README.md
★ Check OSS self-host version
NEW Finally, your favorite open-source crawler is now a hosted API.Your open-source crawler, now hosted.
Crawl4AI now available on Cloud
Turn any URL into clean Markdown, typed JSON, or search results. Fast, affordable, and efficient - no infra, no signup.
$ crawl scrape
--instruction
Live · play limits✓ 200 OK
# Type a URL above and hit Run - real output renders here
## What you get #
- /scrape URL → clean Markdown, boilerplate stripped, ready for a prompt.
- /extract URL + a plain-English ask → typed JSON records. No selectors.
- /search query → ranked results as JSON - add
rich=1for follow-ups, related & more. - /answer a question → a direct answer with its sources. Experimental.
- at scale queues, jobs, retries, and solid proxies - handled for you.
## Use it in Claude Code, Cursor & agents - paste one line #
Same key, everywhere you build. Mint one above and it drops into each command below.
claude mcp add --transport http crawl4ai https://gate.crawl4ai.com/mcp --header "Authorization: Bearer sk_live_…""crawl4ai": { "url": "https://gate.crawl4ai.com/mcp", "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer sk_live_…" } }export CRAWL4AI_URL=gate.crawl4ai.com CRAWL4AI_KEY=sk_live_…GET gate.crawl4ai.com/llms.txt # the whole API, agent-readableOpen## Self-host, or skip the setup #
// run it yourself
Self-host
It's Apache-2.0. pip install crawl4ai, point it at your own boxes and proxies. No gate, no token. It's yours.
// let us run it
Hosted
Or forget the infra. We've operated this crawler at scale for years - proxies, queues, jobs, the hard parts. You keep the key; we keep it fast.
Who runs it better than the people who built it? Self-host for control; host with us to move fast. Same crawler either way.
## Pricing #
tier
price
for
Community
$0 / forever
Play, every prototype & hackathon - funded by our supporters & enterprise customers. Verify your email to keep your key. Get a key
Supporter
$10 $7 / mo
More of everything - 30k searches, 5k scrapes, big extract budget - for less than a coffee. Fund the free tier, get the caps. Coming soon
Developer
Coming soon
Production limits, usage dashboard, batch & scheduled crawls.
Enterprise
Let's talk
Volume, dedicated regions, SLA, private archive. Contact us
The same web search, scrape & extract the others sell for $16–$49 — in one plan. Free on Community, $7 on Supporter. Our search runs on our own stack, so we give away what resellers charge for.
plan
price / mo
web search / mo
scrape / mo
Crawl4AI · Community
Free
5,000
1,000
Crawl4AI · Supporter
$7
30,000
5,000
Firecrawl · Hobby
$16
~2,500*
5,000
SerpApi · Starter
$25
1,000
—
ScraperAPI · Hobby
$49
—
~100k credits
*Firecrawl search draws from its shared page credits; ours is its own bucket. Figures are each provider's cheapest paid plan (2026). Our free Community out-searches SerpApi's $25 plan.
## Philosophy #
# we don't hide.
every result carries where it came from - the origin travels with the data.
# and the whole "block the bots" arms race? a phase.
let crawlers crawl.
every result carries where it came from - the origin travels with the data.
# and the whole "block the bots" arms race? a phase.
let crawlers crawl.