Comparison
Maplist vs Octoparse for Google Maps Leads
Updated September 26, 20267 min read
Octoparse shows up in almost every "best web scraper" list, and it deserves to -- it's a genuinely capable point-and-click scraper that can pull data from more or less any website. The catch for Google Maps specifically: there's no built-in "scrape Google Maps" button. You're building that workflow yourself.
Quick answer
Octoparse is a general-purpose visual scraper (any website, not just Maps) starting free and running $89-$299/month for paid plans, plus separate charges for proxies and CAPTCHA-solving. To scrape Google Maps with it, you configure the workflow yourself -- clicking through pagination, mapping fields, handling blocks. Maplist is purpose-built for exactly one job: draw an area, pick categories, get a clean CSV with emails, no workflow to build.
What Octoparse actually is
Octoparse is a visual workflow builder: you point it at a page, click the elements you want (a business name, a phone number, a "next page" button), and it turns those clicks into a repeatable scraping task. It runs on desktop or in Octoparse's cloud, and it can handle pagination, logins, and some anti-bot measures. That generality is the whole selling point -- the same tool that scrapes Google Maps can scrape a competitor's product catalog or a real estate listing site.
The tradeoff is that Google Maps wasn't designed to be scraped this way. It's a dynamic, infinite-scrolling map, not a paginated list, so getting a reliable, complete workflow going takes some trial and error -- adjusting scroll behavior, waiting for elements to load, occasionally routing around a CAPTCHA. It's very doable, and there are public tutorials for it, but it's a task you build and maintain, not a feature you switch on.
Pricing: subscription vs pay-per-lead
Octoparse's free plan covers 10 tasks, 1 device and 50,000 rows a month -- workable for testing. Past that, Standard runs $89/month billed annually ($119 month-to-month) and Professional runs $209/month annually ($299 month-to-month), largely gating cloud extraction speed and concurrent "nodes" rather than raw row volume. On top of the plan, residential proxy bandwidth is billed separately at roughly $3/GB, and CAPTCHA-solving at about $1 per 1,000 (more for Cloudflare challenges) -- both of which a Google Maps workflow will likely need at any real volume.
That's a subscription you pay whether you scrape 500 leads or 500,000 that month. Maplist's $28.50 per 50,000 leads is a one-time charge for exactly what you export -- no separate proxy or CAPTCHA line items to track.
Who should use which
- Pick Maplist if Google Maps leads are the goal and you'd rather not build or maintain a scraping workflow.
- Pick Octoparse if you need to scrape several different kinds of sites -- Maps plus directories, marketplaces, or listing pages -- and want one flexible tool under one subscription, and you're comfortable configuring workflows yourself (or have someone who is).
FAQ
Can Octoparse scrape Google Maps?
Yes, but there's no ready-made "Google Maps" button. Octoparse is a general point-and-click scraper for any website, so you build the Maps workflow yourself -- clicking through the map, telling it which fields to grab, and handling infinite scroll and occasional CAPTCHAs. People do get it working; it's just a project, not a one-click job.
Is Octoparse cheaper than Maplist?
Not for occasional or one-off scraping. Octoparse's paid plans are $89-$299/month regardless of how much you actually scrape that month, plus separate charges for proxy bandwidth ($3/GB) and CAPTCHA solving. Maplist has no monthly floor -- you pay per lead, once, and nothing at all in a month you don't scrape.
When does Octoparse make more sense than Maplist?
When Google Maps is one of several sites you need to scrape. If you're also pulling data from directories, marketplaces, or other listing sites, Octoparse's general-purpose workflow builder covers all of it under one subscription. If Google Maps leads are the whole job, that flexibility is overhead you're paying for and not using.
Skip building your own scraping workflow
Draw an area, pick a category, get a CSV. No workflow to configure.
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