Browserbase

Browserbase is hosted browser infrastructure for agents. Extra browser hours are about $0.12 / hr. Search / Fetch overages print at $1 / 1,000. The old Scale-as-custom-only line is stale.

Compare Playwright if you wanted a local library, and E2B if you wanted a full sandbox VM.

Key Features

Browser sessions as a service: Real Chrome that Playwright/Puppeteer can attach to.
Stagehand: Their AI browser SDK. Confirm the current package name in the docs.
Search + Fetch: Optional web APIs on the same bill.
Concurrency and hours: The seat is not unlimited browsers.

Use Cases

Agents that must log in and click where there is no clean API.
QA bots walking a production site.
Teams comparing $20 Developer vs running Playwright themselves.

Limitation: Free-tier hour and search caps should be re-read on the page. CAPTCHA / stealth claims are vendor marketing.

Pricing

browserbase.com/pricing on 2026-08-17:

Plan	Price	Notes from that page
Free	$0	Tiny included hours and API calls.
Developer	$20 / month	More hours and concurrency.
Startup	$99 / month	Higher still.
Scale	from $249 / month	Form / sales.
Browser time overage	~$0.12 / hr	Plus Search/Fetch $1 / 1,000.

Getting Started

Create an account at browserbase.com.
Start a session and attach Playwright.
Stay on Developer until you know hour burn.
Add Stagehand only after a raw session works.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Scale still custom-only?

Is Fetch 85% of the web?

Not a first-party sentence we kept.

Same as Playwright?

Playwright is the library. Browserbase hosts the browsers.

Alternatives

Playwright: Local/CI browsers, Apache-2.0.
E2B: MicroVM sandboxes, not just Chrome.
Cloudflare Computer: Edge computer-use if you are already on Cloudflare.

Tips

Quote $20 / $99 / $249 and $0.12 / hr together.
Measure hour burn before you pick Startup.
Confirm Stagehand separately. It is an SDK, not the host.

Conclusion

Browserbase is a priced browser cloud for agents, with public $0 / $20 / $99 / $249+ seats. Start at browserbase.com/pricing, then decide whether Playwright on your own CI is enough.