upAPI vs Firecrawl
Named lookups on one key, for when you are not crawling a whole site.
TL;DR: Is Firecrawl or upAPI the better fit?
Pick Firecrawl when you crawl or map whole sites, want open-source code, or need page content as Markdown or schema-driven JSON. Pick upAPI when you need named lookups such as Maps, page metadata, screenshots or PDFs on one key with a free plan and a published unit cost per call.
How Firecrawl charges
Credit plans: Free (1,000 credits a month), Hobby at $19 a month for 5,000 credits, then Standard, Growth and Scale. One credit is one page for a scrape, crawl or map; search is 2 credits per 10 results; JSON-style formats add 4 credits a page.
How upAPI charges
Free at $0 with 1,000 weighted units, then $29 for 100,000. There is no per-format surcharge: each operation has one published weight, 3 for page-to-Markdown and 1 for a metadata read.
USD 29 / mo · USD 0.29 per 1,000 units · full pricing
Last checked 2026-10-07. Firecrawl figures here were read from their own pages on that date. We do not restate a competitor’s number we have not seen ourselves, and where they publish none we say so; if this date has aged, check theirs before ours.
Firecrawl and upAPI side by side
| Feature | Firecrawl | upAPI |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Credit plans: Free, Hobby at $19 a month ($16 billed annually) for 5,000 credits, then Standard (100,000 credits), Growth (500,000) and Scale (1,000,000). One credit per page for a scrape, crawl or map, 2 per 10 search results, and 4 more per page for JSON, question and highlight formats. Pay-as-you-go top-ups come in $5 increments on paid plans. | Free at $0, then Starter $29 for 100,000 weighted units a month, Pro $99 for 500,000 and Scale $499 for 5,000,000. Each operation declares its own unit cost, and the quota is pooled across the catalog. |
| Free tier | 1,000 credits a month with no credit card, 2 concurrent browsers, and 10 requests a minute on scrape, map and search. | The Free plan: 1,000 weighted units a month across every public operation, with no trial clock. |
| Endpoints | Scrape, crawl, map, search, interact, agent and batch scrape. | Named operations, each with its own request and response schema. There is no crawl or map-a-site operation: a sitemap operation reads one sitemap, and page-to-Markdown reads one URL. |
| Output format | Markdown, HTML, screenshots, metadata and structured JSON from a schema. | JSON on every operation, shaped by its published output schema. The page-to-Markdown operation returns Markdown with a title and the final URL. |
| JavaScript rendering | Yes. Their homepage says it renders JavaScript automatically. | Only inside operations built on a browser: screenshot and HTML-to-PDF. Other operations have no render flag, and the page-to-Markdown operation reports a client-rendered page as an error rather than returning it empty. |
| Proxies | Handled by the hosted version’s Fire-engine. An enhanced proxy adds nothing to the 1 credit of a basic request. | Included in the unit price. The exit is chosen per operation, and many operations accept your own proxy URL. |
Firecrawl and upAPI overlap on one operation: turning a page into Markdown. Firecrawl’s version sits inside a crawler that can follow links, map a site and run searches. upAPI’s page-to-Markdown reads one URL over plain HTTP and costs 3 units. If your job starts with "take this whole site", Firecrawl is the better tool and this page will not pretend otherwise.
The comparison changes when the job is "look this up". A Maps search, a page’s Open Graph tags or a sitemap is a named operation here, with a typed response, and none of them involves a crawl. Firecrawl’s nearest equivalent is a scrape at a credit a page, plus 4 more if you ask for structured JSON.
Neither is a replacement for the other. Many teams will want Firecrawl for the crawl and upAPI for everything that is a single call.
Where Firecrawl wins
- Crawling and mapping whole sites. Firecrawl has crawl, map, batch scrape and search as first-class endpoints. upAPI has no crawl operation, and its calls are synchronous with a 28-second cap.
- Open source. Their homepage says the project is open source on GitHub, which matters if you want to read or run the code. upAPI’s catalog is a hosted service.
- Schema-driven structured output. You describe the JSON you want and Firecrawl extracts it from the page, for 4 extra credits per page.
Where upAPI wins
- A catalog beyond web pages. Maps places, page metadata, sitemaps, screenshots, PDF and developer data sit behind the same key, so it is one integration rather than a scraper plus other vendors.
- The price of a call is known before it runs. A weighted unit is attached to the operation, not to the format you ask for or the number of pages a crawl turns up.
- Agent access signs in through the browser. Firecrawl’s hosted MCP server also offers OAuth, so this is not a gap; the difference is that upAPI meters MCP calls on the same quota as every other call.
When to pick which
- Firecrawl. You crawl or map whole sites, run batch scrapes, or need schema-driven structured extraction from arbitrary pages.
- Firecrawl. You want open-source code you can read, in a project you can follow on GitHub.
- upAPI. You want named lookups, such as a Maps search, a page’s metadata or a sitemap, with a typed response and no crawl to configure.
- upAPI. You want screenshots, PDFs and Markdown on the same key and quota as the rest of your data sources.
- Both. You crawl a few sites in bulk and look up many named sources. Use Firecrawl for the crawl and upAPI for the lookups.
What switching actually costs
Replace the Firecrawl scrape call with a POST to `api.upapi.io/{slug}` with an `X-Api-Key` header and a JSON body. For page-to-Markdown the request is a URL and the response carries Markdown, a title and the final URL. Keep Firecrawl for any crawl or map job.
Questions about Firecrawl and upAPI
How much does Firecrawl cost compared with upAPI?
Firecrawl has a free plan of 1,000 credits a month and a Hobby plan at $19 a month for 5,000 credits, with one credit per scraped page and extra credits for structured formats (their pricing page and billing docs, read 2026-10-07). upAPI is free at $0 with 1,000 weighted units a month, then $29, $99 and $499. A credit and a weighted unit are different meters, so compare the price of the job you run.
Does Firecrawl have a free plan?
Yes. Its pricing page offers 1,000 credits every month, refreshed monthly, with no credit card. Unused free credits do not roll over. upAPI’s free plan is 1,000 weighted units a month across every public operation.
Does Firecrawl charge for failed requests?
A scrape that returns no result is not charged. A page that responds with an error status such as 403 or 404 is still returned and costs 1 credit, per their billing docs. In upAPI, rejected, throttled and cache-hit calls are not billed, but a 4xx an operation itself returns is.
Can upAPI crawl a whole site like Firecrawl?
No. upAPI has no crawl or site-map-and-fetch operation. Page-to-Markdown reads one URL and the sitemap operation reads one sitemap, so a crawl would be your own loop over them. For whole-site crawling, Firecrawl is the better fit.
Does Firecrawl support MCP?
Yes. Its docs describe three ways to connect: keyless access within daily limits, browser sign-in over OAuth, or an API key as a bearer token. upAPI’s hosted MCP server uses OAuth and covers the catalog outside its Social Media and Utility categories.
Sources read on 2026-10-07: https://www.firecrawl.dev/pricing, https://docs.firecrawl.dev/billing, https://docs.firecrawl.dev/mcp-server, https://docs.firecrawl.dev/llms.txt.
Other comparisons: Apify, Bright Data, ScraperAPI, Serper, ApyHub, RapidAPI, ScrapingBee, ScreenshotOne.