Captcha Solving Cost: Price per 1,000 and What You Really Pay

CAPTCHA-solving services quote prices per 1,000 solved challenges, and the numbers look easy to compare. The cost you actually pay depends on more than the list price: which tasks are charged, how many tokens go unused, and how you pay. This guide explains the pricing model, the factors that move the real cost, and how to estimate a month before you commit.

The unit: price per 1,000

Prices are quoted per 1,000 tasks because a single task costs a fraction of a cent. The cost of one task is the price per 1,000 divided by 1,000. ZeroCaptcha prices a proxyless Turnstile task, a Turnstile task through your own proxy and a challenge page task separately.

For reference, three services publish these Cloudflare Turnstile prices (checked 1 October 2026):

ZeroCaptcha is not affiliated with 2Captcha, CapSolver or Anti-Captcha. ZeroCaptcha’s own prices, for proxyless tasks and tasks through your proxy, are on the pricing page, which reads them from the API when the site is built, so it always shows the prices tasks are charged.

What you are charged for on ZeroCaptcha

• A task is charged only when its token is ready. When you create a task, its price is held on your balance. If the task is solved, the hold becomes a charge. If it fails or times out, the hold goes back at once, and the task costs nothing. A task refused when you create it holds nothing at all.
• The price is the one in force when the task was created. A price change never touches tasks already running.
• There is no subscription, minimum volume or monthly fee. You prepay a US dollar balance and spend it task by task.

What makes the real cost higher than the list price

1. Tokens you never use. A Turnstile token works once, for 300 seconds. A token that expires in a queue was solved, so it was charged, but it bought you nothing. Solving just in time is the cheapest optimization there is: see Cloudflare Turnstile token expiry.
2. Retries that make duplicates. A retried createTask without an Idempotency-Key can make a second task. If both are solved, you pay twice. See Idempotency keys.
3. Tokens the site rejects. A token sent with the wrong action or cData, or to the wrong field, is solved and charged, then refused by the site. Check the widget’s parameters with Cloudflare Turnstile action and cData.
4. Failed tasks, on services that charge for them. Check each provider’s terms. On ZeroCaptcha they cost nothing.

Estimate a month

The arithmetic is simple:

monthly cost = solved tasks per month × price per 1,000 ÷ 1,000

Estimate solved tasks from the forms you submit, not from the tasks you create: failed tasks cost nothing on ZeroCaptcha, so they do not belong in the sum. Add a margin for tokens that expire unused if your pipeline queues them.

The pricing page has an estimator: enter tasks per month for each task type, and it shows the monthly cost at the current prices and the top-up that covers it. Money is exact to the micro-dollar, so a small number of tasks shows its real fractional cost.

Keep spending predictable

• Cap each key’s daily spend. A key can have a daily cap in US dollars; a task that would pass it is refused before any money moves. See Secure your captcha API keys.
• Get a low-balance email. Set an amount on Billing, and you get one email when your available balance falls below it, and no other until a top-up lifts the balance back.
• Start small. A top-up can be as small as $10, with no maximum. Top-ups are final, so add what you expect to use. See the refund policy.

Paying

ZeroCaptcha takes top-ups in crypto through NOWPayments’ hosted checkout, and credits the balance once the payment is confirmed on its network. Every top-up gets a numbered receipt. Pay for a captcha API with crypto walks through it.

To see the whole solving flow, start at the Cloudflare Turnstile solver page.