Omniyond vs Firecrawl: a Firecrawl alternative when you only need the occasional page

Firecrawl is a web-data platform (scrape, crawl, map, search, Monitor) and, since 22 September 2026, a data catalog called Alexandria. Its free tier gives 1,000 credits a month with no card, and paid plans start at $16/mo billed yearly.

Omniyond is a pay-per-use scheduler and utility toolbox. Its /v1/extract reads one page for $0.01 from the same balance that pays for your scheduled jobs.

If you want a Firecrawl alternative because you only read a page now and then, here's where each one fits, including the many cases where Firecrawl wins.

Updated 9 October 2026.

Firecrawl prices and features checked on firecrawl.dev on 9 October 2026.

TL;DR verdict

Short version: if extraction or web data is your product, use Firecrawl. If you mainly need scheduled jobs and read a page now and then, one pay-per-call balance is simpler.

What each one actually does

Firecrawl is a web-data platform. It scrapes pages, crawls sites, maps URLs, searches, runs batch jobs and an Agent, and returns JSON from a schema you define. Hard sites go through enhanced proxy mode at the normal 1 credit. Monitor checks pages on a cron or plain-text schedule with a time zone, diffs them, and alerts you by webhook, email or Slack. Since September it also has Alexandria (next section). If you need every product page on a domain as structured records, use Firecrawl.

Omniyond's extract is one endpoint. You POST a URL, it renders the page in a real headless browser, and returns markdown, the rendered HTML, or a list of links. There's no crawler, JSON mode, site mapping or proxy options.

Omniyond is a pay-per-use API toolbox for AI builders: hosted HTTP scheduling and utilities on one key and one balance, from $0.01 a call. The keystone is a scheduler for AI agents that fires any HTTP call on a recurrence with retries and delivery. Extract is a side tool next to PDFs, OG images, QR codes and short links.

What Firecrawl Alexandria adds

Firecrawl launched Alexandria on 22 September 2026, the same day it announced a $75M Series B led by Smash Capital (announcement). It puts official data providers, custom connectors and Firecrawl's own indexes behind one connection with the live web. The Alexandria page lists 218 providers and 1,364 capabilities. The indexes are Research (tens of millions of paper abstracts), Developer (docs, READMEs, issues, merged PRs) and Government (laws, regulations, ordinances). Per the Alexandria docs, discovery is free and execution costs the credits listed on each tool. Firecrawl's agent onboarding guide says it needs an API key (the keyless tier doesn't include it).

Omniyond has nothing like this. If your agent needs licensed or structured data sources, that's a Firecrawl job.

Firecrawl pricing vs pay per call

Firecrawl's pricing is "Effective September 4, 2026" (firecrawl.dev/pricing, checked 9 October 2026).

The yearly prices for Standard, Growth and Scale carry an annual discount of 16.7% (20% on Scale). Billed monthly, they're $99, $399 and $749. A scraped page, a crawled page and each page in a Monitor check cost 1 credit.

At full use, Hobby is about $0.0032 a page and Standard about $0.00083, far under our $0.01. If you use the credits you buy, Firecrawl is cheaper per page and it isn't close.

The utilization math on Hobby

Plan credits don't roll over below Scale, and Scale rolls them over for one month. So the real price per page is the plan price divided by the pages you actually read.

Under 1,000 pages a month, Firecrawl Free costs $0 and beats us outright. The low rows only matter if you pay for Hobby anyway.

Break-even is 1,600 pages a month on yearly Hobby and 1,900 on monthly Hobby. Above that Firecrawl pulls ahead, and past Hobby's 5,000 credits its top-ups cost $0.005 a page, half our price. Standard's break-even on yearly billing is about 8,300 pages.

Formats that run an LLM on the page (JSON, question, highlights) cost 5 credits a page instead of 1. Omniyond's extract doesn't do those, so there's nothing to compare there.

We did the same per-run math for Inngest.

When Firecrawl is the better choice

Often. Pick Firecrawl if:

• You need to crawl, not fetch. Omniyond doesn't follow links across a domain.
• You need structured output. Firecrawl takes a schema and returns typed JSON.
• You're hitting protected sites. Enhanced proxy mode handles sites that fight back, at the normal 1 credit.
• You want web data, not just pages. Alexandria's providers and indexes.
• You want to watch pages for changes. Monitor runs on cron with time zones and alerts you.
• You read a few pages and don't want to sign up. The keyless free tier (rate-limited) or the 1,000 free credits.
• Extraction is the workload. Past 1,600 to 1,900 pages a month, the subscription is cheaper.

If two or more of those are you, use Firecrawl.

When Omniyond is the better choice

• Extraction is one of several things you need. Firecrawl Monitor covers scheduled page checks. Omniyond schedules any HTTP call (your own endpoint, any API) with retries, a dead-letter queue and callback delivery, and the same balance pays for PDFs, OG images, QR codes and short links. That's the stack tax argument. If what you need is background jobs, see the background-job options grouped by job.
• Interval scheduling is enough. Our scheduler is interval-only, with a 5-minute minimum, a 90-day maximum and up to 1,000 runs per job. There are no cron expressions or time zones, so "every weekday at 9am" can't be expressed.
• You already hold a balance. Under 1,000 pages Firecrawl Free is $0, so we don't win on price. The case is wanting the occasional page from the key that already runs your scheduled jobs.
• You use MCP. Both have it, and Firecrawl's hosted MCP works keyless for search and scrape. npx omniyond-mcp puts the scheduler and every tool on one balance. See MCP scheduler: give your agent a clock.
• You don't want another subscription. Packs are $9, $29 or $99 one time, and the balance never expires.
• The buyer is an agent. Firecrawl's keyless tier covers search and scrape at low rate limits; past that it needs an account, and top-ups need a paid plan. Omniyond's x402 path lets an agent with a USDC wallet pay any call, including the scheduler, with no account.

Who this Firecrawl alternative is for

It's for developers whose work is mostly scheduled jobs (digests, polling, follow-ups) and who read a web page now and then from the same key. If web data is your product, or you watch pages on a cron schedule, Firecrawl is the better buy.

Honest pros and cons

So which one?

Under 1,000 pages, use Firecrawl Free at $0. Above about 1,600 pages (1,900 on monthly billing), Firecrawl Hobby is cheaper, and past 5,000 its top-ups cost half our price. For data sources, use Alexandria.

The Omniyond case is mostly scheduled jobs with an occasional page read. If you're weighing schedulers rather than scrapers, read Omniyond vs Inngest.

If most of your work is scheduled jobs and you read a page now and then, start with a $9 credit pack at omniyond.com. It covers about 900 calls across the scheduler and every tool, and the credits never expire.

FAQ

Is Firecrawl free?

Yes. Firecrawl Free is $0 with no card and gives 1,000 credits a month, enough for 1,000 scraped pages or 500 searches. Firecrawl's keyless free tier also runs search, scrape, interact and parse without an API key, capped per IP address per day.

How much does Firecrawl cost per page?

A plain scrape is 1 Firecrawl credit. On Hobby ($16/month yearly for 5,000 credits) that's about $0.0032 a page at full use, and top-ups are $0.005 a page. JSON, question and highlights formats add 4 credits, so a JSON page costs 5.

Does Firecrawl have pay-as-you-go?

Yes, on paid plans only. Firecrawl adds credits in $5 increments when you run out, up to a monthly limit you set (0 turns it off), and you can buy credits manually. On Hobby $5 buys 1,000 credits; on Scale it buys 5,000.

Do Firecrawl credits roll over?

Only on Scale, which carries unused plan credits over for one month; Enterprise is custom. Firecrawl's Free, Hobby, Standard and Growth credits reset monthly. Credits bought as top-ups stay on your account until used, but expire if you cancel your subscription.

What is Firecrawl Alexandria?

Firecrawl Alexandria, launched 22 September 2026, puts official data providers, custom connectors and Firecrawl's Research, Developer and Government indexes behind one connection. It lists 218 providers and 1,364 capabilities. Discovery is free, execution costs each tool's listed credits, and it needs an API key.

Is Omniyond a Firecrawl replacement?

For crawling, search, JSON extraction or data sources, no. Omniyond's /v1/extract reads a single page as markdown, rendered HTML or links for $0.01. It fits when you already pay Omniyond for scheduled jobs and want the occasional page from the same balance.

When is $0.01 per page cheaper than Firecrawl?

Rarely. Under 1,000 pages a month Firecrawl Free costs $0. Omniyond at $0.01 a page beats Firecrawl Hobby only between about 1,000 and 1,600 pages a month (1,900 on monthly billing), or when you'd pay for Hobby just for a few extra pages. Past 5,000 pages, Hobby top-ups at $0.005 win.

Firecrawl plan prices, credit costs, Alexandria and Monitor details verified 9 October 2026 at firecrawl.dev/pricing and docs.firecrawl.dev.