Fetch Router
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Fetch Router vs Firecrawl

Firecrawl is a full web-data platform: crawl, map, search, extraction, screenshots and its own anti-bot proxies. Fetch Router does one thing: fetch a single URL and prove it loaded before you pay.

Checked against official docs and pricing pages on 2026-11-02. Sources at the bottom. Spotted something out of date? Email hello@fetchrouter.dev and we'll fix it.

Use Firecrawl when

  • You need to crawl or map whole sites, search the web, or extract structured JSON with an LLM.
  • You fetch more than about 20,000 pages a month: Firecrawl Standard works out at about $0.99 per 1,000 pages with browser rendering included, well below our $5 per 1,000 browser pages.
  • You need screenshots, page actions (click, type), PDF/DOCX parsing, self-hosting (AGPL-3.0), SOC 2 or an SLA.
  • Your targets are anti-bot-protected: Firecrawl has its own basic and enhanced proxies today; our unblocking routes aren't live for customer traffic yet.

Use Fetch Router when

  • You want to pay only for pages that passed a content check, including your own: an expected string or CSS selector that must be on the page.
  • You want a named reason when a page fails (blocked:datadome, blocked:cloudflare, empty_shell, expect_text_missing) instead of a status code to interpret yourself.
  • Your volume is low or spiky and you don't want a subscription: no monthly plan, credits don't expire, failed fetches are free.
  • You want public, per-domain pass rates before you fetch a hard site (the free domain_reliability tool).

Side by side

Fetch RouterFirecrawl
UnitSingle URL fetch (markdown or HTML)Scrape, crawl, map, search, extract, interact
Price, static page1 credit = $0.001 ($1 per 1k)1 credit; $0.75–3.80 per 1k depending on plan
Price, JS-rendered page5 credits = $0.005 ($5 per 1k)Same 1 credit; rendering and enhanced proxy included
SubscriptionNone. Prepaid credits, no expiryFree (1,000 credits/month), then $19–749/month; pay-as-you-go top-ups need a paid plan
What you're billed forOnly pages that pass verificationAny returned document, including 403 and 404 pages; no charge when no document is returned
200 OK that's really a challenge pageDetected (vendor signatures + text checks), not billed, falls back to the next routeNot documented; the target status is in metadata.statusCode and you check it yourself
Your own success conditionexpect.text / expect.selector: fails and isn't billed if missingNot available as a billing condition
Anti-bot proxiesNot yet for customer trafficYes: basic and enhanced, automatic retry on 401/403/429
Crawl, map, search, extraction, screenshotsNoYes
MCPHosted (fetchrouter.dev/mcp) and npx fetchrouter-mcpHosted (keyless and OAuth) and npx firecrawl-mcp
Open sourceMCP server only (MIT)Core is AGPL-3.0, self-hostable (without Fire-engine)
ComplianceNone yet (new beta)SOC 2 Type II (renewal in progress); SLA on Enterprise

Cost

At 1,000 browser-rendered pages a month: Fetch Router is about $5; Firecrawl Free covers it at $0 (1,000 credits a month). At 5,000: we're about $25, Firecrawl Hobby is $19. At 100,000: we're about $500, Firecrawl Standard is $99. On price per page, Firecrawl wins at almost any steady volume.

Where the maths changes: if a large share of your fetches come back as blocks, 404s or empty pages. Firecrawl bills a returned 403 or 404 page; we don't bill anything that fails our checks. And with no plan, you don't pay for months you don't use.

FAQ

Is Fetch Router a Firecrawl alternative?

For single-page fetches by an agent, yes. For crawling, search, extraction or screenshots, no: use Firecrawl or a crawler for those.

Does Firecrawl charge for failed scrapes?

Not when no document comes back. It does charge 1 credit when the site answers with an error page such as 403 or 404, according to its billing docs (checked 2026-11-02).

Which is cheaper?

Firecrawl, at steady volume: its Standard plan is about $0.99 per 1,000 pages with rendering included. Fetch Router costs $1 per 1,000 static pages and $5 per 1,000 browser pages, with no subscription, and failures are free.

Can I use both?

Yes. A common split is Firecrawl for crawls and search, and Fetch Router as the agent's single-page fetch tool when you need a verified pass or fail.

Sources

How our routes perform: benchmark with method and CSV. Other comparisons: Fetch Router vs Jina Reader · DIY Playwright vs a fetch API.