By use case · Firecrawl vs ScraperAPI

Firecrawl vs ScraperAPI pricing and cost per 1,000 rendered and plain HTML pages

The short answer

ScraperAPI is cheaper for plain HTML and Firecrawl is cheaper for JavaScript pages. A server-rendered page costs 1 ScraperAPI credit, $0.15 per 1,000 on the $149 Startup plan, against $0.83 on Firecrawl Standard billed yearly. Turn on rendering and ScraperAPI charges 10 credits a page, $1.49 per 1,000 on the same plan, while Firecrawl still charges 1 credit because it renders every page anyway. ScraperAPI wins on defended targets, with documented Cloudflare, DataDome and PerimeterX bypasses and fixed rates for Amazon, Google and LinkedIn. Firecrawl wins on output, with markdown and schema JSON built for a model. If the deliverable is typed records from whole public sites, ClawEngine crawls and extracts them from $99 a month for about 250,000 pages.

Clean markdown & JSON · JavaScript rendered · robots.txt respected

Extraction demo

Endpoint: POST /v1/extract · paste a URL, or pick a sample below

POST

Try:

Hit Extract to turn this page into clean, LLM-ready data.

robots.txt respected · public data only ·

Markdown · JSON · structured fields, from one API call. Crawling, rendering and extracting ... Samples are recorded. Your own URL is crawled live.

Firecrawl and ScraperAPI land on the same shortlist because both take a URL and hand back the page, and both now say they serve AI teams. They started from opposite ends. ScraperAPI is proxy infrastructure with an API on top: it rotates IPs, retries, renders when you ask it to and returns the HTML, with markdown and plain text added as output formats and a crawler that launched in January 2026. Firecrawl is a crawler built for language models: it renders every page, strips the navigation and returns markdown, or JSON against a schema, and it walks whole sites with crawl and map endpoints.

The price lists follow the same split. ScraperAPI sells large credit buckets and multiplies them by what the request needs, so plain HTML is very cheap and a rendered page behind premium proxies costs 25 times as much. Firecrawl sells smaller buckets at one credit a page with rendering included, and the multiplier only appears when you ask for typed JSON. Every figure on this page was read on 15 October 2026 from the pricing pages and documentation both vendors publish, not from a review aggregator, and the four workloads below are priced from those figures alone.

For the full ladder on either side, see our Firecrawl pricing breakdown and the ScraperAPI pricing guide with the credit multipliers. If ScraperAPI is on the shortlist against another HTML API, ScrapingBee vs ScraperAPI prices that pair on the same $49 plan, and ScraperAPI alternatives and Firecrawl alternatives list the rest of the field.

Data engineer comparing two scraping API invoices next to a laptop with a request volume chart

CRAWL RENDER JS EXTRACT MARKDOWN JSON

Any URL in LLM-ready data out

robots.txt respected public data only

Why it works

Three questions that settle Firecrawl vs ScraperAPI

Do your target pages need a browser?

This one question decides most of the bill. If the pages arrive as finished HTML, ScraperAPI is five to eight times cheaper per page, $0.10 to $0.15 per 1,000 on its middle plans against $0.60 to $0.83 on Firecrawl. If they are built in the browser, ScraperAPI multiplies by 10 and Firecrawl does not, so the order flips and Firecrawl is cheaper at every tier.

Are the targets defended?

ScraperAPI publishes what a defended page costs: 25 credits with premium proxies and rendering, 75 at the ultra premium ceiling, plus 10 to clear Cloudflare, DataDome or PerimeterX. That is expensive but forecastable, and it is the reason teams scraping retail and search results pick it. Firecrawl publishes no bypass rate, so test your real targets before you commit.

Who turns the page into data?

ScraperAPI returns HTML, or markdown if you ask, and its schema parser is still in closed beta, so for most sites the cleaning and structuring step stays yours. Firecrawl returns JSON against your schema for 5 credits a page. If a model consumes the output, price that step on both sides before you compare the page counts.

What it handles

Any URL in, clean structured data out

Point ClawEngine at a public page and it crawls, renders the JavaScript and extracts clean markdown or typed JSON in one call. Define a schema for structured fields, and respect robots.txt and Terms of Service by default.

Compares prices read firsthand from both vendors
Shows why rendering flips which one is cheaper
Prices four real workloads on each vendor
Lists the defended-site and named-domain rates
Compares failed-request and overage rules
States plainly where ClawEngine loses

POST /v1/extract extraction result

200 · JSON

{
  "url": "https://example.com/products/atlas",
  "title": "Atlas Field Notebook",
  "markdown": "# Atlas Field Notebook\n\nDurable...",
  "data": {
    "name": "Atlas Field Notebook",
    "price": 24.00,
    "currency": "USD",
    "rating": 4.7
  },
  "links": [ "/products", "/cart" ],
  "metadata": { "rendered": true }
}

JS rendered · boilerplate stripped ✓ robots.txt respected

Head to head

Firecrawl vs ScraperAPI side by side

Every Firecrawl and ScraperAPI figure below was read from the vendor pricing page or documentation on 15 October 2026. ClawEngine is the third column, and it loses the defended-site row outright.

Swipe to compare all columns →

What you are comparing	Firecrawl	ScraperAPI	ClawEngine
What it is	Scrape, crawl, map and search API that turns sites into markdown or JSON, open source under AGPL	Proxy-backed scraping API with rendering, structured endpoints for big sites and a crawler, proprietary	One API that crawls, renders JavaScript and extracts typed fields in a single call
What the meter counts	Credits on a monthly plan. 1 per page with rendering included	Credits on a monthly plan, multiplied by proxy type, rendering and target domain	Pages on a monthly plan. One page of allowance per page returned
Entry price	Hobby $19/mo, or $16 billed yearly, for 5,000 credits	Hobby $49/mo for 100,000 credits, 10 percent off billed yearly	$49/mo Hobby ($24/mo billed yearly)
Free usage	1,000 credits a month	A 7-day trial with 5,000 credits, no card required	No free plan
Cost per 1,000 plain HTML pages	$0.83 on Standard yearly, $0.60 on Scale yearly	$0.49 on Hobby, $0.15 on Startup, $0.10 on Business	$0.98 on Hobby, $0.40 on Startup, $0.27 on Scale
Cost per 1,000 JavaScript-rendered pages	The same $0.83 or $0.60. Rendering is not billed extra	10 credits a page. $4.90 on Hobby, $1.49 on Startup, $1.00 on Business, $0.92 on Advanced	The same per-page price. Rendering is not billed extra
Defended sites	No published bypass rate. The price list shows no surcharge for its enhanced proxy	Premium plus render 25 credits, ultra premium plus render 75, and clearing Cloudflare, DataDome or PerimeterX adds 10	Not supported. We do not defeat anti-bot systems
Big named targets	Billed as ordinary pages	Fixed rates: Amazon, Walmart and eBay 5 credits, Google and Bing 25, LinkedIn 30	Billed as ordinary pages where the site permits it
Output	Markdown, HTML, links, screenshots, and JSON against your schema	HTML by default, markdown or text for any URL, JSON or CSV only for supported domains with autoparse	Markdown or typed JSON against your schema
Typed output against your schema	JSON format adds 4 credits, 5 per page, about $4.15 per 1,000 on Standard yearly	AI Parser with schema definitions, in closed beta. Otherwise you run your own model on the markdown	From Startup, up to 900 model-mapped pages a month, 3,500 on Scale. Pages with schema.org data are mapped without the model
Whole-site crawl	Yes. Crawl and map endpoints at 1 credit a page	Yes. Crawler 2.0 from a seed URL, stopped by a depth limit or a credit budget. Depth 1 on the free plan	Yes, from a start URL with a page limit you set
Concurrency	5, 25, 50 and 100 on Hobby, Standard, Growth and Scale	20, 50, 100, 200, 300 and 500 threads from Hobby to Advanced	Managed for you per crawl job
What a failed request costs	A scrape with no result is free. A 403 or 404 page still costs 1 credit	Only 200 and 404 responses are billed	A page we could not process is not counted against the allowance
When the allowance runs out	Extra credit packs on paid plans	Credits do not roll over, and pay-as-you-go is only on Scaling and above	A fixed monthly page allowance
Best for	Known sites and docs turned into clean markdown or JSON for a model	High volumes of plain HTML and hard, defended targets	Typed records from whole public sites at a flat per-page price

US list prices in USD. Firecrawl monthly billing is $19, $99, $399 and $749 for Hobby, Standard, Growth and Scale, with 5,000, 100,000, 500,000 and 1,000,000 credits. ScraperAPI monthly billing is $49, $149, $299, $475, $975 and $1,975 for 100,000, 1,000,000, 3,000,000, 5,000,000, 10,500,000 and 21,500,000 credits.

Why ClawEngine

One API that crawls, renders and extracts

Not a raw HTML dump, not a headless browser fleet to run, and not a brittle parser to maintain. One call crawls a public page, renders its JavaScript and returns clean markdown or typed JSON, built for RAG pipelines and AI agents.

LLM-ready output

Clean markdown or typed JSON with the boilerplate stripped, so the data drops straight into a vector store, a prompt or an agent without a cleanup step.

JavaScript rendered

Each page loads in a real browser environment before extraction, so single-page apps and client-rendered content come back complete, not as an empty shell.

Compliance-first

ClawEngine works on public, permitted data only. It respects robots.txt and site Terms of Service and honors crawl-delay, so responsible scraping is the default.

Code examples

The typed-records half of this job in one request

When the targets are public sites that do not fight back, there is no proxy tier to pick and no multiplier to budget. One call crawls from the start URL, renders JavaScript, respects robots.txt and returns one typed record per page.

curl Crawl a catalog section and return typed records per page

curl https://clawengine.ai/v1/crawl \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $CLAWENGINE_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "url": "https://www.example.com/products",
    "limit": 50,
    "render": true,
    "format": "structured",
    "schema": {
      "product_name": "string",
      "price": "string",
      "availability": "string",
      "sku": "string"
    }
  }'

# The POST answers 202 with the crawl id. Read the pages when it completes:
curl https://clawengine.ai/v1/crawl/<id> \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $CLAWENGINE_API_KEY"

# No proxy tier, no render multiplier, one record per page in your schema.

Firecrawl vs ScraperAPI, the questions buyers ask

Is Firecrawl better than ScraperAPI?

For AI pipelines that read known sites, usually yes. Firecrawl renders every page at 1 credit, returns clean markdown or schema JSON and crawls whole domains, which is the work an LLM team would otherwise build. For plain HTML at volume and for defended targets, no. ScraperAPI is several times cheaper per plain page and publishes bypass rates for Cloudflare, DataDome and PerimeterX that Firecrawl does not.

Is ScraperAPI cheaper than Firecrawl?

For plain HTML, yes, by a wide margin: $0.15 per 1,000 pages on the $149 Startup plan against $0.83 on Firecrawl Standard billed yearly. For JavaScript pages, no. ScraperAPI charges 10 credits a rendered page, $1.49 per 1,000 on Startup, while Firecrawl stays at $0.83 because rendering is included. Count how many of your targets need a browser before you compare plans.

What is the difference between Firecrawl and ScraperAPI?

ScraperAPI is proxy infrastructure that fetches pages for you and returns them, mostly as HTML. Firecrawl is a crawler built for language models that renders pages and returns markdown or JSON. ScraperAPI is stronger on blocked sites and named targets like Amazon and Google. Firecrawl is stronger on clean output and whole-site crawling. Their price lists follow from that difference.

Does ScraperAPI return markdown?

Yes. ScraperAPI accepts output_format set to markdown or text for any URL, and its credits page lists output_format among the parameters with no extra cost. JSON and CSV output are available only for the domains its autoparse feature supports. The markdown is a conversion of the fetched page, so test it on your own targets before you drop a cleaning step from your pipeline.

Can ScraperAPI crawl a whole website like Firecrawl?

Yes, since January 2026. ScraperAPI Crawler 2.0 starts from one seed URL, follows links by your rules and stops at a depth limit or a credit budget, with failed requests not consuming credits. On the free plan the depth is limited to 1, the seed URL and its direct links, and scheduled crawls need a paid plan. Firecrawl offers crawl and map endpoints at 1 credit a page.

How much does ScraperAPI cost?

ScraperAPI has six self-serve plans: Hobby $49 for 100,000 credits, Startup $149 for 1,000,000, Business $299 for 3,000,000, Scaling $475 for 5,000,000, Professional $975 for 10,500,000 and Advanced $1,975 for 21,500,000, all 10 percent cheaper billed yearly. A plain page is 1 credit, a rendered page 10, premium with render 25 and ultra premium with render 75.

How much does Firecrawl cost?

Firecrawl has a free tier of 1,000 credits a month, then Hobby at $16 a month for 5,000 credits, Standard at $83 for 100,000, Growth at $333 for 500,000 and Scale at $599 for 1,000,000 on yearly billing, or $19, $99, $399 and $749 billed monthly. A page is 1 credit with rendering included, and JSON output adds 4.

Which is better for scraping Amazon or Google, Firecrawl or ScraperAPI?

ScraperAPI. It publishes fixed rates for these targets, 5 credits for Amazon, Walmart and eBay and 25 for Google and Bing, and offers structured endpoints that return parsed JSON for them. Firecrawl bills them as ordinary pages but does not document how it handles their defenses. For retail and search result data at volume, ScraperAPI is the more predictable buy.

Is there an alternative to Firecrawl and ScraperAPI for typed data?

If the output you need is typed records from whole public sites, ClawEngine crawls, renders JavaScript and extracts to your schema in one call at a flat per-page price from $99 a month, with up to 900 model-mapped pages on Startup. It does not defeat anti-bot systems, so for defended targets ScraperAPI is still the honest answer.

Good questions

Questions about Firecrawl vs ScraperAPI

On ScraperAPI it is exactly the Hobby plan, 100,000 credits for $49 a month or $44.10 billed yearly. On Firecrawl it is the Standard plan, $83 a month billed yearly or $99 monthly. ScraperAPI is cheaper by roughly half here, and the gap widens with volume: one million plain pages is $149 on ScraperAPI Startup and $599 to $749 on Firecrawl Scale.

Firecrawl does not change, Standard at $83 billed yearly or $99 monthly, because every page is rendered at 1 credit. ScraperAPI needs 1,000,000 credits at 10 a page, which is the Startup plan at $149 a month or $134.10 billed yearly. Firecrawl is cheaper by about $50 to $65 a month on this workload.

At 25 credits a page that is 2,500,000 credits, which fits the Business plan at $299 a month for 3,000,000. If the targets also need the Cloudflare or DataDome bypass, add 10 credits a page and you need 3,500,000, which is the Scaling plan at $475. Firecrawl bills these pages at 1 credit if it can fetch them, so the real test is the success rate on your own targets.

Firecrawl JSON output is 5 credits a page, 100,000 credits, which is Standard at $83 billed yearly or $99 monthly. ScraperAPI returns typed JSON only for the domains autoparse supports, and its schema parser is in closed beta, so for other sites you pay for markdown on Hobby at $49 and run your own model on top. ClawEngine maps up to 900 pages a month with the model on Startup and 3,500 on Scale, and pages that publish schema.org data sit outside that cap.

Read every web scraping question

Explore more

More ways to turn the web into data with ClawEngine

See every use case See pricing Back to the web scraping API

Stop wrangling raw HTML. Get LLM-ready data.

Point ClawEngine at a public page and one call crawls, renders the JavaScript and extracts clean markdown or typed JSON, ready for your RAG pipeline or AI agent. Public, permitted data only.

See pricing

Crawl · render JS · extract markdown & JSON · robots.txt respected, public data only