Bardeen vs Gumloop (2026): Which Should You Use?
Bardeen and Gumloop both promise to automate repetitive work, but they come at it from different angles. Bardeen lives in the browser as an extension focused on web scraping, data enrichment, and go-to-market (GTM) tasks, pulling data off pages and pushing it into CRMs and spreadsheets. Gumloop is a visual, node-based platform for assembling AI workflows and agents on a canvas, chaining together data steps, LLM calls, and integrations into reusable pipelines.
The one-line answer: Choose Bardeen if your work is scraping the web and automating sales and lead-gen tasks from the browser; choose Gumloop if you want to build flexible, multi-step AI workflows and agents on a visual canvas.
At a glance
| Bardeen | Gumloop | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | GTM teams: web scraping, enrichment, outreach | Teams building AI workflows and agents |
| Form factor | Browser extension plus cloud actions | Web app with a drag-and-drop node canvas |
| Entry price | Free (100 credits/mo), then Basic $10/mo | Pro $37/mo (no permanent free plan) |
| Free tier | 100 credits per month, always free | 14-day trial on Pro; free plan retired in 2026 |
| Pricing model | Credits per row of data (1 credit/row; enrichment 3) | Credits per workflow run, sold in monthly bundles |
| Standout | Point-and-click web scraper and lead enrichment | Visual builder for complex AI pipelines and agents |
What each tool actually does
Bardeen started as a browser automation tool and, by 2026, has sharpened its focus on go-to-market work. Its core strengths are scraping structured data off web pages, such as search results and profile pages, enriching that data with details like validated emails, qualifying leads with AI, and exporting the results into Google Sheets, Airtable, Notion, or a CRM. Because it runs as a browser extension, it can act on the page you are looking at, which makes it well suited to prospecting, list-building, and research workflows where a human is browsing and wants to capture what they see. Automations can also be scheduled to run on their own.
Gumloop is a general-purpose AI automation platform. You build workflows on a visual canvas by connecting nodes, where each node does something like fetch a web page, call a language model, transform data, or hit an integration. The result is a reusable pipeline that can be triggered manually, on a schedule, by a webhook, or as part of an agent. Gumloop leans heavily into AI: it supports agents, skills, knowledge sources, image generation, code sandboxes, and its own MCP (Model Context Protocol) server hosting. It is aimed at people who want to design bespoke automations, including non-trivial branching logic and AI reasoning steps, rather than run a fixed set of scraping actions.
Put simply, Bardeen is a focused tool for a well-defined family of tasks centered on web data and GTM, while Gumloop is a flexible builder for constructing whatever automation you can diagram.
Pricing and credits
The two use different credit models, so compare carefully. Bardeen keeps a genuinely free tier: you always get 100 credits per month at no cost, and unused credits expire at the end of each billing period. Paid plans are sold on a slider. The Basic tier starts at $10 per month and adds a monthly credit allotment (starting at +100 credits and scaling up), while the Premium tier starts at $50 per month with a much larger allotment (starting at +1,000 credits per month, or $480 per year for the annual equivalent). Enterprise is custom. Crucially, Bardeen charges by the row of data: each row an action produces costs 1 credit, enrichment rows cost 3 credits, and importing data or using utilities is free. That makes cost easy to estimate for scraping and enrichment jobs, because you are essentially paying per record.
Gumloop changed its packaging in 2026 and no longer offers a permanent free plan; the previous free tier was discontinued. The main plan is Pro at $37 per month, which includes 20,000 credits per month (advertised as 7,400 base plus 12,600 bonus credits), unlimited seats, unlimited teams, five concurrent workflow runs, and features like agents, skills, and one hosted MCP server. Pro comes with a 14-day free trial rather than a standing free plan. The credit allowance scales up a slider for higher monthly spend, and Enterprise is custom-priced with role-based access control, SSO, audit logs, and higher concurrency. Gumloop's credits are consumed per workflow run based on the nodes and AI work involved, so cost tracks the complexity of your pipelines rather than a simple per-row count.
For a rough cost read: Bardeen is cheaper to start and easy to meter for data extraction, while Gumloop's $37 entry point buys a broad, unlimited-seat platform but removes the option of a free ongoing plan.
Ease of use and flexibility
Bardeen is the faster tool to get value from if your task fits its wheelhouse. Because it works from the browser and ships with templates for common scraping targets and GTM actions, a user can often go from install to a working scrape in minutes without designing anything. The trade-off is that you are working within a defined set of actions oriented around web data, enrichment, and outreach. It is not intended as an open-ended workflow canvas.
Gumloop trades some of that immediacy for much greater flexibility. Building a workflow on the canvas takes more upfront effort, and there is a genuine learning curve to connecting nodes, handling data between steps, and reasoning about credit consumption. In return, you can construct multi-step automations that Bardeen would not attempt: complex branching, several AI calls in sequence, agents that make decisions, and integrations wired together in arbitrary shapes. For teams that want to standardize and reuse sophisticated processes, that flexibility is the point. For someone who just needs to pull leads off a page, it is more machinery than the job requires.
Who each tool is for
Bardeen's clear audience is GTM: sales development, revenue operations, recruiting, and research roles that spend their day gathering and enriching web data and pushing it into a CRM. Its security posture (SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, CASA) supports use inside larger organizations, but the product's gravity is squarely around lead sourcing and enrichment.
Gumloop's audience is broader and more builder-oriented: operations, marketing, and technical teams that want a platform to design and run custom AI automations across many use cases, from content workflows to support agents to data analysis. Its unlimited-seat Pro plan and enterprise governance features are aimed at teams standardizing on one automation platform rather than individuals doing a single recurring task.
The verdict
These tools overlap in the abstract but rarely compete for the same specific job, so match the tool to the shape of your work.
Choose Bardeen if your work is scraping web pages and profiles; you need lead enrichment and validated contact data; you want per-row pricing that is easy to predict; you prefer working from the browser on the page in front of you; or you want a real free tier to start.
Choose Gumloop if you want to build multi-step AI workflows and agents on a visual canvas; your automations need branching, several AI steps, or custom integrations; you want an unlimited-seat platform for a whole team; or you value features like agents, MCP hosting, and knowledge sources over point-and-click scraping.
A useful heuristic: if you can describe your task as "scrape this, enrich it, and put it in a sheet or CRM," Bardeen is likely the shorter path. If you find yourself sketching a flowchart with AI decisions in the middle, Gumloop is the platform built for that diagram.