Vera or Firecrawl? The plain answer.
Firecrawl is a broader platform for turning sites into LLM-ready data: crawl and map endpoints, nine official SDKs, browser sessions and an open-source core. Vera is a narrower REST API with a lower entry price and no charge for failed work. Here is what each does, what each costs, and where Firecrawl is the better choice.
Competitor details checked 19 October 2026. Prices and features change, so confirm them on Firecrawl's own pages before you decide. See the sources.
At a glance
Choose Firecrawl when
- You need to crawl with path patterns, depth limits and sitemap control, or to map a site's URLs.
- You want an official SDK in your language.
- You want to read the source or self-host it.
- You need browser sessions or an agent, or a vendor that lists SOC 2 Type II.
Choose Vera when
- You want failed or blocked requests to cost nothing, including pages that answer 403 or 404.
- You want a lower price per page and a lower entry price.
- You want unused credits to roll over.
- You want search with up to 100 results, single pages and collections on one credit balance.
Side by side
On Vera, a scrape costs 1 credit for a static page and 5 credits for a rendered page. A search costs 3 credits per search and returns up to 100 results. A collection takes up to 1,000 URLs, or a same-site crawl, at 1 credit for each page that completes. Failed or blocked requests cost nothing. A credit costs between $0.00029 and $0.00054, depending on the plan.
| What | Vera | Firecrawl | Firecrawl source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Proxy network | None. Vera has no residential or rotating proxies; requests leave from Vera's own servers. | Routes every request through proxies by default, with basic and enhanced types. In auto mode it retries with enhanced proxies if the basic proxy fails. | Firecrawl proxies documentation |
| Country targeting | None. Vera cannot route a request through a chosen country. | A country setting picks a proxy region where one exists. Its docs list 26 country codes for basic proxies and two, NL and US, for enhanced. | Firecrawl proxies documentationFirecrawl scrape documentation |
| Scrape output | markdown: true returns the page's main content as Markdown, next to its text, links and metadata. | Markdown, cleaned HTML, raw HTML, links, screenshot and JSON formats. | Firecrawl scrape documentation |
| Structured fields | extract takes up to 10 named fields, each a single CSS selector, in the same 1 credit static request. | A JSON format for structured output, at 4 more credits a page. | Firecrawl scrape documentationFirecrawl pricing |
| JavaScript rendering | render: true costs 5 credits a page, in an isolated browser with a 30-second limit. It is offered where the deployment has that browser turned on. | Handles JavaScript-rendered pages. Its pricing page lists a basic scrape at 1 credit and no separate rendering charge. | Firecrawl scrape documentationFirecrawl pricing |
| Screenshots | Rendered requests only (screenshot: true, a PNG up to 4 MiB), at the rendered price of 5 credits. | A screenshot format. Screenshot URLs expire after 24 hours. | Firecrawl scrape documentation |
| Page actions | Up to 20 click, fill and scroll steps, on rendered requests. | Actions (click, write, press, wait, screenshot), and Interact for continuing with a scraped page, at 2 credits per browser minute. | Firecrawl scrape documentationFirecrawl pricing |
| Crawling | Collections: a same-site crawl of up to 1,000 pages at 1 credit for each page that completes. You give a start URL and a page limit; there are no path patterns or depth settings. | A recursive crawl with a page limit, discovery depth, include and exclude path patterns and a sitemap setting, at 1 credit a page. | Firecrawl crawl documentation |
| URL discovery | A sitemap reader: up to 1,000 URLs a call, for 1 credit. | A map endpoint that discovers the URLs on a site. | Firecrawl documentation overview |
| Search | 3 credits per search, with up to 100 results: titles, links and snippets, not page content. | 2 credits for every 10 results. It can also return the full content of each result, billed at the scrape rate. | Firecrawl pricingFirecrawl documentation overview |
| Background jobs | Collections run in the background. You poll for their status and download JSON or CSV. | Crawl jobs return an ID to poll, and webhooks can report progress. | Firecrawl crawl documentation |
| Failed requests | Failed or blocked requests cost nothing. So does a response below a quality floor you set (min_quality_score). | A scrape that returns no result is not charged. A page that answers with an error such as 403 or 404 is returned, and costs 1 credit. | Firecrawl pricing |
| SDKs | None. Vera is a REST API with an OpenAPI spec, and HTTP recipes for n8n and Make. | Official SDKs for Python, Node, Go, Java, Ruby, Rust, .NET, PHP and Elixir, and a CLI. | Firecrawl SDKs |
| Open source | A hosted service at vera.waggle.ae. | Open source under AGPL-3.0, with a self-hosting guide. Its cloud service has features the open-source code does not. | Firecrawl on GitHub |
| Unused credits | Unused credits roll over while the account stays open. | Roll over only on the Scale plan, for one month. | Firecrawl pricing |
| Certification | No independent certification is claimed. | Lists SOC 2 Type II on every plan. | Firecrawl pricing |
What it costs
| Plan | Per month | Credits | Concurrent | Per 1,000 static pages | Per 1,000 rendered pages |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vera Forager | $19 | 35,000 | 12 | $0.543 | $2.71 |
| Vera Builder | $59 | 150,000 | 30 | $0.393 | $1.97 |
| Vera Scale | $149 | 500,000 | 60 | $0.298 | $1.49 |
| Vera Studio | $399 | 1,400,000 | 100 | $0.285 | $1.43 |
| Firecrawl Hobby | $19 ($16 billed annually) | 5,000 | 5 | $3.80 | $3.80 |
| Firecrawl Standard | $99 ($83 billed annually) | 100,000 | 25 | $0.990 | $0.990 |
| Firecrawl Growth | $399 ($333 billed annually) | 500,000 | 50 | $0.798 | $0.798 |
| Firecrawl Scale | $749 ($599 billed annually) | 1,000,000 | 100 | $0.749 | $0.749 |
Vera starts at $19 a month for 35,000 credits. Firecrawl's Hobby plan is $19 a month billed monthly ($16 billed yearly) for 5,000 credits.
Per 1,000 pages, Vera runs from $0.543 to $0.285. Firecrawl runs from $3.80 on Hobby down to $0.749 on Scale billed monthly, or from $3.20 down to $0.599 billed yearly. Every Vera plan is cheaper per static page than every Firecrawl plan listed. The two credits are not the same thing, though: a Firecrawl scrape handles JavaScript-rendered pages at that rate, and a Vera static request does not run JavaScript.
A rendered Vera page costs 5 credits, which is $2.71 to $1.43 per 1,000 pages. Firecrawl lists no separate rendering charge, so its figure stays the same. From its Standard plan upward Firecrawl is cheaper per rendered page than any Vera plan, and its Hobby plan costs more than any of Vera's.
Firecrawl charges 4 more credits a page for its JSON format (and for its Question and Highlight formats). Vera's named fields by CSS selector cost nothing extra.
Cost per 1,000 pages is the monthly price divided by the plan's credits, times the credits one page uses, times 1,000. Vera's prices are monthly. The per-1,000 columns use each service's monthly price, and the standard rate for one page; Firecrawl's prices come from Firecrawl pricing, checked 19 October 2026.
Firecrawl also has a free tier of 1,000 credits a month, refreshed every month, with no card. Vera's free credits are granted once for each confirmed email address.
Firecrawl's pricing page lists 1 credit for a basic scrape page and no separate charge for JavaScript rendering, so its rendered figure here is the same as its static one.
Its Enterprise plan is custom and not in this table.
Where Firecrawl is stronger
- Crawl and map. A crawl takes a page limit, a discovery depth, include and exclude path patterns and a sitemap setting, and a map endpoint discovers a site's URLs. Vera's crawl takes a start URL and a page limit.
- SDKs. Official SDKs for Python, Node, Go, Java, Ruby, Rust, .NET, PHP and Elixir, and a CLI. Vera has none.
- Open source. The code is AGPL-3.0 and can be self-hosted. Vera is a hosted service.
- Browser sessions and an agent. Interact keeps working with a scraped page, clicking and filling forms, at 2 credits per browser minute, and an agent is in preview.
- JSON output. A JSON format returns structured data, at 4 more credits a page.
- Throughput. Its Scale plan allows 10,000 scrape requests a minute and 100 concurrent requests; Vera's largest plan allows 1,000 requests a minute and 100 at once.
- Proxies, a country setting, webhooks for crawl progress, and SOC 2 Type II listed on every plan.
Where Vera is the better fit
- A lower price per static page on every published plan: $0.543 to $0.285 per 1,000 pages on Vera against $0.749 to $3.80 on Firecrawl billed monthly. Mind the difference in what a credit buys, above.
- More credits at the entry price: 35,000 for $19 a month, against 5,000 for $19 on Hobby billed monthly.
- Failed or blocked requests cost nothing, including pages that answer 403 or 404, which Firecrawl returns and charges 1 credit for.
- Search returns up to 100 results for 3 credits. Firecrawl prices search at 2 credits for every 10 results, which is 20 for 100. Vera's search returns links and snippets, not page content.
- Named fields by CSS selector come back in the same request, with no extra credits.
- Unused credits roll over while the account is open. Firecrawl's roll over only on its Scale plan, for one month.
What Vera does not do
- Vera has no residential or rotating proxies. A request that asks for residential routing returns 503, and nothing is charged.
- Vera cannot route a request through a country you choose, solve CAPTCHAs, bypass bot protection, log in, or read pages behind a paywall.
- Vera checks robots.txt and each source's policy on every fetch. A page a site forbids is refused, at no charge.
- A normal request does not run JavaScript. A rendered request costs 5 credits, runs in an isolated browser with a 30-second limit, and is only offered where the deployment has that browser turned on; where it is not, the call returns 503 and nothing is charged.
- Collections fetch static HTML only, keep their results for 7 days, and are capped by plan: up to 1,000 pages on the largest plan, fewer on the others.
- Vera has no SDKs. It is a REST API with an OpenAPI spec, and HTTP recipes for n8n and Make.
What we left out
We only state what a competitor's own pages say. Anything we could not confirm there, or have not measured, is not in the comparison.
- We have not measured success rates or speed on either service, so we make no claim about them.
- We did not price Firecrawl's enhanced proxies or its location-specific proxies.
- Firecrawl's Agent, Monitor and Parse, and what Interact can do beyond its credit rate. They are outside the single-page, search and collection jobs compared here.
- The Enterprise plan, and the plans' rate limits beyond the Scale figure above.
Sources
Every Firecrawl fact on this page comes from the pages below, checked 19 October 2026. Vera's own prices and credit costs match its pricing page.
- Firecrawl pricingPlan prices, credits and concurrency, the credit cost of each endpoint, rate limits, the free tier, rollover, SOC 2 Type II and what a failed scrape costs. Its page says these rates took effect on 4 September 2026.
- Firecrawl documentation overviewThe endpoints it lists: scrape, crawl, map, search, interact and agent.
- Firecrawl scrape documentationOutput formats, JavaScript-rendered pages, actions, screenshots and the country setting.
- Firecrawl crawl documentationCrawl limits, depth, path patterns, sitemap handling, job polling and webhooks.
- Firecrawl proxies documentationProxy types, the default of routing every request through proxies, and which countries each type supports.
- Firecrawl SDKsThe languages it has official SDKs for.
- Firecrawl on GitHubIts AGPL-3.0 licence and the self-hosting guide it links.
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