Browserbase Alternative for Web Scraping with Proxies Included per Page
Scraping through Browserbase bills browser hours and proxy gigabytes, and on protected sites the gigabytes decide the bill. WebScrap returns the rendered page or the fields as JSON through residential proxies for one flat price per successful page, from 0.33 USD per 1,000.
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This console sends a real request and shows you the real response. Five live fetches per session, and the sample targets run as often as you like.
Why teams replace Browserbase for scraping
Short answer: if your code opens pages and reads them, you are paying for a browser you barely use and a proxy meter that runs on every image. A scraping API bills the page, not the bytes, and on protected sites that is three to twenty times cheaper.
Browserbase is a good product for AI agents that log in, fill forms and click through checkouts. Plenty of teams also point their Playwright scrapers at it, and that is where the invoice surprises people. A page you read in a warm session takes about 5 seconds, so 100 browser hours stretch to tens of thousands of pages. The included 1 GB of proxy traffic on Developer does not. A 2 MB retail page loaded in full eats it in about 500 pages, and every gigabyte after that is 12 USD.
WebScrap was built for the reading half of that work. You send a URL, optionally a CSS selector to wait for and the fields you want. The request goes out through rotating residential or datacenter addresses, renders in a real browser when you ask for it, retries through blocks, and comes back as HTML or typed JSON. One successful page is one request. A blocked page is never billed.
Cost per 1,000 protected pages
USD, beyond included allowances, residential proxy, 5 seconds per page. Light is about 0.3 MB with images and fonts blocked, full about 2 MB.
Browserbase vs WebScrap for scraping compared
Browserbase rates as listed on browserbase.com/pricing on October 13, 2026. Read the live page before you commit; the plan lineup has changed more than once this year.
| Question | Browserbase | WebScrap |
|---|---|---|
| What you rent | A remote headless browser your Playwright, Puppeteer, Selenium or Stagehand code drives | An HTTP endpoint that fetches, renders and parses one page per call |
| How it bills | Browser hours, 0.10 to 0.12 USD each, plus proxy traffic at 10 to 12 USD per GB, plus Fetch calls | One price per successful page, whatever it weighs |
| Monthly plans | Developer 20 USD, Startup 99 USD, Scale on quote | Starter 49, Growth 149, Scale 499, Enterprise 998 USD; yearly is half |
| Pages included | Depends on page weight: 1 GB of proxy is about 500 to 3,300 pages | 50,000, 250,000, 1,500,000 or 3,000,000 successful pages |
| Residential proxies | Included up to 1 or 5 GB, then metered | Included on every request, 20 to 90 countries, US city targeting on Growth |
| Blocked or failed pages | Session time and bytes are billed either way | Retried automatically and never billed |
| Field extraction | You write it in your script, or pay 7 USD per 1,000 for Fetch Extract with proxies | CSS or XPath schema, or plain English fields on Growth, typed JSON back |
| Whole site crawls | Your code discovers and queues links | Crawler endpoint with depth and include or exclude patterns |
| Clicks, logins, forms | Yes, it is a full browser with session replay | No. One page per request, with a wait_for selector and sticky sessions |
| Concurrency | 25 on Developer, 100 on Startup, 250 and up on Scale | 5 on Starter, 50 on Growth, 200 on Scale, 400 on Enterprise |
| Best for | Agents that act on a page, sites that do not need proxies | Reading protected pages at volume on a budget finance can sign |
What 50,000 to 1,000,000 pages cost each month
Three workloads on sites that need residential proxies, priced on the cheapest Browserbase plan that fits, with images, media and fonts blocked in the script so each page is about 0.3 MB through the proxy. Let pages load in full and the Browserbase column grows about five to six times. Ours does not move.
At a million pages Browserbase will quote Scale below list, so ask them before you rule it out. The full working is in our Browserbase pricing breakdown per 1,000 pages.
50,000 pages a month
Browserbase Developer, 15 GB
about 188 USD
WebScrap Starter
49 USD
250,000 pages a month
Browserbase Startup, 75 GB
about 799 USD
WebScrap Growth
149 USD
1,000,000 pages a month
Browserbase Startup list rates, 300 GB
about 3,138 USD
WebScrap Scale
499 USD
How to move a Browserbase scraper in four steps
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01
Split reading from acting
Go through your jobs and mark each one. Anything that only opens URLs and reads them moves. Anything that logs in, types or clicks stays on a browser service.
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02
Turn locators into a schema
The CSS selectors in your page.locator calls become a schema of field names and selectors, with a type such as number or date. The JSON comes back already typed.
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03
Keep the wait, drop the browser
Set render to browser and pass your waitForSelector target as wait_for. Pick residential and a country, and add a session ID where a site needs the same address for a while.
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04
Run both for a week
Send the same URLs to both and diff the rows. When they match, turn the Browserbase job off and watch the next invoice instead of the gigabyte meter.
// before, on a remote browser
await page.goto(url)
await page.waitForSelector('.price')
price = await page.locator('.price').innerText()
// after, one request
POST /v1/scrape
{ "url": url,
"render": "browser",
"wait_for": ".price",
"proxy_type": "residential",
"schema": { "price": ".price" } }
Every parameter is in the web scraping API docs, with Python and curl examples.
When Browserbase is still the right buy
We would rather you keep the right tool than switch and come back. These are the cases where we tell people to stay.
Agents
Work that clicks and types
Downloading statements from a vendor portal, filing a form, walking a checkout. A scraping API returns pages; it does not drive them. Browserbase sessions, replays and Stagehand are made for this.
Unprotected sites
Targets that never block
With no proxy, browser time alone is about 0.14 to 0.17 USD per 1,000 pages. Internal tools, partner portals and documentation sites are cheaper there than anywhere, us included.
Bursts
Many sessions at once on a small plan
Developer allows 25 concurrent browsers for 20 USD. Our Starter allows 5. If your work is short bursts rather than a steady stream, that difference matters more than price per page.
Other Browserbase alternatives and who each one suits
The honest shortlist for a scraping workload, with list prices from our own pricing pages. Each link opens the full conversion to dollars per 1,000 pages.
| Tool | What it is | Price per 1,000 protected pages | Pick it when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Browserless | Hosted headless browsers billed in 30 second units, with a self hosting license | about 2.80 to 4.90 USD light, 13 to 23 USD full | You need a browser for agents and want to self host later |
| Self hosted Playwright | Open source browser automation on your own servers | Your servers plus residential proxies by the GB | You have an engineer to run the fleet and buy proxies |
| Firecrawl | Scrape and crawl API that returns markdown for LLMs | 0.75 to 3.80 USD markdown, 3.75 to 19 USD as JSON | You feed pages to a language model as markdown |
| ScrapingBee | Credit based scraping API, credits per page vary by rendering and proxy | about 0.07 to 19 USD depending on credits per page | Most of your pages need neither rendering nor premium proxies |
| WebScrap | Flat per page scraping API with proxies, rendering, extraction and a crawler | 0.33 to 0.98 USD, blocked pages not billed | You read protected pages at volume and want one predictable number |
Weighing the two hosted browser services against each other first? Our Browserbase vs Browserless pricing comparison runs both through the same three workloads.
Browserbase alternative questions
What is the best alternative to Browserbase?
It depends on the job. For reading pages at volume, a scraping API that bills per successful page with proxies included is usually the best fit and the cheapest. For agents that log in and fill forms, Browserless is the closest like for like swap. For teams with spare engineering time, self hosted Playwright removes the vendor bill but not the proxy bill.
What is cheaper than Browserbase?
For protected pages, a flat per page scraping API. Through Browserbase sessions with residential proxies, a light page costs about 3.14 to 3.77 USD per 1,000 and a full page 20 to 24 USD, because proxy traffic bills at 10 to 12 USD per GB. WebScrap charges 0.33 to 0.98 USD per 1,000 successful pages with proxies included.
Is Browserbase good for web scraping?
It works, and it is excellent for scraping that needs interaction, such as logging in or clicking through a portal. For plain reading of many pages it is an expensive route: browser time is cheap, but every byte the page loads travels through a proxy billed by the gigabyte, so heavy retail and travel pages cost the most.
How much does Browserbase cost?
Browserbase has a free plan with 1 browser hour, Developer at 20 USD a month with 100 hours and 1 GB of proxy traffic, Startup at 99 USD with 500 hours and 5 GB, and Scale on a custom quote. Extra hours are 0.10 to 0.12 USD and extra proxy traffic 10 to 12 USD per GB, as listed on October 13, 2026.
Is there an open source alternative to Browserbase?
Yes. Playwright and Puppeteer run headless Chrome on your own servers, and Browserless sells a license to self host its service. Open source removes the per hour fee, but you still buy residential proxies by the gigabyte, solve captchas and keep the browser fleet patched, which is usually the larger cost.
What is the difference between Browserbase and Browserless?
Both rent hosted headless browsers. Browserbase bills browser hours and proxy gigabytes as two meters and offers a Fetch API for pages without JavaScript. Browserless bills units of 30 seconds and charges proxy traffic and captcha solves in the same units, and it sells a self hosting license. Per scraped page on protected sites they land close together.
Does Browserbase include proxies?
Paid plans include a small allowance: 1 GB on Developer and 5 GB on Startup. After that residential proxy traffic costs 12 or 10 USD per GB. A browser loads scripts, images and fonts through the proxy, so 1 GB covers roughly 500 full retail pages or about 3,300 pages with images and fonts blocked.
Can I keep my Playwright code and still switch?
Partly. The navigation and parsing in your scripts map to one API call each: the URL, a wait_for selector and a schema of CSS selectors replace page.goto, waitForSelector and the locator code. Clicks, logins and form steps have no equivalent in a scraping API, so keep those flows on a browser service.
Read protected pages without a proxy meter
Send a URL and the fields you want, get rendered HTML or typed JSON back through residential proxies. 49 USD for 50,000 successful pages on Starter, blocked pages never billed.