The affordable Firecrawl alternative
Serpex is a web search API for AI agents that returns search results and the full page content behind them as LLM-ready markdown in a single request. Firecrawl is a crawling and scraping API that turns pages and whole sites into markdown. Firecrawl is priced per page ($0.75 – $3.80 per 1,000 pages on monthly billing ($0.60 – $3.20 annual). Structured JSON output adds 4 credits per page) rather than per search, so the two overlap only partially.
Pricing verified against Firecrawl’s public pricing page on 2026-08-16. Source. Prices change — check theirs before deciding.
Pricing compared
| Serpex | Firecrawl | |
|---|---|---|
| Search, per 1,000 | $0.50 – $0.65 | Not a search API |
| Page content | Included on the same request | $0.75 – $3.80 per 1,000 pages on monthly billing ($0.60 – $3.20 annual). Structured JSON output adds 4 credits per page |
| Search + content, 10 results, per 1,000 | $2.50 – $3.25 | Not applicable |
| Free tier | Free credits on signup, no card required | 1,000 credits per month, no card required |
Where Serpex is different
- We start from a search query, so you do not need to know the URLs in advance
- Search plus page markdown in a single request
Where Firecrawl is the better choice
- Whole-site crawling with depth and path control — we fetch the pages behind search results, we do not crawl a site
- Structured extraction against a schema you define
- Handles heavy JavaScript rendering as a first-class feature
Pick Firecrawl if you already know which site to crawl and you want it crawled thoroughly. That is a different job from ours, and they do it well.
What the Serpex request looks like
One call returns the results and the page content behind them. There is no second request to orchestrate.
curl -X POST https://api.serpex.dev/api/search \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $SERPEX_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"query": "how does retrieval augmented generation work",
"include_content": true,
"content_results": 5
}'Frequently asked questions
Is Serpex cheaper than Firecrawl?
Firecrawl is priced per page rather than per search ($0.75 – $3.80 per 1,000 pages on monthly billing ($0.60 – $3.20 annual). Structured JSON output adds 4 credits per page), so the two are not directly comparable. Serpex charges $0.50 – $0.65 per 1,000 searches, with page content available on the same request.
What is the main difference between Serpex and Firecrawl?
Firecrawl is a crawling and scraping API that turns pages and whole sites into markdown. Serpex returns search results and the full page content behind them as LLM-ready markdown in a single API call, which is the difference that matters for most retrieval pipelines.
When should I use Firecrawl instead of Serpex?
You already know which site to crawl and you want it crawled thoroughly. That is a different job from ours, and they do it well.
Can I get both search results and page content in one request?
With Serpex, yes — set include_content on a normal search call and each result comes back with the page converted to markdown. Firecrawl does not offer search, so you would pair it with a separate search API.
Try it against your own queries
Free credits on signup, no card required. Compare the output with Firecrawl on the queries you actually run.