Pick Apify if
teams who will burn the Free $5 prepaid usage on a Store Actor or a Crawlee job, then buy Starter at $19/month ($17 billed annually) when they need chat support and 32 concurrent runs.
Read the Apify pageApify vs Firecrawl
Our take
Pick Apify if teams who will burn the Free $5 prepaid usage on a Store Actor or a Crawlee job, then buy Starter at $19/month ($17 billed annually) when they need chat support and 32 concurrent runs. Pick Firecrawl if developers who need markdown from a URL and will stay on Cloud or self-host. Skip Firecrawl if teams that want ranked neural search (Exa) or a hosted browser session grid (Browserbase).
Best for
Apify Scrapes, browsers, and published Actors metered in prepaid usage
Firecrawl Clean page contents for an agent
Free plan
Apify $0 · $5 prepaid usage / month. No card. $0.2/CU. 16 GB max RAM. 5 concurrent runs. Community support. No Store discount. When prepaid is gone, the account blocks until next cycle
Firecrawl $0 · 1,000 credits/month. 2 concurrent browsers. No card. No PAYG
Lowest paid
Apify Creator $1/mo
Firecrawl Hobby $16, monthly only
Next step up
Apify Proxy (list) $8
Firecrawl Standard $83/mo yearly
Runs where
Apify Hosted
Firecrawl Local or hosted
Watch out
Apify Free blocks when the $5 is gone
Firecrawl Hobby/Standard/Growth credits do not roll over
Last checked
Apify 2026-10-22 · apify.com/pricing
Firecrawl 2026-10-21 · firecrawl.dev/pricing
Which one, then?
Pick Firecrawl if
developers who need markdown from a URL and will stay on Cloud or self-host.
Read the Firecrawl page