Firecrawl vs ScrapingBee (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 ScrapingBee if

• Fits if you need to scrape the pages behind the results as well as Google itself
• Works for feeding web pages to AI agents as Markdown or JSON

Look elsewhere if

• Watch out: JavaScript rendering is on by default and makes a request cost 5 credits instead of 1
• Watch out: a Google search costs 10 to 15 credits, so Hobby's 75,000 credits is 5,000 to 7,500 searches
• Skip it if you need Bing or other engines, as Google is the only search engine it lists
• Tight if your usage swings, since credits last a month and don't roll over
• Pricey if you need priority support or team management, which start at $249 a month

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.

ScrapingBee

• A request costs 1 credit at its simplest, 5 with JavaScript rendering (on by default), and 10 or 25 with premium proxies.
• A Google search costs 10 credits with Light Request enabled and 15 otherwise.
• Credits last one month and do not roll over; only successful requests are charged.
• Priority support, an account manager and team management start at the $249 Business plan.

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.

ScrapingBee

Headless browser rendering

Pages load in headless Chrome, with waits for selectors, set viewports and headers, and scripted clicks, scrolls and form fills before the scrape.

Proxy rotation and geotargeting

Proxies rotate on every request, with premium and stealth proxies for harder sites and routing through more than 200 countries and territories.

Google Search API

A dedicated endpoint returns Google results as JSON, with organic results, ads, local results, related questions and related searches.

AI and rule-based extraction

Pull fields out with CSS or XPath rules, describe them in plain language with an AI query, or get any page back as clean Markdown.

Ready-made scraper APIs

Separate endpoints for Amazon, Walmart, YouTube, ChatGPT and Gemini answers, a sub-second search API and an employee search API.

CLI, MCP server and SDKs

A command-line tool, an MCP server and Python and Node.js SDKs connect the API to coding agents such as Claude Code, Codex and Cursor.

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.

ScrapingBee

• Hobby$19

  per month for 75,000 API credits

  25 concurrent requests, with JavaScript rendering, premium proxies, geotargeting, screenshots and the dedicated scraper APIs included.

• Freelance$49

  per month for 250,000 API credits

  50 concurrent requests and the same features as Hobby.

• Startup$99

  per month for 1,000,000 API credits

  100 concurrent requests and the same features as Hobby.

• Business$249

  per month for 3,000,000 API credits

  200 concurrent requests, and adds priority email support, a dedicated account manager and team management.

• Business +$599

  per month for 8,000,000 API credits

  400 concurrent requests with everything in Business.

• Enterprise 14$999

  per month for 14,000,000 API credits

  500 concurrent requests. Larger Enterprise tiers run up to $5,799 a month for 120 million credits and 900 concurrent requests.

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.

ScrapingBee

No public discounts listed.