Firecrawl vs ScrapingBee: price per 1,000 pages
Published prices compared, with the arithmetic shown. Last checked . Prices only: we have not tested reliability, speed or output quality.
At a glance
| Firecrawl | ScrapingBee | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | scraping apis | scraping apis |
| Free tier | 1,000 credits/month, no card (about 1,000 pages or 500 searches), 2 concurrent requests. | 1,000 free API credits, no card (trial grant). |
| Entry paid price | from $19/mo | from $19/mo |
| MCP / agent support | Yes | Yes |
| Verification | full verification | full verification |
| Official pricing page | Pricing (opens official site in a new tab) | Pricing (opens official site in a new tab) |
| Visit vendor | Try Firecrawl Sponsored / affiliate link (opens in a new tab) Firecrawl official site (plain link) (opens official site in a new tab) Affiliate link: FetchIndex may earn a commission. Disclosure | Official site (opens official site in a new tab) |
Analysis
Firecrawl charges one credit per page and returns markdown/JSON; ScrapingBee charges 1 credit for a plain page and 5 with JavaScript rendering. Lowest published plain-page rate across all plans: ScrapingBee $0.083 per 1,000, Firecrawl $0.599. Both entry plans are $19/month on monthly billing, so the difference shows up in how many pages each includes (see the volume table). Firecrawl does not list a separate JavaScript-rendering price in our data, so that row is left out rather than guessed.
Estimated monthly cost at three volumes
Computed with the same model as the cost calculator: the cheapest published plan that covers the volume, including published overage rates. Plans that require annual billing are included and labelled (monthly equivalent). Free tiers are not subtracted. Prices only; neither number says anything about success rate.
| Requests / month | Firecrawl | ScrapingBee | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10,000 | $41.00 Hobby (annual billing) | $19.00 Hobby | ScrapingBee cheaper by $22.00 (2.2x) |
| 100,000 | $83.00 Standard (annual billing) | $49.00 Freelance | ScrapingBee cheaper by $34.00 (1.7x) |
| 1,000,000 | $599 Scale (annual billing) | $99.00 Startup | ScrapingBee cheaper by $500 (6.1x) |
Where the cheaper option changes (Basic page fetch). On our volume grid (1,000 to 10,000,000 requests per month), at 1,000 to 3,000 requests per month Firecrawl is cheaper; at 10,000 to 3,000,000 requests per month ScrapingBee is cheaper; at 10,000,000 requests per month only Firecrawl has a published plan that covers the volume (the other publishes no overage or larger plan we can model).
Try your own volume in the calculator to see all vendors side by side.
Free tiers and how units are counted
- Firecrawl: 1,000 credits/month, no card (about 1,000 pages or 500 searches), 2 concurrent requests. Units: 1 credit = 1 page on basic scrape/crawl/map. Search = 2 credits / 10 results. Interact = 2 credits / browser minute. JSON, Question and Highlight formats add 4 credits per page. A 403/404 response that is returned still costs 1 credit; a scrape that returns no result is not charged.
- ScrapingBee: 1,000 free API credits, no card (trial grant). Units: Credits per request: classic no JS 1; classic + JS 5 (default); premium no JS 10; premium + JS 25; stealth + JS 75; AI features +5. Auto-Mode charges only for the configuration that succeeds. All prices exclude VAT.
Firecrawl tends to fit
- RAG ingestion of whole sites
- Agents that need scrape + crawl + search from one balance
Watch-outs
- Credits are shared across endpoints, so JSON-format extraction (+4 credits) can quintuple the per-page cost.
- A returned 403/404 still costs 1 credit.
ScrapingBee tends to fit
- Developers wanting simple HTTP scraping with JS rendering
- Mid-volume jobs with predictable monthly budgets
Watch-outs
- Default JS rendering means 5 credits per request unless you turn it off.
- Premium+JS pages cost 25 credits.
Budget view
| Use case | Monthly spend | Firecrawl | ScrapingBee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic page fetch | up to $50/mo | $3.20 Hobby (annual) | $0.196 Freelance |
| Basic page fetch | up to $100/mo | $0.83 Standard (annual) | $0.099 Startup |
| Basic page fetch | up to $500/mo | $0.666 Growth (annual) | $0.083 Business |
| Basic page fetch | any budget | $0.599 Scale (annual) | $0.083 Business |
Also see: alternatives to Firecrawl and alternatives to ScrapingBee. Run a small trial on your own target sites before committing: published price says nothing about success rate on hard sites.
Price ladders from the data
Effective price per unit at each published plan (monthly spend shown). Overage and assumption-based rows are excluded here; see each vendor page.
Basic page fetch
Firecrawl
- $3.20 Hobby (annual) · $16/mo
- $3.80 Hobby · $19/mo
- $0.83 Standard (annual) · $83/mo
- $0.666 Growth (annual) · $333/mo
- $0.599 Scale (annual) · $599/mo
ScrapingBee
- $0.2533 Hobby · $19/mo
- $0.196 Freelance · $49/mo
- $0.099 Startup · $99/mo
- $0.083 Business · $249/mo
What we could not verify
- Firecrawl: Stealth/enhanced proxy credit cost is not stated on the pricing page; not computed.; Monthly-billed prices not shown on the page (only annual-billed).
- ScrapingBee: No overage/top-up rate published on the pricing page.; Page shows '/mo' prices; annual-discount terms not stated.