Jina Reader vs Parallel in 2026

One price a page, in dollars

Jina charges tokens by the length of each page, so a long page costs more than a short one and the dollar figure depends on your top up. Parallel charges $1 per 1,000 URLs. On SpecStream every page costs $0.0008, whatever its length, from a balance that never expires, and a page with no text is not charged. The reply carries price_usd, the price of the pages read.

Jina and Parallel calls on one key

Jina Reader code keeps its body and its parser on https://api.specstream.ai/jina, and Parallel Search code keeps its body on https://api.specstream.ai/parallel. Parallel Extract calls send the same urls list to POST /v1/extract.

# Jina Reader, before and after
curl -X POST https://r.jina.ai/ -H "Authorization: Bearer $JINA_API_KEY" -d "url=$URL"
curl -X POST https://api.specstream.ai/jina -H "Authorization: Bearer $SPECSTREAM_API_KEY" -d "url=$URL"

# Parallel Extract, before and after
curl https://api.parallel.ai/v1/extract -H "x-api-key: $PARALLEL_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"urls": ["https://www.un.org/en/about-us/history-of-the-un"], "objective": "When was the United Nations established?"}'
curl https://api.specstream.ai/v1/extract -H "Authorization: Bearer $SPECSTREAM_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"urls": ["https://www.un.org/en/about-us/history-of-the-un"], "format": "markdown"}'

What comes back

The Extract API returns the main text of up to 20 pages or documents a call, PDF, Word and Excel included, without menus, footers and ads. Each item of data.results carries url, status, title, text, published when the page gives a date, and emails. A page that refuses a plain read is tried again as a browser would ask for it, then in a real browser, then from the site's own feed, then from its newest public archive capture, and read_from says which. Every field is in the Extract API docs.

On /jina, the reply starts with Title: and URL Source:, then Markdown Content:, as Jina's does. With Accept: application/json it carries code, status and data with title, url, content and publishedTime; links, images and usage.tokens are not returned. Every parameter is in the Jina Reader migration guide.

Search on the same key

POST https://api.specstream.ai/parallel/v1/search with search_queries answers in Parallel's shape: results[].url, title, publish_date and excerpts, with the key in x-api-key, at $1 per 1,000 searches of up to 10 results. The parameters are in the Parallel migration guide.

The Search API on the same key scores a 97.9 F-score on all 1,000 official SimpleQA Verified questions, 978 of them correct, and 64.0 item F1 and 43.4 row F1 on all 200 official WideSearch tasks. Every score and its method is on the benchmarks page.

Every match as rows, with no fee per run

When the job is a list in place of a page, write the request in plain words. Deep Search reads it back as the conditions every row must meet and the facts to bring back, quotes the most it can cost, and after you approve delivers every match as a row at 5¢, 15¢ or $1, with a source URL on every value. A run carries no fixed fee. Save a request and it reruns hourly to yearly, with each row labeled changed, unchanged or no longer matching.

You decide what is kept, on each key

Create a key with zero_retention and a call made with it keeps no request text and no answer after the reply. spend_cap_cents is the most the key can spend.

curl -X POST https://api.specstream.ai/v1/account/keys \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SPECSTREAM_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"name": "production", "scopes": ["account:read", "finds:spend"], "spend_cap_cents": 500000, "zero_retention": true}'

SpecStream

The live web data engine for teams and agents. Pages at $0.80 per 1,000 through the Extract API or the Jina, Spider, Firecrawl and Crawl4AI routes, search at $5 per 1,000, and every match as structured rows at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a row.

Firecrawl

Monthly credit plans from $19 a month for 5,000 credits, at 1 credit a page for Scrape and Crawl. SpecStream answers Firecrawl's /v2/scrape and /v2/crawl at https://api.specstream.ai/firecrawl, each page at $0.0008. Firecrawl vs Jina Reader.

Spider

$1 per GB of content plus $0.0001 per minute of CPU, or Unlimited from $40 a month. SpecStream answers Spider's /scrape and /search at https://api.specstream.ai/spider, each page at $0.0008. Spider alternatives.

Crawl4AI

A crawler you can host yourself, with a hosted API from $10 a month at 120 calls a minute. SpecStream answers a Crawl4AI server's /crawl and /md at https://api.specstream.ai/crawl4ai, with no server to run.