Firecrawl vs Olostep (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Firecrawl and Olostep share a 2.6 GPA, and only Firecrawl has a free plan.
Checked Nov 12, 2026 · graded Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA
Firecrawl grades higher on features. Olostep grades higher on value for money. They get the same grade on the free plan, ease of use and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Firecrawl
Web search, scrape and crawl API that returns LLM-ready data
Olostep
Scrape, crawl and search API that returns clean web data
Which one is for you
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 Olostep if
- Fits if you need to scrape lots of URLs in batches cheaply
- Works for people testing a scraper before committing
Look elsewhere if
- Tight if you stay free: the trial is 500 requests, once
- Watch out: AI browser automations are listed from Scale at $399 a month
- Watch out: only monthly prices are shown and no yearly discount is listed
- Pricey if you grow: Growth is $1,100 a month and the top tier $3,500, through sales
How we grade them
| 2.6GPAFirecrawlGood | 2.6GPAOlostepGood | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | B$16 a month on yearly billing for 5,000 credits, inside the cheapest quarter of this category ($19). Standard jumps to $83 for 100,000. | A$9 a month for 5,000 requests, under 60% of the cheapest quarter of this category ($19). The 200,000-request Standard plan is $99. |
| Free plan and trial | CA free plan with 1,000 credits a month and no card, but only 2 concurrent requests and low rate limits. | CA trial of 500 successful requests with no card, but it is not a monthly allowance and the page does not say it refills. |
| Features | BSearch, scrape, crawl, map and interact, with SDKs and an open-source core. Nothing in the listing shows a gap in the core scraping job. | CScrape, crawl, map, batches, search and answer endpoints and people search. AI browser automations start at Scale. |
| Ease of use | CNo store rating on record. It is a developer API, with keys and code to set up. | CNo store rating on record. It is an API, with keys and code to write. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb only, but it plugs into LangChain, Claude, ChatGPT and Ollama and has SDKs. | BWeb only, but it lists Claude Desktop, Cursor, n8n, LangChain and Slack. |
| Best for | turning web pages into clean text for AI apps | scraping and crawling web pages in large batches |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Firecrawl and Olostep. How we grade
Price against what you get
Firecrawl starts at $16 a month and scores 2.7 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. Olostep starts at $9 a month and scores 2.3.
Firecrawl scores higher, and starts $7 a month higher: the question is whether the extra is worth that to you. Of the other SERP and SEO data APIs on the chart, none scores higher than Firecrawl for less, and 1 scores higher than Olostep for less.
Features, ease of use and platforms, averaged
What paid plans start at, a month (each step along is roughly double) →
- The best score at each price
- Has a free plan
- No free plan
Where they differ
- Firecrawl is open source and self-hostable, according to its own site.
- Olostep also covers AI search.
At a glance
| Firecrawl | Olostep | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free trial |
| Starts at | $16 per month for 5,000 credits, billed annually ($19 billed monthly) | $9 per month for 5,000 requests |
| Free plan | 1,000 credits a month, no card needed, 2 concurrent requests and low rate limits. | None |
| Free trial | None listed | Free trial plan: 500 successful requests, no credit card required. |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Firecrawl | Olostep Technologies, Inc. |
| Price read from | firecrawl.dev | olostep.com |
| Checked | Nov 12, 2026 | Nov 12, 2026 |
Worth knowing
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.
Olostep
- The pricing page does not say whether the 500 trial requests refill; it is shown as a trial, not a monthly allowance.
- AI browser automations are listed from the Scale plan up.
- Top-up credit packs are valid for 6 months, from $5 for 2,000 credits to $1,000 for 2,000,000.
- Only monthly prices are shown; no annual discount is stated on the pricing page.
Key features
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.
Olostep
- Scrape, crawl and map
- Separate endpoints fetch a single page, crawl a site, or list a site's URLs.
- Batch processing
- Batch jobs run thousands of URLs together, from 5,000 URLs in 20 minutes on Starter to 1 million on Growth+.
- Search and Answer APIs
- A search endpoint and an AI answers endpoint sit beside the scraping ones, and a Monitor API appears in the endpoint list.
- People and company search
- A dedicated endpoint for looking up people and companies is listed with the other APIs.
- Agents and integrations
- An MCP server and CLI serve agents. The integrations page lists Claude Desktop, Cursor, n8n and LangChain.
Plans
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.
Olostep
Trial$0
500 successful requests with JavaScript rendering and residential IPs, low rate limits, no card needed.
Starter$9
per month for 5,000 requests
$1.80 per 1,000 requests, 20 concurrent requests, batches of 5,000 URLs in 20 minutes.
Standard$99
per month for 200,000 requests
$0.50 per 1,000 requests, 200 concurrent requests, batches of 10,000 URLs in 20 minutes.
Scale$399
per month for 1 million requests
$0.40 per 1,000 requests, 500 concurrent, AI browser automations, batches of 100,000 URLs.
Growth$1,100
per month for 3 million requests
$0.37 per 1,000 requests, 750 concurrent requests, batches of 200,000 URLs in 20 minutes.
Growth+$3500
per month for 10 million requests
$0.35 per 1,000 requests, 1,000 concurrent requests. Sold through sales.
Ways to pay less
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.
Olostep
No public discounts listed.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Firecrawl or Olostep?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Olostep is cheaper to start with: $9 a month, against $16 a month for Firecrawl. Firecrawl starts at $16 per month for 5,000 credits, billed annually ($19 billed monthly), and Olostep starts at $9 per month for 5,000 requests.
Which has a free plan, Firecrawl or Olostep?
As of Nov 12, 2026, only Firecrawl has a free plan. Olostep does not, though it has a free trial.
More comparisons
How this page was made
- The verdict at the top follows a fixed rule. When both tools are in the same category and either is in our top three for it, the verdict follows that ranking: the higher-placed tool is our pick. The top three weigh who each tool suits as well as its grades, so a pick can go against the GPA. Otherwise the page does not pick one and says which grades higher: the higher GPA first; on a tie, the one with a free plan, then the one that starts cheaper in dollars a month, counted the same way for both; if they are still level, what the choice depends on.
- The grades are our own, from each tool’s review or report card. The GPA is their average.
- Prices, plans and platforms come from each tool’s listing. The table above says where each price was read and when.
- The differences and the answers to the questions are worked out from those listings.