Captcha Solvers and Harvesters Explained

Captchas are the tests stores put in front of checkouts and queues to tell people from bots. Bot users deal with them in two ways: a harvester built into the bot, or a paid solving service that returns solved captchas for a small fee per solve. This guide explains the common captcha types, what harvesters and solving services are, what the services charge as listed today, and the risks to your accounts and money.

This is an explainer, not a setup guide. We don't cover how to configure solvers or get past any store's protection.

The captchas you'll run into#

Common captcha systems on retail sites include:

• Google reCAPTCHA v2 shows the familiar "I'm not a robot" checkbox, and may follow it with a picture challenge. An invisible version has no checkbox and, by default, challenges only the most suspicious traffic, according to Google's reCAPTCHA docs.
• Google reCAPTCHA v3 shows nothing at all. It scores each visit in the background and leaves it to the site to decide what happens to low scores, such as extra checks or a block.
• hCaptcha works much like reCAPTCHA v2, with a checkbox and picture challenges. Its invisible mode only shows a challenge when a visitor meets its criteria, and its Enterprise customers can run a passive mode based on a risk score.
• Cloudflare Turnstile is Cloudflare's alternative to a puzzle. It runs checks in the browser and adjusts difficulty to each visitor, and in its managed mode may show a checkbox to visitors it sees as higher risk.

The trend is away from puzzles and toward background scoring. That matters for bots: a captcha you never see can still decide whether a checkout goes through. Our guide to sneaker sites and their protection covers how this fits with queues and other anti-bot systems.

What a harvester is#

A harvester is a browser window inside the bot where captchas get solved, so the bot's tasks can carry on to checkout. Depending on the bot, you solve captchas in it by hand, or a solver the bot supports does the work.

Many harvesters are signed into a Google account. Stellar AIO's guide, for example, describes captcha solvers that sign into Gmail accounts and solve captchas on sites such as Walmart, GameStop and Shopify stores. Our guide to how sneaker bots work shows where this step fits in a drop.

Harvesters and paid services aren't either/or. Bot users have long used both, and the mix tends to vary with the store and the bot.

Paid solving services#

Solving services take captchas sent by your bot and return an answer, or a token the site accepts, through an API. They charge per 1,000 solves, and the price depends on the captcha type. Here's what three well-known services list, in US dollars, as of October 2026, in alphabetical order:

Sources: 2Captcha pricing, CapSolver pricing and Anti-Captcha. None of the three lists hCaptcha on the pricing pages we read. Ranges depend on things like daily volume (Anti-Captcha) or the reCAPTCHA v3 score you need.

Where AI solvers fit#

Some services use people to solve captchas, some use AI, and some use both. CapSolver describes itself as AI-powered, 2Captcha says AI handles most tasks and passes the rest to human workers, and Anti-Captcha says its captchas are solved by people. Some bots also build solvers in.

For a buyer, the practical differences are price and how well a service keeps up with each captcha type. The services make their own claims about speed and accuracy; we haven't tested them, and results change as captcha providers update.

What captchas add to your setup budget#

There's no fixed number of solves per drop. A manual checkout may hit no captcha at all, or a few. An automated setup can hit far more, because every task and account can face its own challenge, and how many depends on the store, the traffic and its protection. Captcha solving is usually a small line next to the bot license and proxies: at $2.99 per 1,000 solves, the top of the reCAPTCHA v2 range above, every 100 solves costs about 30 cents. Costs grow with the number of tasks you run and the captcha type, and they recur every drop.

Two things to know before you buy credits:

• Balances are prepaid and often non-refundable. CapSolver's terms say it doesn't offer refunds in any form, and 2Captcha's let it withhold refunds when its terms are broken.
• Harvesters cost time and accounts, not credits. Solving by hand is free but slow during a busy drop.

Our guide to what a bot setup costs adds captchas to the full budget.

The risks#

Store terms. Retailers ban automated tools. Nike's terms of use bar automated technology Nike hasn't approved, and Target's ban automated tools and unapproved buying agents. Both let the store close accounts, and Target's let it cancel orders. Using a solver doesn't change the fact that the checkout is automated.

The solving service's own terms. 2Captcha and CapSolver both require customers to use them legally and can suspend accounts at their discretion. CapSolver's terms specifically prohibit creating fake accounts and automatic ticket buying.

Your Google account. Signing a Google account into a bot means trusting that software with the account. Google's terms say you're responsible for what you do with your Google Account, and Google can suspend or delete accounts for serious or repeated violations. Never sign in with your main account, the one that holds your email, saved payments and the recovery for other accounts.

Payment exposure. Buy credits only on the service's own site, and be wary of browser extensions, resold API keys or "cheap credit" offers from strangers: prepaid balances are hard to get back if something goes wrong. Our guide to bot and cook group scams covers the warning signs.

Captcha tools on OOSClub#

OOSClub lists captcha solvers and other bot tools with their prices as listed by the seller and the date we checked them. Browse them on the tools hub.