# Bright Data Browser API alternative in 2026, priced per hour Compared on Nov 13, 2026. The page: https://specstream.ai/bright-data-browser-api-alternative Bright Data's Browser API bills the gigabytes a session transfers: $8 per GB pay as you go, or $499 a month with 71 GB on Scale. Time is free, so the bill follows the weight of the pages you open. SpecStream browser sessions bill time: $0.10 an hour, charged by the second. Playwright and Puppeteer connect over one `connect_url`, and traffic is not metered. New accounts get $10 of credit, no card: 100 browser hours. [Get an API key](https://specstream.ai/signup?src=alternatives-bright-data-browser-api&utm_source=alternatives-md&utm_campaign=bright-data-browser-api&returnTo=%2Fworkspace%2Fagents%3Ftab%3Dkeys) New accounts get $10 of credit, no card. It covers 100 browser hours. ## Per hour and per GB side by side | | SpecStream | Bright Data Browser API | |---|---|---| | What you pay for | Browser time, charged by the second. Traffic is not metered | Gigabytes of traffic through the browser. Its FAQ says there is no cost for instances or time, only traffic | | Price | $0.10 a browser hour. One minute costs $0.0017 | $8 per GB pay as you go | | Monthly plan | None. Pay from a balance, and a top-up from $10 never expires | Scale at $499 a month with 71 GB included, $7 per GB. Larger commitments are set with a slider, and the old $6 and $5 per GB tiers are no longer printed | | Steps in the page | No step charge over `connect_url` with Playwright or Puppeteer. $1 per 1,000 steps through the actions route or the MCP tools | No step price. Each step is billed by the bytes it loads | | Free to start | $10 of credit once, no card: 100 browser hours | 5,000 free credits a month, no card, shared with four other products. Browser API uses 5 credits per MB, so the full pool covers 1,000 MB | | What moves the bill | How long the browser stays open. A session that ends early stops the charge that second | Page weight. Its FAQ advises you to block images, stylesheets and ads to cut traffic, and premium domains cost more per gigabyte | | How you connect | `POST /v1/browser/sessions` returns a `connect_url` that speaks the Chrome DevTools Protocol. Or send one step at a time to the session's `/actions` route | A WebSocket at `brd.superproxy.io:9222` with the credentials of a Browser API zone, for Playwright, Puppeteer and Selenium | | A page you only need to read | $0.80 per 1,000 pages with the Extract API, a real browser included when the page needs one. A page with no text is not charged | Web Unlocker, a second product with its own zone: $1.50 per 1,000 requests pay as you go | ## Why price a browser by the hour ### You know the price before the run Time is the one number you control. A five minute session costs $0.0083 on SpecStream, and 1,000 of them cost $8.33, whatever the pages weigh. Per GB, the same 1,000 sessions have no fixed price. At $8 per GB they cost about $16 if each one loads 2 MB and about $80 if each one loads 10 MB. Bright Data's own FAQ says: "Because you pay by traffic, you probably will want to minimize it." On SpecStream there is nothing to trim. Load the images if the task needs them. ### Your Playwright or Puppeteer code stays A session's `connect_url` is a WebSocket that speaks the Chrome DevTools Protocol. Playwright's `connect_over_cdp` and Puppeteer's `connect` take it as it is, so the only line that changes is the address. Its token belongs to that one session, so you can hand it to a sandbox without your API key. ``` from playwright.sync_api import sync_playwright with sync_playwright() as p: browser = p.chromium.connect_over_cdp(connect_url) page = browser.contexts[0].new_page() page.goto("https://example.com/pricing") print(page.title()) browser.close() ``` An agent with no browser library sends one step at a time to `POST /v1/browser/sessions/{id}/actions`, at $1 per 1,000 steps. The setup for agents is in [SpecStream for agents](https://specstream.ai/agents.md). ### A page you only read costs $0.0008 Most scraping jobs open a browser to read a page that needs JavaScript. The [Extract API](https://specstream.ai/docs/extract-api?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=bright-data-browser-api) does that in one call for $0.80 per 1,000 pages: a page that refuses a plain read is tried again as a browser would ask for it, then in a real browser, at the same price. It scores 0.908 F1 on WCXB, as [the benchmarks page](https://specstream.ai/benchmarks?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=bright-data-browser-api) shows. Keep browser sessions for the steps that click, type or sign in, and send the reads to Extract. On Bright Data a read through the Browser API is billed per GB like any other session. ## Other Bright Data Browser API alternatives ### Browserbase The Developer plan is $20 a month with 100 browser hours, then $0.12 a browser hour, and proxies cost $12 per GB after the first GB. SpecStream charges $0.10 an hour from the first second with no plan. ### Steel Browser hours cost $0.10 or $0.08 by plan, CAPTCHA solves $3 per 1,000, and a new account gets $30 of credits one time. SpecStream charges $0.10 an hour on every account and starts you with $10 of credit. ### Hyperbrowser Browser time is 100 credits an hour, $0.10, plus $10 per GB for any proxy data used. SpecStream charges the same $0.10 an hour and does not meter traffic. ### Browserless Billed in units of up to 30 seconds of browser time per connection. Prototyping is $25 a month billed annually for 20,000 units, then $0.0020 a unit, which is $0.24 an hour. SpecStream charges $0.10 an hour by the second. ## How to move a Browser API script to SpecStream 1. Create a key on the [Search API screen](https://specstream.ai/workspace/search?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=bright-data-browser-api) of the workspace. New accounts get $10 of credit, no card. 2. Open a session. Every field is optional: `timeout_s` sets the most seconds it runs, up to 3,600, and `block_media` skips images, video and fonts when you want faster pages. ``` curl -X POST https://api.specstream.ai/v1/browser/sessions \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $SPECSTREAM_API_KEY" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"timeout_s": 600}' ``` 3. The reply holds the session under `data`, with its `id` and `connect_url`. Replace the `wss://...@brd.superproxy.io:9222` address in your script with `connect_url`. There is no zone, username or password to set. 4. End the session when the work is done, so the charge stops that second. The session's `charged_usd` shows what it cost. ``` curl -X POST https://api.specstream.ai/v1/browser/sessions/$SESSION_ID/release \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $SPECSTREAM_API_KEY" ``` ## Frequently asked questions ### How much does the Bright Data Browser API cost? $8 per GB of traffic pay as you go, or $499 a month on Scale with 71 GB included, which is $7 per GB. Bright Data does not charge for browser time or instances, only for traffic, and premium domains cost more per gigabyte. ### Is there a Browser API priced per hour and not per GB? Yes. SpecStream browser sessions cost $0.10 an hour, charged by the second, and traffic is not metered. Steps sent through the actions route cost $1 per 1,000. Playwright and Puppeteer over the `connect_url` pay for time only. ### How do I compare a per GB price with a per hour price? One GB on Bright Data costs $8, which buys 80 browser hours on SpecStream. If your sessions load more than 12.5 MB per hour of browser time, about 0.2 MB a minute, the hourly price is lower. ### What is the best Bright Data Browser API alternative? SpecStream for a script whose cost should follow time: $0.10 a browser hour with no plan, a `connect_url` for Playwright and Puppeteer, and $0.80 per 1,000 pages through the Extract API for pages that only need a read. ### Does Bright Data have a free tier for the Browser API? Yes: 5,000 free credits a month, no card, shared across Web Unlocker, SERP API, Web Scraper API, Scraper Studio and Browser API. Browser API uses 5 credits per MB, so the pool covers 1,000 MB a month. A new SpecStream account gets $10 of credit once, no card, which is 100 browser hours. ### Does my Playwright script work with SpecStream browser sessions? Yes. Pass the session's `connect_url` to `connect_over_cdp` in Playwright or `connect` in Puppeteer. It is a WebSocket that speaks the Chrome DevTools Protocol, and its token works for that one session only. ### How long can a SpecStream browser session run? Up to 3,600 seconds, one hour, set with `timeout_s`. The default is 300 seconds. An hour costs $0.10, so no single session costs more than 10¢ of browser time. ## Sources SpecStream wrote this page. Bright Data's unit, free tier and connection details come from its documentation, read on the date shown. Its plan prices come from its pricing page as Dupple and UsagePricing recorded them. Each other provider's figures come from its own pricing page. - [Bright Data Browser API FAQs](https://docs.brightdata.com/products/scraping-browser/faqs.md), read Nov 13, 2026 - [Bright Data free tier docs](https://docs.brightdata.com/general/account/billing-and-pricing/free-tier.md), read Nov 13, 2026 - [Bright Data documentation index](https://docs.brightdata.com/llms.txt), read Nov 13, 2026 - [Dupple, Bright Data pricing read on brightdata.com](https://dupple.com/pricing/bright-data), read Oct 14, 2026 - [UsagePricing, Bright Data Browser API pricing change](https://usagepricing.com/blueprint/activity/bright-data-2026-08-28-browser-api-slider), read Aug 28, 2026 - [Browserbase pricing](https://www.browserbase.com/pricing), read Nov 13, 2026 - [Steel pricing](https://steel.dev/pricing), read Nov 13, 2026 - [Hyperbrowser pricing](https://www.hyperbrowser.ai/pricing), read Nov 13, 2026 - [Browserless pricing](https://www.browserless.io/pricing), read Nov 13, 2026 - [SpecStream benchmarks](https://specstream.ai/benchmarks), read Nov 13, 2026 - [SpecStream for agents](https://specstream.ai/agents.md), read Nov 13, 2026