diff --git a/docs/faq.rst b/docs/faq.rst
index 953d28be6..5b1d30ec0 100644
--- a/docs/faq.rst
+++ b/docs/faq.rst
@@ -240,3 +240,8 @@ How can I see the cookies being sent and received from Scrapy?
 
 Enable the :setting:`COOKIES_DEBUG` setting.
 
+How can I manually stop a running spider?
+-----------------------------------------
+
+Raise the :exc:`~scrapy.exceptions.CloseSpider` exception from a callback. For
+more info see: :exc:`~scrapy.exceptions.CloseSpider`.
diff --git a/docs/topics/exceptions.rst b/docs/topics/exceptions.rst
index d75f28fed..8a10ee796 100644
--- a/docs/topics/exceptions.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/exceptions.rst
@@ -22,6 +22,23 @@ DropItem
 The exception that must be raised by item pipeline stages to stop processing an
 Item. For more information see :ref:`topics-item-pipeline`.
 
+CloseSpider
+-----------
+
+.. exception:: CloseSpider(reason='cancelled')
+
+    This exception can be raised from a spider callback to request the spider to be
+    closed/stopped. Supported arguments:
+
+    :param reason: the reason for closing
+    :type reason: str
+
+For example::
+
+    def parse_page(self, response):
+        if 'Bandwidth exceeded' in response.body:
+            raise CloseSpider('bandwidth_exceeded')
+
 IgnoreRequest
 -------------
 
diff --git a/scrapy/core/scraper.py b/scrapy/core/scraper.py
index 0235a21bc..04d54d1a8 100644
--- a/scrapy/core/scraper.py
+++ b/scrapy/core/scraper.py
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ from scrapy.utils.defer import defer_result, defer_succeed, parallel, iter_errba
 from scrapy.utils.spider import iterate_spider_output
 from scrapy.utils.misc import load_object
 from scrapy.utils.signal import send_catch_log, send_catch_log_deferred
-from scrapy.exceptions import IgnoreRequest, DropItem
+from scrapy.exceptions import CloseSpider, IgnoreRequest, DropItem
 from scrapy import signals
 from scrapy.http import Request, Response
 from scrapy.item import BaseItem
@@ -143,6 +143,10 @@ class Scraper(object):
         return dfd.addCallback(iterate_spider_output)
 
     def handle_spider_error(self, _failure, request, response, spider, propagated_failure=None):
+        exc = _failure.value
+        if isinstance(exc, CloseSpider):
+            self.engine.close_spider(spider, exc.reason or 'cancelled')
+            return
         referer = request.headers.get('Referer', None)
         msg = "Spider error processing <%s> (referer: <%s>)" % \
             (request.url, referer)
diff --git a/scrapy/exceptions.py b/scrapy/exceptions.py
index e52dafc6d..43e142160 100644
--- a/scrapy/exceptions.py
+++ b/scrapy/exceptions.py
@@ -20,6 +20,12 @@ class DontCloseSpider(Exception):
     """Request the spider not to be closed yet"""
     pass
 
+class CloseSpider(Exception):
+    """Raise this from callbacks to request the spider to be closed"""
+
+    def __init__(self, reason='cancelled'):
+        self.reason = reason
+
 # Items
 
 class DropItem(Exception):