Jina AI vs ZenRows (2026): which should you pick?

Pick Jina AI if

• Fits if you want page text for a model with a single URL prefix
• Works for people who also need embeddings or a reranker from the same key

Look elsewhere if

• Tight if you want search without a key, since the search endpoint is blocked without one
• Watch out: the OCR option uses 40 times more tokens, and each search starts at 10,000
• Watch out: the free key lets you use up the 10 million tokens and then nothing renews
• Watch out: auto top-up is on offer, and the price may be charged in USD, EUR or another currency

Pick ZenRows if

• Fits if you scrape protected sites and want Google results from the same credits
• Works for AI agents that need web pages as Markdown or JSON

Look elsewhere if

• Skip it if you want a fixed SERP format, as the result groups vary with what Google or Bing shows
• Watch out: a page costs 1 credit plain, 5 rendered, 10 on premium proxies and 25 with both
• Watch out: residential bandwidth draws 25,000 credits per GB and the Browser 5 credits a minute
• Tight if you're on Free, which stops at 5,000 credits with no top-ups until the next month
• Pricey if your volume grows, as each plan's price steps up with its credit allowance

Jina AI

• Token counts drive the bill: the jina-ocr-v1 option costs 40 times more tokens, and each search starts at 10,000 tokens.
• The search endpoint (s.jina.ai) is blocked without an API key.
• Tokens are bought as top-ups; the page notes an auto top-up, and the price may be charged in USD, EUR or other currencies.
• A new pricing model began on May 6, 2025; older auto-recharge settings keep the old price.

ZenRows

• A standard page costs 1 credit, 5 with JavaScript rendering, 10 with premium proxies and 25 with both; residential bandwidth is 25,000 credits per GB.
• Search results come from fetching a Google or Bing results address and parsing the page, so the groups returned vary with what the page shows.
• The free plan stops at 5,000 credits until the next month; paid plans can buy top-ups up to ten times a billing period.
• Each paid plan's price rises with its credit allowance, in three steps (five for Scale).

Jina AI

Reader

Prefix a URL with r.jina.ai to get its content as LLM-friendly text. Options include a CSS selector, a token budget and a choice of browser engine.

Web search

s.jina.ai searches the web and returns results as LLM-friendly text. Every request costs a fixed number of tokens, starting at 10,000.

Embeddings and reranker

Embeddings turn text or images into vectors and a reranker reorders results; both are on the same key and token balance.

MCP server

mcp.jina.ai can be added as an MCP server so an LLM can call the APIs directly.

Cloud marketplaces

Embeddings and reranker models can be deployed through AWS SageMaker, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, billed via those accounts.

ZenRows

Fetch

Returns any page as HTML, Markdown, JSON or a screenshot, getting past anti-bot walls, CAPTCHAs and fingerprint checks on protected sites.

Extract

Detects the data on a page and returns it as JSON with no selectors or schema to write. It currently costs nothing on top of the Fetch it uses.

Search results as JSON

Send a Google or Bing results address with a country and get organic results, related questions, videos and other groups back with their positions.

Crawl and Batch

Crawl collects every page behind a starting address, each billed as a Fetch; Batch runs large queued jobs with retries, webhooks and status tracking.

Browser

Drives a real browser for pages that need clicks, forms, logins or a session kept across a long job, billed at 5 credits a minute plus bandwidth.

MCP server, CLI and SDKs

An MCP server for Claude, Cursor and Codex, a command-line tool, and Python, Node and Go SDKs, all published as open source under MIT.

Jina AI

• Free key$0

  10 million free tokens on a new key. Free-key rate limits: 500 RPM for Reader, 100 RPM for search.

• Paid top-up$50

  one-time top-up, used as you go

  1 billion tokens at $0.050 per 1M tokens. Paid keys have the same rate limits as free keys.

• Premium top-up$500

  one-time top-up, used as you go

  11 billion tokens at $0.045 per 1M. Premium key: 5,000 RPM Reader, 24-hour support.

ZenRows

• Free$0

  5,000 credits a month, refreshed monthly with no rollover or top-ups, 5 concurrent requests and community support.

• Build$16

  per month for 45,000 credits, billed annually ($19 billed monthly)

  20 concurrent requests, email support and top-ups. Rises to $33 a month for 120,000 credits ($39 billed monthly).

• Launch$58

  per month for 250,000 credits, billed annually ($69 billed monthly)

  50 concurrent requests and chat support. Rises to $108 a month for 700,000 credits ($129 billed monthly).

• Growth$166

  per month for 1.2M credits, billed annually ($199 billed monthly)

  100 concurrent requests, priority support and the residential network at scale. Rises to $333 a month for 3M credits ($399 monthly).

• Scale$458

  per month for 5M credits, billed annually ($549 billed monthly)

  200 to 400 concurrent requests and committed capacity options. Rises to $2,499 a month for 45M credits ($2,999 monthly).

• EnterpriseCustom

  Committed volume, 500 to 1,000+ concurrent requests, an SLA, a DPA and a dedicated account manager. Through sales.

Jina AI

No public discounts listed.

ZenRows

• Annual discount

  Two months free with annual billing

  Zenrows says paying yearly gives two months free (pay for 10, get 12), shown as a 17% saving, with the year's credits up front.