Browserbase

What it is for

Browserbase is hosted browser infrastructure for agents: the official docs still (see the cover: Dashboard API-key table + Get your API key / Install Playwright) is the getting-started surface. Use it when the job is spin a remote Playwright/Puppeteer session, not when you need markdown-out scrape credits.

It is not open source as a product. Stagehand (the Browserbase AI SDK) is a related open toolkit. Free is $0/mo. Developer is the first public paid card.

What makes it unique: the cover is Browserbase’s own docs with a real Dashboard sessions table — not a wordmark.

Key features

• Cloud browsers — Playwright, Puppeteer, Selenium, or Stagehand against a remote session (docs).
• Dashboard — API keys, sessions, and observability in the chrome the docs embed (cover).
• Search / Fetch APIs — included call buckets, then per-1k overage on paid cards.
• Identity — captcha solving starts on Developer; Scale adds Verified Agents.
• Model Gateway — one Browserbase key for major models via Stagehand (FAQ).

Who it's for

Best fit: teams that need a fleet of headless browsers and will pay for concurrent sessions.

Poor fit: people who only want URL → markdown (Firecrawl) or a search-credit API (Tavily).

Pricing

Verified 2026-10-21 (Asia/Shanghai) from browserbase.com/pricing. Plans scale past included usage at the plan’s rate. Re-check before you buy.

• Free — $0/mo. 3 concurrent browsers; 1 browser hour; 3 Agent runs; 1,000 Search; 1,000 Fetch; 15 minutes/session; $5 in model tokens.
• Developer — $20/mo. 25 concurrent; 100 browser hours then $0.12/browser hr; 15 Agent runs; 1,000 Search then $5/1k (other search rows on the table); 1,000 Fetch then $1/1k; 1 GB proxies then $12/GB; captcha solving.
• Startup — $99/mo. 100 concurrent; 500 browser hours then $0.10/hr; 50 Agent runs; 10,000 Fetch then $0.5/1k; 5 GB proxies then $10/GB.
• Scale — custom (250+ concurrent; HIPAA/BAA, SSO).

Do not invent a per-page scrape dollar. A typical scrape is “under 2 minutes” on the FAQ — that is not a published task price.

Limitations / costs

• Free is 1 browser hour. That is a prototype bucket, not a crawl farm.
• Overage is real. Developer browser hours after 100 are $0.12/hr.
• Not a markdown crawler. For page contents as JSON/MD, see Firecrawl.
• No public on-prem SKU on the FAQ we copied.

Alternatives

• Firecrawl — scrape/crawl playground billed in page credits.
• Tavily — search/extract credits for agents.
• Exa — neural search + contents; not a browser grid.

Official tutorial

Written path: Getting started (Playground → Run) plus Pricing. We did not confirm an official Browserbase-channel Getting started YouTube id for embed (partner/third-party walkthroughs exist).

Website

https://www.browserbase.com

Source

Catalog row is curated (2026-10-21). Cover is the official docs Dashboard still (API keys table + Get your API key), not a homepage poster. Dollars checked on browserbase.com/pricing (Free $0; Developer $20; Startup $99). No official Getting started YouTube confirmed for embed.

Last verified

2026-10-21 (Asia/Shanghai) editorial check.