Browserless Alternative with One Price per Successful Page
WebScrap is a Browserless alternative for teams that read pages rather than drive a browser. Browserless bills units for browser time, proxy megabytes and captcha solves. WebScrap bills one request per successful page, with browser rendering and rotating residential and datacenter proxies included. For logins, forms and scripted sessions, Browserless is the better tool.
- Status
- ...
- Elapsed
- ... ms
- Exit country
- ...
- Browser used
- ...
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 a Browserless bill grows on protected sites
A Browserless plan is a pool of units. A unit is up to 30 seconds of one browser connection, and proxy traffic spends the same pool at 6 units per MB residential and 2 per MB datacenter. A 2 MB page through a residential proxy takes 13 units. The 35 USD Prototyping plan holds 20,000 units, about 1,500 such pages.
Browserless is built to hand your code a real browser, and for that job the unit price is fair. The cost surprise comes when the job is only reading public pages. A real browser downloads scripts, fonts, images and tracking calls, and each megabyte travels through the proxy meter.
A flat per page plan moves that risk to us. Page weight, retries and proxy choice stay inside the request price. Our Browserless cost per 1,000 pages breakdown shows the unit math plan by plan, so you can test it on your own pages before moving anything.
What a small plan buys on each service
Compare Browserless Prototyping at 35 USD (20,000 units) with WebScrap Starter at 49 USD (50,000 requests), monthly billing. The Browserless rows assume one connection of under 30 seconds per page, so 1 unit of time, plus proxy megabytes as listed.
With no proxy, Browserless buys 20,000 pages for 14 USD less. Once a residential proxy is on, WebScrap buys seven times as many light pages and more than thirty times as many full pages.
Pages per month
Browserless, 35 USDWebScrap Starter, 49 USD
No proxy, 1 unit per page
Datacenter proxy, light page, 1.6 units
Residential proxy, light page, 2.8 units
Residential proxy, full 2 MB page, 13 units
Browserless and WebScrap compared by job
Browserless figures come from its published monthly plans. Yearly billing takes 30 percent off its plans and adds concurrency. WebScrap rates use monthly plans too.
| Question | Browserless | WebScrap |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Units: 30 seconds of browser time, 6 per MB residential, 2 per MB datacenter, 10 per captcha solve | One unit per successful page, from 49 USD |
| Plans | Free 1,000 units, 35 USD for 20,000, 200 USD for 180,000, 500 USD for 500,000 | 49 USD for 50,000, 149 USD for 250,000, 499 USD for 1,500,000 |
| Cost per 1,000 light pages, residential proxy | 4.90 USD on Prototyping, 3.11 on Starter, 2.80 on Scale | 0.98 USD on Starter, 0.60 on Growth, 0.33 on Scale |
| Cost per 1,000 full pages, residential proxy | 22.75 USD on Prototyping, 14.44 on Starter, 13.00 on Scale | Same flat rate, whatever the page weighs |
| Cost per 1,000 pages with no proxy | 1.75 USD on Prototyping, 1.11 on Starter, 1.00 on Scale | 0.98 USD on Starter or lower |
| Failed requests | Connection time is spent while the browser runs | Blocked pages and failed requests are never billed |
| Concurrency | Prototyping 5, Starter 30, Scale 80 (more on yearly) | Starter 5, Growth 50, Scale 200, Enterprise 400 |
| Scripted browser control | Puppeteer, Playwright, BrowserQL, session replay | Not offered, a request returns the page or fields |
| Self hosting | Commercial license on Enterprise | Hosted only |
| Who it suits | Automation, logins, PDFs, screenshots, teams that must self host | Reading protected retail, listings, Google results and changing target mixes |
Three monthly budgets for protected pages
Each budget picks the Browserless plan nearest the ceiling on monthly billing and counts light pages (about 0.3 MB through a residential proxy, 2.8 units) and full pages (about 2 MB, 13 units) within its included units. WebScrap pages are the same for both.
| Budget ceiling | Browserless plan | Light pages | Full pages | WebScrap plan and pages |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 49 USD | Prototyping, 35 USD, 20,000 units | 7,142 | 1,538 | Starter, 49 USD, 50,000 |
| 200 USD | Starter, 200 USD, 180,000 units | 64,285 | 13,846 | Growth, 149 USD, 250,000 |
| 500 USD | Scale, 500 USD, 500,000 units | 178,571 | 38,461 | Scale, 499 USD, 1,500,000 |
Browserless overage is billed per unit on top, and at high volume it quotes Enterprise below list, so ask before you rule it out. WebScrap Enterprise includes 3,000,000 successful requests for 998 USD monthly. See WebScrap plans and included features for billing details.
Where flat pricing changes the collection budget
If your Puppeteer script exists only to load a URL and read fields, you are paying for a browser you do not need to operate.
Protected retail prices
A price monitor needs the current price after a store adds bot checks. Our Cloudflare scraping API keeps the page rate fixed when proxy needs change.
Travel and ticket listings
Fares and availability sit behind Akamai and DataDome. On Browserless those are residential megabytes plus the occasional captcha at 10 units each.
Whole site crawls
Browserless has no crawler, your code discovers and queues links. The website crawler API takes a seed URL and depth and returns every page as JSON.
Google results
Rank tracking over many queries and locations is a count of results pages. The WebScrap SERP API bills each successful results page once.
Move a Browserless reading job in four steps
-
01
Sort jobs into reading and acting
Jobs that only load a URL and extract fields can move. Jobs that log in, click through forms or produce PDFs stay on Browserless.
-
02
Find your units per page
Divide units used by pages fetched in your Browserless dashboard. Below about 1.5, Browserless is likely cheaper. Above 3, flat pricing usually wins.
-
03
Replace the browser call
Send the URL in a POST body and set render to browser. Drop the proxy, stealth and captcha settings, because they are included in the request price.
-
04
Compare the extracted fields
Run matching URLs through both and check prices, availability and empty values before you switch the whole job.
# before, units per MB and per 30 seconds
puppeteer.connect({ browserWSEndpoint:
'wss://.../?token=KEY&proxy=residential' })
page.goto(url); page.evaluate(readPrice)
# after, 1 request per successful page
POST /v1/scrape
{ "url": "https://shop.example.com/item/linen",
"render": "browser",
"country": "us",
"schema": { "price": ".price" } }
See authentication and response handling in the WebScrap request documentation.
When to stay on Browserless
A one request, one page API is the wrong tool for some work. Moving only makes sense if the job is reading.
Automation
Logins, forms and downloads
Browserless gives your code a full browser with session replay. We return a page, so multi step flows, file downloads and PDF rendering belong there.
Open sites
Unprotected pages without a proxy
With no proxy and a reused connection, a page costs a fraction of a unit. Internal dashboards and partner sites do not need our price model.
Control
Self hosting and concurrency
Browserless sells a commercial self hosting license, and its Starter plan allows 30 concurrent browsers against 5 on our Starter. Burst workloads may need that.
Other Browserless alternatives to compare
Use the linked cost breakdowns to compare billing units before choosing another provider.
| Tool | What to compare | When to evaluate it |
|---|---|---|
| Browserbase pricing | Browser hours and proxy gigabytes | Scripted agents and Playwright at scale |
| Scrapfly pricing | Credits for browser, proxy and anti-bot features | A scraping API with a cloud browser option |
| ZenRows pricing | Credits by rendering and proxy mode | Plain HTML at volume |
| ScrapingBee pricing | Credits by proxy mode and Google rates | Small budgets with high concurrency |
For a direct comparison of the two hosted browsers, read Browserbase versus Browserless pricing. Our Browserbase alternative guide covers the same move from the other side.
Browserless alternative questions
What is the best alternative to Browserless?
It depends on the job. For reading pages, a scraping API such as WebScrap with one flat price per successful page is cheaper on protected sites. For scripted browser control with Puppeteer or Playwright, Browserbase is the closest hosted option. Browserless stays the better fit for logins, forms, PDFs and self hosting.
How much does Browserless cost?
Browserless is free for 1,000 units, then 35 USD a month for 20,000 units on Prototyping, 200 USD for 180,000 on Starter and 500 USD for 500,000 on Scale. Yearly billing brings those to 25, 140 and 350 USD a month. Enterprise is quoted per customer.
Why is Browserless so expensive for scraping?
Proxy traffic draws from the same unit pool as browser time, at 6 units per MB on residential proxies. A 2 MB page spends 13 units, not 1, so a 20,000 unit plan covers about 1,500 full pages. Blocking images and fonts in your script cuts that sharply.
Is there a free alternative to Browserless?
Self hosting open source headless Chrome costs servers, proxies and engineering time, and does not solve blocking by itself. For paid reading jobs, WebScrap lets you try the scraper before buying and bills only successful pages from 49 USD a month.
Does Browserless have a scraping API?
Browserless offers REST APIs for content, screenshots and PDFs and BrowserQL for scripted flows, but you still manage the proxies and captcha spend inside its unit pool. A scraping API returns the page or extracted fields in one request at a fixed price.
Budget for pages before the crawl starts
Read rendered and protected pages at one rate per successful page. Starter includes 50,000 requests for 49 USD monthly, with browser rendering and rotating proxies included.