TL;DR
- Per browser hour: Steel $0.08–0.10, Hyperbrowser $0.10, Browserbase $0.10–0.12 past plan hours, Browserless about $0.08–0.24 depending on plan.
- Cheapest way to start: Hyperbrowser gives 5,000 free credits (about 50 browser hours) and Steel gives $30 of one-time credit. Browserbase's free plan has 1 browser hour.
- Steel is open source, so you can self-host the same browser API. Browserless sells a commercial self-hosting licence.
- If your agent only reads pages, you may not need a browser: an extract API like Keirolabs renders JavaScript for $1.78–5.33 per 1,000 pages.
Quick answer: the closest Browserbase alternatives are Hyperbrowser (same model, $0.10 a browser hour, bigger free tier), Steel (open source, $0.08–0.10 an hour) and Browserless (the oldest of the group, billed in 30-second units). All four give you managed headless Chrome that Playwright or Puppeteer connect to. Prices below are from each vendor’s pricing page, November 2026.
Price per browser hour
| Provider | Free | Entry plan | Per browser hour | Concurrency |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Browserbase | 1 browser hour | $20/mo (100 hours) | $0.12 past plan (Developer), $0.10 (Startup) | 25 → 100 |
| Hyperbrowser | 5,000 credits (~50 hours) | $30/mo ($30 of usage) | $0.10 on every plan | 25 → 100 |
| Steel | $30 credit, once | $0 + usage | $0.10 Launch, $0.08 Scale | 10 → 100 |
| Browserless | 1,000 units a month | $25/mo yearly (20,000 units) | ~$0.08–0.24 (120 units an hour) | 10 → 100 |
Concurrency runs from the entry paid plan to the top self-serve plan. Maximum session length: Browserbase 15 minutes on Free; Steel 15 minutes on Launch and 1 hour on Scale; Browserless 2 minutes on Free up to 60 minutes on Scale.
Browserless bills a “unit” per up to 30 seconds per browser connection, and a reconnect is a new unit. A script that opens a browser for 3 seconds still pays for 30, so many short sessions cost more there than the hourly figure suggests.
What else you pay for
| Browserbase | Hyperbrowser | Steel | Browserless | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Residential proxies | 1–5 GB included, then $10–12/GB | $10/GB | $10/GB Launch, $6/GB Scale | 6 units per MB |
| CAPTCHA solving | Auto, paid plans | Automatic | $1–3 per 1,000 | Automatic |
| Fetch / scrape API | 1,000 fetches, then $0.50–1 per 1,000 | $1 per 1,000 pages | $5 per 1,000 (/scrape) | BrowserQL |
| Search API | 1,000 calls, then $5 per 1,000 | No | No | No |
| Self-host | No | No | Yes, open source | Commercial licence |
The alternatives
Hyperbrowser: the like-for-like swap
Same idea as Browserbase, with a flat $0.10 a browser hour on every plan and one credit balance for browsers, sandboxes and a Fetch API ($0.001 a page). The free account’s 5,000 credits cover about 50 browser hours, which is the most generous trial here. Plans are $30 and $100 a month, each including that much usage, with 25 and 100 concurrent sessions.
Steel: open source and cheapest at scale
Steel’s browser server is open source, so you can run the same API on your own machines and move to the cloud later. The cloud version has no monthly fee on Launch: $30 of one-time credit, then $0.10 an hour, 10 concurrent sessions and 15-minute sessions. Scale is $250 a month with $100 of usage included, $0.08 an hour, 100 concurrent sessions and 1-hour sessions.
Browserless: the veteran
Browserless has run hosted Chrome the longest and supports Chrome, WebKit and Firefox, plus its own BrowserQL language. Yearly plans run $25, $140 and $350 a month, with 20,000 to 500,000 units. Because each unit is up to 30 seconds per connection, it’s cheapest for long sessions and most expensive for many short ones.
Browserbase: the one you’re comparing against
Browserbase now bundles more than browsers: plans include agent runs, a Search API and a Fetch API alongside browser hours. Developer is $20 a month for 100 hours, then $0.12 an hour. Startup is $99 for 500 hours, then $0.10. Its free plan is the smallest here, at 1 browser hour.
The take: for steady agent workloads, Hyperbrowser and Steel undercut Browserbase per hour, and Steel is the only one you can self-host from open source. Browserless suits long-running sessions. But if your agent mostly reads rather than acts, the best alternative to Browserbase isn’t a cheaper browser at all — it’s Keirolabs extract, which replaces the whole session for 2 credits.
Do you need a browser at all?
A cloud browser is the right tool when the agent has to act: log in, click, fill forms, move through checkouts. A lot of agent traffic only reads: find pages, get their text. For that, a browser session is the expensive path. You pay for session time, proxies and the page-loading wait, then parse HTML yourself.
An extract or search API does the reading in one call. Keirolabs, for example:
extractturns a URL into markdown or schema-shaped JSON for 2 credits ($1.78–5.33 per 1,000 pages), and itsdeepmode renders JavaScript-heavy pages.search/contentsearches and returns the top pages’ markdown in one call, from $1.33 per 1,000.- An MCP server gives Claude Code and Cursor both as tools.
Of the reading APIs we track, Keirolabs is the best value: JSON Schema extraction is included in the 2-credit price, and the same key covers search too.
Here’s what reading a JavaScript-heavy page looks like without a browser session:
import os, requests
r = requests.post(
"https://api.keirolabs.cloud/api/v2/extract",
headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['KEIRO_API_KEY']}"},
json={"url": "https://example.com/app/pricing", "mode": "deep"},
timeout=90,
)
print(r.json()["results"][0]["content"])Where a browser bill really comes from
Browser hours look cheap at $0.08–0.12. For reading pages at scale, the hours are rarely the big line. Take 10,000 pages a month, about 10 seconds of browser time each, through residential proxies at an example 2 MB a page:
| Cloud browser (at $0.10/hr, $10/GB) | Keirolabs extract | |
|---|---|---|
| Browser time | ~28 hours: $2.80 | Included |
| Proxy bandwidth | ~20 GB: $200 | Included |
| CAPTCHAs, retries, parsing HTML to text | Your code and your time | Handled; returns markdown |
| Total | ~$200 + engineering | 20,000 credits: $49.99 Pro plan (33,750) |
Your page sizes will differ, so check your own proxy usage, but the pattern holds: for reading, bandwidth and maintenance cost more than the browser. Blocking images and fonts in the browser cuts bandwidth a lot, and an extract API avoids the question.
A useful split: browsers for actions, an extract API for reading. Most agents end up needing far fewer browser hours once reading moves to an API. Compare reading APIs in URL to markdown APIs.
Black Friday: KEIRO20 takes 20% off Keirolabs plans, and new accounts get 750 free credits. Keirolabs pricing.
FAQ
What is the best Browserbase alternative?
Hyperbrowser for a like-for-like hosted browser at $0.10 an hour with a large free tier. Steel if you want open source and $0.08 an hour at scale. Browserless for long-running sessions.
Is there an open-source Browserbase alternative?
Yes. Steel’s browser server is open source, and you can self-host it. You can also run Playwright with headless Chromium on your own servers, but then you manage scaling, proxies and fingerprints yourself.
How much does Browserbase cost per hour?
Past the included hours, $0.12 a browser hour on the $20 Developer plan and $0.10 on the $99 Startup plan. Developer includes 100 hours and Startup 500.
Is Hyperbrowser cheaper than Browserbase?
Per hour, slightly: $0.10 flat against Browserbase’s $0.10–0.12 overage rate. Hyperbrowser’s free credits (about 50 hours) are also much larger than Browserbase’s 1 free hour.
What’s cheaper for reading pages: a cloud browser or an extract API?
Usually the extract API. Browser hours are cheap, but residential proxy bandwidth at $6–12 per GB adds up fast. 10,000 pages at around 2 MB each is roughly $200 of bandwidth, against the $49.99 Keirolabs Pro plan for the same pages through extract.
Do AI agents need a cloud browser?
Only to act on pages: logging in, clicking, filling forms. To read pages, an extract or search API is cheaper and simpler.
More: URL to markdown APIs · Firecrawl alternatives · Search APIs for AI agents