Firecrawl

What it is for

Firecrawl is a hosted scrape / search / crawl API: the signed-out playground (see the cover: Search / Scrape / Parse / Map / Crawl, query, Start searching, Results) turns a URL or query into markdown or JSON. Use it when the job is clean page contents for an agent, not when you need neural web ranking.

The scrape engine is open source. Firecrawl Cloud is the hosted SKU. Free is 1,000 credits/month. Hobby is the first public paid card.

What makes it unique: the cover is the live firecrawl.dev/playground with a real Results list — not an OG flame logo.

Key features

• Playground — Search / Scrape / Parse / Map / Crawl plus Get code (cover).
• Credits — 1 credit ≈ 1 basic page; Search is 2 credits / 10 results; Interact is 2 credits / browser minute.
• JSON / Question / Highlight — add 4 credits per page on Scrape/Crawl.
• OSS repo — self-host the crawler; Cloud is the billed path.
• PAYG on paid plans — extra credits in $5 increments when you run out.

Who it's for

Best fit: developers who need markdown from a URL and will stay on Cloud or self-host.

Poor fit: teams that want ranked neural search (Exa) or a hosted browser session grid (Browserbase).

Pricing

Verified 2026-10-21 (Asia/Shanghai) from firecrawl.dev/pricing (effective 2026-09-04, USD). Cards on that page show annual list; Hobby monthly is printed in the FAQ. Re-check before you buy.

• Free — $0. 1,000 credits/month. 2 concurrent browsers. No card. No PAYG.
• Hobby — $16 / month billed annually or $19 / month billed monthly. 5,000 credits (2,500 searches or 5,000 pages). 5 concurrent. Extra 1,000 credits / $5.
• Standard — $83 / month billed annually. 100,000 credits. 25 concurrent. Extra 2,000 / $5.
• Growth — $333 / month billed annually. 500,000 credits. 50 concurrent. Extra 2,500 / $5.
• Scale — $599 / month billed yearly. 1,000,000 credits. 100 concurrent. 1-month credit rollover.
• Enterprise — custom.

A scrape that returns no result is free. A 403/404 page that is returned still costs 1 credit.

Limitations / costs

• Hobby/Standard/Growth credits do not roll over. Only Scale/Enterprise carry unused credits.
• Free has no PAYG. Requests 402 when the 1,000 run out.
• Advanced formats cost extra. JSON/Question/Highlight add 4 credits/page.
• Self-host is your ops. Cloud dollars do not apply to a local container.

Alternatives

• Tavily — search/extract credits aimed at agents.
• Exa — neural search + contents, not a crawler.
• Browserbase — hosted browsers you drive, not markdown-out.

Official tutorial

Official Firecrawl channel video: Firecrawl Scrape: Extract Structured JSON From Any URL.

Written path: Playground plus Pricing.

Website

https://www.firecrawl.dev

Source

Catalog row is curated (2026-10-21). Cover is the live Firecrawl playground (Search + Results), not a flame poster. Dollars checked on firecrawl.dev/pricing (Free 1,000; Hobby $16 annual / $19 monthly). Tutorial: Firecrawl Scrape on @Firecrawl_dev. GitHub: https://github.com/firecrawl/firecrawl

Last verified

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