension (Google Leads Scraper) has no meter because there is no server cost to recover. The work happens in your own browser, on your own machine, using your own bandwidth. That is the entire reason a genuinely free tool can exist in this category without a catch, and it is also why a local extension cannot match a cloud platform on raw scale: your laptop is not a data center, and it is not trying to be.

Match the model to your reality. If leads have clear revenue value and you need many of them, a meter is fine. If you are testing the waters or working at human scale, a meter is friction you do not need.

What “free” should and should not mean#

Because so many tools in this space advertise “free,” it is worth defining the word precisely so you can spot the difference.

Honest free means: no credit card to start, no per-record charge, and no silent conversion to a paywall after a hidden cap. You install it, you use it, you keep using it.

Capped free means: a monthly allotment (commonly 500 to 1,000 records) that is genuinely useful for testing and small jobs, after which you pay. This is the model on several tools here, and it is perfectly legitimate as long as you treat the free tier as an evaluation, not a permanent workflow.

Misleading free means: “free” in the headline, a credit card demanded at signup, or “10 free leads then pay.” This is the model to avoid, and it is unfortunately common enough that skepticism is warranted whenever a cloud tool leads with the word.

Google Leads Scraper is free in the honest sense because, as explained above, a local browser extension has no server bill to pass on to you. When you evaluate any “free” tool in this comparison or beyond it, ask the three questions: card required, per-record charge, hidden cap. The answers sort the honest from the merely advertised.

A note on data and Google#

Every tool here works on public business data, the same names, phone numbers, addresses, ratings, and website-published emails that any person sees when they search Google Maps. Use it responsibly, honor opt-outs, and follow the email and privacy laws in your jurisdiction.

Google Leads Scraper is not affiliated with Google. Google Maps is a Google product; we are an independent Chrome extension that helps you collect public business information more efficiently.

Frequently asked questions#

What is the best Google Maps scraper overall?#

There is no single best; it depends on your job. Outscraper and Apify win for high volume and programmatic use. G Maps Extractor and Map Lead Scraper offer capped free tiers in a cloud or extension form. PhantomBuster suits multi-channel automation. For free local lead generation with built-in emails and a verification funnel, Google Leads Scraper is the strongest fit.

What is the best Apify alternative for Google Maps?#

If you need a developer platform with actors and event billing, nothing replaces Apify. If you came looking for an Apify alternative because you do not need that machinery and just want local leads with emails, a focused Chrome extension does the first-mile job without the platform overhead or the per-event meter.

What is a good PhantomBuster alternative for scraping Google Maps?#

PhantomBuster is an automation platform priced by execution time, which is overkill if you only want Maps lead lists. For that narrow job, a free, focused extension is a much better fit. If you need true multi-channel automation across LinkedIn and other networks, PhantomBuster does far more than an extension can.

How much does Outscraper cost for Google Maps?#

Published pricing gives the first 500 records free, then $3 per 1,000 up to 99,500 records, then $1 per 1,000 beyond 100,000. Enriched data (such as emails) is billed separately, with enriched records published around $14 per 1,000, so confirm enrichment costs before committing.

Are the free Google Maps scrapers actually free?#

It varies. G Maps Extractor gives 1,000 free credits per month and Map Lead Scraper gives 1,000 free leads per month, both of which become paid above the cap. Google Leads Scraper is free with no cap and no credit card because it runs locally in your browser. Always read the free-tier limits before relying on one.

Do I still need to verify emails if the scraper provides them?#

Yes. Any scraped or enriched email list contains undeliverable, role-based, and catch-all addresses regardless of which tool produced it. Running emails through a business email verifier and numbers through a phone verifier before outreach is what protects deliverability and response rates.

The bottom line#

The Google Maps scraper market is not a single ladder with one tool at the top. It is a set of different products for different jobs. Outscraper and Apify are built for volume and developers. G Maps Extractor and Map Lead Scraper offer capped free tiers in cloud and extension form. PhantomBuster is an automation platform that happens to scrape Maps.

If your job is local lead generation done at human scale, in the browser, for free, with emails included and a verification step built into the workflow, that is exactly the gap Google Leads Scraper was built to fill. Add it to Chrome free, run one search, and judge it against this list yourself.