# Firecrawl review (2026): is the free plan enough?

> Web search, scrape and crawl API that returns LLM-ready data

Checked Nov 12, 2026 · graded Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA.

Firecrawl is an API that searches the web and scrapes pages into Markdown, JSON or screenshots for language models and agents. Endpoints cover search, scrape, map, crawl and browser interaction. The core project is open source and can be self-hosted, while the paid cloud adds more features.

- **Category:** SERP & SEO Data APIs
- **Made by:** Firecrawl
- **Website:** https://www.firecrawl.dev
- **Runs on:** Web
- **Who should skip it:** Tight if you stay free: 1,000 credits, 2 concurrent requests and low rate limits.
- **Facts last checked:** Nov 12, 2026

## Pricing

As of Nov 12, 2026, Firecrawl has a free plan, and paid plans start at $16 per month for 5,000 credits, billed annually ($19 billed monthly).

- **Pricing model:** Free plan
- **Free plan:** 1,000 credits a month, no card needed, 2 concurrent requests and low rate limits.
- **Free trial:** None listed.

| Plan | Price | What you get |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 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. |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom credits and concurrency, dedicated support and SLA, SSO, zero-data retention. |

Read from https://www.firecrawl.dev/pricing on Nov 12, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Firecrawl before buying.

## Ways to pay less

- **Annual billing saves about 2 months** (Annual discount): Annual prices are lower than monthly (Standard $83 against $99 a month); the homepage banner says 2 months free when billed annually. Source: https://www.firecrawl.dev/pricing

## Key features

- **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.

## Good for

- Developers feeding web pages into LLM or RAG pipelines
- Teams that want the option to self-host the core
- Agents that must click through dynamic pages

## Worth knowing

- 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.

## ToolGPA grades

**GPA: 2.6 out of 4**, graded Nov 12, 2026. Firecrawl searches, scrapes and crawls pages into Markdown or JSON, and its core is open source. The free plan is 1,000 credits a month, and the pricing steps up quickly, with JSON output costing 4 extra credits a page and some features only on the hosted cloud.

- **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.
- **Free plan and trial: C.** A free plan with 1,000 credits a month and no card, but only 2 concurrent requests and low rate limits.
- **Features: B.** Search, scrape, crawl, map and interact, with SDKs and an open-source core. Nothing in the listing shows a gap in the core scraping job.
- **Ease of use: C.** No store rating on record. It is a developer API, with keys and code to set up.
- **Platforms and integrations: B.** Web only, but it plugs into LangChain, Claude, ChatGPT and Ollama and has SDKs.

These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Firecrawl's own pages on 12 November 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews.

## Where it stands among SERP and SEO data APIs

- Firecrawl's GPA of 2.6 is higher than 39 of the 48 other SERP and SEO data APIs we grade, and level with 5.
- It stands best on features (B, above 33 of 48) and worst on ease of use (C, above 1).
- Its paid plans start at $16 a month, against a middle price of $29 for the category: 3 of the 33 others that charge start lower.
- On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.7 out of 4. Nothing scores higher for less, though at least one tool matches that score at a lower price.

The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/seo-data-apis

## Keep it, or make your own?

**Keep it.** To replace Firecrawl you would be making search results fetched at scale from many countries without being blocked. That is not a weekend's work, with an AI app builder or without one. It is one of the better ones too: its GPA of 2.6 is higher than 39 of the 48 other SERP and SEO data APIs we grade. It costs $192 a year. Firecrawl is open source, so there is a third way: take its code and run it yourself.

- You could not: Search results fetched at scale from many countries without being blocked.
- You could not: An AI agent, with the models and the safeguards behind it.
- You could not: It plugs into other products, LangChain, Claude and ChatGPT among them, and has an API.
- You could not: The depth: we grade its features B, which means it covers the whole job.

A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it.

## Works with

LangChain, Claude, ChatGPT, Ollama

**Tags:** SERP API, Open source, Self-hostable, Public API, AI agents

## Alternatives

- [Tavily](https://toolgpa.com/tools/tavily): Web search, extract and crawl API built for AI agents. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/firecrawl-vs-tavily)
- [Apify](https://toolgpa.com/tools/apify): Scraping platform with a store of ready-made Actors, Google included. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/apify-vs-firecrawl)
- [ScrapingBee](https://toolgpa.com/tools/scrapingbee): Web scraping API with a Google search endpoint, priced by credits. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/firecrawl-vs-scrapingbee)
- [ZenRows](https://toolgpa.com/tools/zenrows): Web scraping API for protected sites, priced by monthly credits. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/firecrawl-vs-zenrows)
- [Scrapfly](https://toolgpa.com/tools/scrapfly): Web scraping API with anti-bot unblocking, browsers and AI extraction. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/firecrawl-vs-scrapfly)

## Sources

The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Nov 12, 2026:

- https://www.firecrawl.dev/pricing
- https://www.firecrawl.dev
- https://www.firecrawl.dev/about
- https://docs.firecrawl.dev/contributing/open-source-or-cloud
- https://docs.firecrawl.dev/developer-guides/llm-sdks-and-frameworks/langchain

Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/firecrawl
Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).