What Is 2Captcha?
2Captcha is an online service that outsources CAPTCHA-solving tasks to a distributed network of human workers. It allows users to submit CAPTCHA challenges through an API and receive the solved results in a short time. The platform supports multiple CAPTCHA formats, including image-based puzzles, text recognition, and interactive challenges like reCAPTCHA and hCaptcha.
While the service is marketed for legitimate automation purposes, it is also widely used for malicious activities. Attackers use it to bypass security measures on websites, enabling large-scale account creation, credential stuffing, spam submissions, and automated scraping of protected content. By making CAPTCHA defenses ineffective, services like 2Captcha can weaken website security, enable bot-driven abuse, and contribute to fraud campaigns.
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Many of 2Captcha’s customers may be operators who use it to bypass security controls for fraud or abuse. Legally, the burden falls on the customer, since they are the ones carrying out the prohibited activity. This separation allows 2Captcha to claim ignorance of a user’s intent, even when its service may directly enable illegitimate activity or attacks.
2Captcha operates as a human-powered CAPTCHA-solving service. When a user encounters a CAPTCHA in an automated workflow, the image or challenge data is sent to 2Captcha’s API. The platform then distributes this task to a global network of workers who manually solve the challenge.
Once a worker completes the CAPTCHA, the result is returned through the API, usually within seconds. This approach works for both simple image CAPTCHAs and more complex ones like reCAPTCHA v2, hCaptcha, or puzzles involving object recognition or logic. For interactive CAPTCHAs such as reCAPTCHA with checkbox or image selection, 2Captcha simulates browser behavior using user data and responses gathered from human solvers.
Clients typically integrate the API into scripts using common languages like Python, PHP, or JavaScript. The service allows control over timeouts, retries, and error handling, giving developers flexibility in managing CAPTCHA resolution within their automation flows.
2Captcha has both legitimate and malicious applications, depending on how the service is used.
Legitimate uses include:
- Accessibility automation: Assisting users with disabilities in navigating CAPTCHA-protected content where no alternatives are provided.
- Testing and QA workflows: Automating CAPTCHA-solving in software testing environments to validate user flows without manual interruption.
- Data access for permitted automation: Scraping or interacting with websites that allow automated access but use CAPTCHA for basic protection.
- Academic and research purposes: Studying CAPTCHA robustness or collecting comparative performance data on CAPTCHA-solving techniques.
- Low-code or no-code automation: Enabling individuals or small businesses to automate repetitive tasks on platforms that include CAPTCHA steps but permit such automation.
Malicious uses include:
- Credential stuffing and brute-force attacks: Automating login attempts across websites by bypassing CAPTCHA rate-limiting.
- Fake account generation: Creating large numbers of user accounts on services that rely solely on CAPTCHA to block bots.
- Web scraping and content theft: Extracting protected content at scale from sites using CAPTCHA as a deterrent.
- Form spam and abuse: Submitting bulk data to forms such as sign-ups, contact forms, or comment sections for spam campaigns.
- Bypassing fraud detection systems: Circumventing anti-abuse mechanisms on platforms like ticketing or e-commerce to enable fraud.
The same infrastructure that supports helpful automation can also be exploited for abuse. The ethical and legal distinction depends on whether the user has authorization to automate the task being performed.
2Captcha supports a range of CAPTCHA types, covering both traditional and modern challenge formats. These include:
- Image CAPTCHAs: Basic challenges that ask users to enter text from distorted or obscured images. These are among the fastest and cheapest to solve due to their simplicity.
- reCAPTCHA v2: This includes both "I'm not a robot" checkbox challenges and image-based tasks like selecting pictures of traffic lights or crosswalks. 2Captcha solves these by returning a valid response token that can be submitted with the form.
- reCAPTCHA v3: A score-based system that assigns a risk score instead of presenting a visual challenge. 2Captcha simulates genuine user behavior to obtain high-trust tokens.
- hCaptcha: Similar to reCAPTCHA, hCaptcha presents users with image selection tasks. 2Captcha handles both checkbox and image modes.
- FunCaptcha (Arkose Labs): A more interactive CAPTCHA involving puzzles like rotating objects to the correct orientation. 2Captcha supports this by solving the visual task or returning the correct position values.
- Geetest: Often used in Asian markets, this CAPTCHA requires dragging a puzzle piece to fit a slot. 2Captcha simulates the necessary mouse movements and provides the expected response.
- Text CAPTCHAs: These require solving logic questions or word recognition tasks and are supported using the service’s manual worker pool.
By covering this variety, 2Captcha enables users to bypass most CAPTCHA mechanisms encountered in real-world automation and scraping projects.
Related content: Read our guide to hCaptcha vs reCAPTCHA.
Pricing for 2Captcha Users
2Captcha uses a tiered pricing model for residential proxy traffic, where the cost per gigabyte decreases as usage volume increases. The base rate starts at $5 per GB for a 1 GB plan, with progressively larger discounts for higher-volume purchases. For example, the 10 GB plan costs $4/GB (20% discount), while the 100 GB plan drops to $2.50/GB (50% discount).
The most substantial savings come with bulk purchases—plans like 3 TB and 10 TB bring the per-GB rate down to $1.67 and $1.40 respectively, offering up to 72% off the base price. This provides a low barrier of entry for hackers and malicious users.
Fees Paid to 2Captcha Workers
2Captcha pays workers based on the type and complexity of the CAPTCHA. Simple CAPTCHAs like image, text, math, or rotate CAPTCHAs offer rates in the range of $0.5 to $1 per 1,000 solves, with solving times averaging around 3 to 5 seconds. This pricing is considered low, and the service’s high margins suggest that it exploits the workers.
More advanced CAPTCHAs like reCAPTCHA v2, hCaptcha (Arkose Labs), and Geetest pay up to $2.99 or $50 per 1,000 solves in rare cases. However, they require longer solve times, typically between 10 to 25 seconds. Enterprise-level CAPTCHAs such as reCAPTCHA Enterprise and FunCaptcha are also associated with higher payouts.
Here are some of the ways that organizations can protect themselves against the malicious use of Captcha bypass or solving tools like 2Captcha.
- Privacy requirements: If your organization operates in a jurisdiction with strict data protection laws (e.g., GDPR or CCPA), hCaptcha’s minimal data sharing and configurable privacy options make it a more transparent and compliant choice.
- User experience goals: For sites prioritizing a frictionless user experience—especially on mobile or low-bandwidth environments—reCAPTCHA v3 offers the least intrusive solution by running silently in the background.
- Accessibility compliance: If your site must meet WCAG or Section 508 accessibility standards, reCAPTCHA generally has more mature support for screen readers and assistive technologies, though it is not perfect.
- Developer ecosystem and platform support: reCAPTCHA has broader support across CMS platforms, frameworks, and mobile environments. Choose it if you rely on robust documentation or plugins and want minimal setup time.
- Customization and control: hCaptcha provides more granular control over challenge types, regional behavior, and risk thresholds. It’s better suited for deployments that require tight control over how CAPTCHA behaves.
- Monetization potential: If you operate a high-traffic site and want to offset operational costs, hCaptcha’s monetization feature provides an opportunity to earn from CAPTCHA interactions.
- Threat model complexity: For websites facing complex or large-scale automated threats, reCAPTCHA benefits from Google’s real-time global threat intelligence, which can offer stronger bot detection in high-risk scenarios.
In most cases, privacy-conscious organizations or those looking for revenue opportunities may favor hCaptcha, while those focused on ease of use, broad support, and seamless UX often lean toward reCAPTCHA. Consider piloting both to evaluate their impact on your users and infrastructure before making a long-term decision.
Protecting Your Website Against Malicious Bots with Radware
Radware offers a range of solutions that protect against malicious bots and thwart CAPTCHA-solver services through deep behavior analysis and mitigation techniques such as Radware Crypto Challenge:
Bot Manager
Radware Bot Manager is a multiple award-winning bot management solution designed to protect web applications, mobile apps, and APIs from the latest AI-powered automated threats. Utilizing advanced techniques such as Radware’s patented Intent-based Deep Behavior Analysis (IDBA), semi-supervised machine learning, device fingerprinting, collective bot intelligence, and user behavior modeling, it ensures precise bot detection with minimal false positives. Its AI-powered correlation engine automatically analyzes threat behavior, shares data throughout security modules and blocks bad source IPs, providing complete visibility into each attack. Bot Manager protects against threats such as ATO (account takeover), DDoS, ad and payment fraud, web scraping, and unauthorized API access. It also ensures seamless website access for legitimate users without relying on CAPTCHAs. It also provides a range of customizable mitigation options including Crypto Challenge that thwarts attacks by exponentially increasing the computing power needed by attackers. With a scalable infrastructure and a detailed dashboard, Radware Bot Manager delivers real-time insights into bot traffic, helping organizations safeguard sensitive data, maintain user trust, and prevent financial fraud.
Alteon Application Delivery Controller (ADC)
Radware’s Alteon Application Delivery Controller (ADC) offers robust, multi-faceted application delivery and security, combining advanced load balancing with integrated Web Application Firewall (WAF) capabilities. Designed to optimize and protect mission-critical applications, Alteon ADC provides comprehensive Layer 4-7 load balancing, SSL offloading, and acceleration for seamless application performance. The integrated WAF defends against a broad range of web threats, including SQL Injection, cross-site scripting, and advanced bot-driven attacks. Alteon ADC further enhances application security through bot management, API protection, and DDoS mitigation, ensuring continuous service availability and data protection. Built for both on-premises and hybrid cloud environments, it also supports containerized and microservices architectures, enabling scalable and flexible deployments that align with modern IT infrastructures.
DefensePro X
Radware's DefensePro X is an advanced DDoS protection solution that provides real-time, automated mitigation against high-volume, encrypted, and zero-day attacks. It leverages behavioral-based detection algorithms to accurately distinguish between legitimate and malicious traffic, enabling proactive defense without manual intervention. The system can autonomously detect and mitigate unknown threats within 18 seconds, ensuring rapid response to evolving cyber threats. With mitigation capacities ranging from 6 Gbps to 800 Gbps, DefensePro X is built for scalability, making it suitable for enterprises and service providers facing massive attack volumes. It protects against IoT-driven botnets, burst attacks, DNS and TLS/SSL floods, and ransom DDoS campaigns. The solution also offers seamless integration with Radware’s Cloud DDoS Protection Service, providing flexible deployment options. Featuring advanced security dashboards for enhanced visibility, DefensePro X ensures comprehensive network protection while minimizing operational overhead.
Cloud DDoS Protection Service
Radware’s Cloud DDoS Protection Service offers advanced, multi-layered defense against Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. It uses sophisticated behavioral algorithms to detect and mitigate threats at both the network (L3/4) and application (L7) layers. This service provides comprehensive protection for infrastructure, including on-premises data centers and public or private clouds. Key features include real-time detection and mitigation of volumetric floods, DNS DDoS attacks, and sophisticated application-layer attacks like HTTP/S floods. Additionally, Radware’s solution offers flexible deployment options, such as on-demand, always-on, or hybrid models, and includes a unified management system for detailed attack analysis and mitigation.