Firecrawl vs Linkup (2026): which should you pick?

Pick Firecrawl if

• Fits if you feed web pages into an LLM and want Markdown back
• Works for people happy to self-host the open-source core

Look elsewhere if

• Tight if you stay free: 1,000 credits, 2 concurrent requests and low rate limits
• Watch out: JSON, Question and Highlight formats add 4 credits a page
• Watch out: Agent, Browser and the managed dashboards are Cloud only, not in the open-source version
• Pricey if you scale: $83 for 100,000 credits and $333 for 500,000, and pay-as-you-go is for paid plans only

Pick Linkup if

• Fits if an agent needs web search with sources attached
• Works for people who would rather pay per call than per month

Look elsewhere if

• Not for you if you want a fixed monthly bill, since spend follows usage
• Skip it if you have no work email, as the free credit asks for a professional one
• Watch out: zero data retention and the private environment are Enterprise only
• Watch out: the page says 4,000 free queries while the docs call it $20 of credit

Firecrawl

• Per-page cost rises with format: JSON, Question and Highlight formats add 4 credits per page on Scrape and Crawl.
• The docs say Agent, Browser, managed dashboards, enhanced proxy paths and enterprise controls are Cloud-only.
• Pay-as-you-go (credits added in $5 steps up to a monthly limit you set) is for paid plans only.
• A page that returns an error status such as 403 or 404 still costs 1 credit.

Linkup

• There is no monthly plan: each successful call draws down a prepaid balance, so spend follows usage.
• The pricing page says 'Run 4,000 queries for free'; the docs describe it as $20 of credit, which covers 4,000 searches at $0.005.
• Zero-data retention is offered only on the Enterprise plan; SOC 2 Type II is stated to be on all plans.
• It is a general web search API, not an SEO tool: it has no rank tracking or keyword data.

Firecrawl

Search with page content

Searches the web and returns full page content from the results, not only links. Costs 2 credits per 10 results.

Scrape to Markdown or JSON

Turns a URL into Markdown, structured JSON, screenshots or other formats. A basic scrape costs 1 credit per page.

Crawl and map

Crawl follows a site page by page at 1 credit per page. Map lists a site's URLs for 1 credit per call.

Interact

Scrapes a page, then clicks, fills forms or navigates it from AI prompts or code, at 2 credits per browser minute.

Open-source core

The core scrape, crawl, map and search APIs can be self-hosted with Docker Compose, per the docs.

SDKs and shared credits

Python, Node.js, cURL and CLI examples are shown. One credit balance is shared across all endpoints.

Linkup

Search endpoint

Web search for agent tool calls. Flash, fast and standard depths cost $0.005 a call and deep costs $0.05 for raw results.

Sourced answers and structured output

The search endpoint can return a sourced answer or output shaped to a schema, at $0.001 to $0.005 more than raw results.

Fetch endpoint

Gets a URL's content as Markdown, from $0.001 per call without JavaScript rendering up to $0.01 with pro mode and rendering.

Research endpoint

Asynchronous deep research billed by reasoning depth: $0.25 for S, $0.50 for M, $1.50 for L and $2.50 for XL.

Agent integrations

Docs cover an MCP server and guides for LangChain, LlamaIndex, CrewAI, the Vercel AI SDK and Composio.

Firecrawl

• Free$0

  1,000 credits a month (500 searches or 1,000 pages scraped), 2 concurrent requests.

• Hobby$16

  per month for 5,000 credits, billed annually ($19 billed monthly)

  5 concurrent requests, basic support, and extra credits at 1,000 per $5.

• Standard$83

  per month for 100,000 credits, billed annually ($99 billed monthly)

  25 concurrent requests, standard support, extra credits at 2,000 per $5.

• Growth$333

  per month for 500,000 credits, billed annually ($399 billed monthly)

  50 concurrent requests, priority support, extra credits at 2,500 per $5.

• Scale$599

  per month for 1,000,000 credits, billed annually ($749 billed monthly)

  100 concurrent requests, priority support, extra credits at 5,000 per $5.

• EnterpriseCustom

  Custom credits and concurrency, dedicated support and SLA, SSO, zero-data retention.

Linkup

• Free credit$0

  $20 of credit on sign-up with a professional email; docs say eligible accounts are topped back up to $20 monthly.

• EnterpriseCustom

  Custom pricing, private environment, SOC 2 Type II, zero-data retention, SLA and dedicated support.

Firecrawl

• Annual discount

  Annual billing saves about 2 months

  Annual prices are lower than monthly (Standard $83 against $99 a month); the homepage banner says 2 months free when billed annually.

Linkup

• Startups

  $5,000 in free credits for startups

  The pricing page invites startups to apply for $5,000 in free credits.