ScrapeUp vs Firecrawl

Firecrawl’s AI-powered /extract endpoint runs on a separate token subscription starting at $89/month — independent of your scraping credits. On ScrapeUp, AI extraction is a per-request add-on baked into the same credit system, no second subscription required.

Both tools use plain-English prompts to extract data — no CSS selectors required. The difference: Firecrawl is optimized for clean Markdown for LLM consumption. ScrapeUp is optimized for typed, structured JSON ready for databases, pipelines, or downstream APIs — with explicit control over which proxy tier handles the request.

# Structured JSON + explicit proxy selection
import requests

response = requests.get(
    "https://api.scrapeup.com",
    params={
        "api_key": "YOUR_KEY",
        "url": "https://example.com/product",
        "extract_prompt": "product name, price, rating",
        "premium": "true"  # residential proxy
    }
)

# Clean, typed JSON ready for your DB
# {"name": "...", "price": 49.99, "rating": 4.6}
data = response.json()

# Returns LLM-ready markdown
# (AI extract requires separate $89/mo plan)
import requests

response = requests.post(
    "https://api.firecrawl.dev/v1/scrape",
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer KEY"},
    json={
        "url": "https://example.com/product",
        "formats": ["markdown"]
    }
)

# Returns markdown, you still parse for structure
md = response.json()["data"]["markdown"]

Recurring themes from verified reviews and developer discussions — not cherry-picked edge cases.