Scraping API PricesFirecrawl vs ZenRows
The volume and protection-mode boundary between crawl credits and result credits.
Firecrawl
ZenRows
The difference
Both paths, one ruler
Firecrawl
Successes you want
100,000 pages
Your stated workload. Every vendor on this site is priced against this same number.
- ÷ 0.95
Attempts you are billed for
105,263 requests
Firecrawl bills failed fetches, so a 5% failure rate is billed work.
- × 1
What the meter counts
105,263 credits
One attempt is one billed unit for this workload.
- =
Cash per month
$399.00 /mo
Growth. Cheapest of every eligible purchase option, not the first plan that fits.
Bars share one linear scale across the 3 counted stages, so a multiplier shows as length. Units differ by stage and are labelled. Cash is not on that scale.
ZenRows
Successes you want
100,000 pages
Your stated workload. Every vendor on this site is priced against this same number.
- × 1
Attempts you are billed for
100,000 requests
ZenRows does not bill failed fetches, so failures cost nothing here.
- × 5
What the meter counts
500,000 credits
One attempt is not one billed unit here: this workload multiplies by 5 before any money is involved.
- =
Cash per month
$129.99 /mo
Startup. Cheapest of every eligible purchase option, not the first plan that fits.
Bars share one linear scale across the 3 counted stages, so a multiplier shows as length. Units differ by stage and are labelled. Cash is not on that scale.
Both ladders share one linear scale, topping out at 500,000 counted units, so a longer bar means more billed work rather than a different drawing.
These figures are for one stated workload: 100,000 JavaScript-rendered pages a month at a 95% success rate. The comparison below names where the answer changes.
The boundary
After free and trial allowances are excluded, Firecrawl is lower for paid successful basic pages through 5,000 pages a month. At 5,001, Firecrawl crosses its first allowance and ZenRows remains inside its entry result bundle, so ZenRows is lower through the tested one-million-page range. Protection changes the boundary. For the vendors’ closest published premium or enhanced-proxy modes, Firecrawl is lower through roughly 1,000 protected pages, ZenRows is lower from roughly 1,001 through 200,000, and Firecrawl requires a custom quote beyond its published self-serve coverage while ZenRows still has public tiers. (Firecrawl pricing, retrieved 2026-07-26; Firecrawl stealth mode, retrieved 2026-07-26; ZenRows pricing documentation, retrieved 2026-07-26)
The protected-page comparison is directional rather than perfectly identical. Firecrawl describes an enhanced proxy feature, while ZenRows defines premium-proxy and protected-result modes separately. A buyer should first test which mode is eligible for the actual target, then compare the calculated bill. Treating every anti-bot target as the same workload would manufacture a price comparison before establishing that both offers can perform the same job. (Firecrawl stealth mode, retrieved 2026-07-26; ZenRows pricing documentation, retrieved 2026-07-26)
How the billing models differ
Firecrawl uses monthly credits across Scrape, Crawl, Map, Search, Interact, Monitor, extraction, and Agent operations. Standard page operations consume page credits, while browser interaction is time-metered and Agent pricing is dynamic. ZenRows uses a hybrid account balance. Universal Scraper API charges different result-credit amounts for basic, JavaScript, premium-proxy, and protected modes. Scraping Browser draws from the same account but adds browser time and plan-specific bandwidth economics. (Firecrawl pricing, retrieved 2026-07-26; Firecrawl browser documentation, retrieved 2026-07-26; ZenRows pricing documentation, retrieved 2026-07-26)
Both vendors say internal failures are not billed, but both define some returned target statuses as successful and billable. Firecrawl charges when it fetches a target-side error. ZenRows treats documented not-found and gone responses as successful results. The calculator exposes a shared user-side success assumption without assigning either vendor an observed success rate. (Firecrawl pricing, retrieved 2026-07-26; ZenRows pricing documentation, retrieved 2026-07-26)
What each offers that the other does not
Firecrawl exposes Crawl, Map, Search, Monitor, and Agent as first-party operations around the scrape endpoint. ZenRows exposes a remote Scraping Browser alongside Universal Scraper API and publishes plan-specific result capacities for distinct anti-bot modes. Firecrawl is the more direct fit when site discovery or repeated monitoring is part of the job. ZenRows is the more direct fit when a team needs a browser protocol or wants separate, explicit capacities for basic, rendered, premium, and protected results. (Firecrawl pricing, retrieved 2026-07-26; Firecrawl browser documentation, retrieved 2026-07-26; ZenRows pricing documentation, retrieved 2026-07-26)
Who should pick which
Pick Firecrawl below the basic-page boundary when the smaller bundle is enough and Crawl, Map, Search, Monitor, or Agent removes application work. Pick ZenRows above that boundary when the workload is independent page delivery and stays within a published result tier. For protected sites, select the eligible mode first and then apply the narrower protected-page boundary. For interactive sessions, do not reuse either page boundary because browser time and bandwidth replace page count as the controlling units. (Firecrawl pricing, retrieved 2026-07-26; ZenRows pricing documentation, retrieved 2026-07-26)
Firecrawl does not publish a fixed Agent rate, and ZenRows publishes conflicting Business 3K details across its first-party pricing pages. The current dataset preserves those unknowns, and this page does not estimate either one. (Firecrawl pricing, retrieved 2026-07-26; ZenRows pricing documentation, retrieved 2026-07-26; ZenRows pricing page, retrieved 2026-07-26)