Yes. POST https://api.switch402.com/v1/scrape with {"url": "..."} returns the page as markdown for $0.008 USDC on Base per call, paid over x402 and charged only on success. A lower-cost endpoint, /v1/scrape/lite, is $0.003 per call.

Is Firecrawl or Exa cheaper?

Exa, unless you fill a big Firecrawl plan. Checked Nov 9, 2026: one search is $0.004 on Exa Lite vs $0.0076 on Firecrawl Hobby and $0.002 on Firecrawl Standard (credits fully used); one page of text is $0.001 on Exa Contents vs $0.0038 on Hobby and $0.001 on Standard. Exa has no monthly minimum and $10 of free credit each month.

How much does Exa cost?

Per Exa's pricing docs, checked Nov 9, 2026: pay as you go, no subscription. Search Lite and Instant $4, Auto and Fast $7 per 1,000 requests (up to 10 results; $1 per 1,000 extra results), Deep $12, Deep Reasoning $15, Answer $5, Monitors $2, Contents $1 per 1,000 pages per content type. The free tier gives $10 of credit, reset on the first of each month.

How much does Firecrawl cost?

Per firecrawl.dev/pricing, checked Nov 9, 2026, monthly billing: Free $0 (1,000 credits a month), Hobby $19 (5,000), Standard $99 (100,000), Growth $399 (500,000) and Scale $749 (1,000,000); billed annually $16, $83, $333 and $599 a month.

Do Firecrawl and Exa credits expire?

Firecrawl Hobby, Standard and Growth credits reset monthly with no rollover; Scale carries unused credits for one month. Exa's free $10 balance resets on the first of each month; Exa usage draws down a prepaid dollar balance. switch402 has no credits to expire.

Can switch402 replace Firecrawl or Exa?

For simple search and page-to-markdown jobs, yes, at $0.008 per search and $0.003 to $0.008 per page with no account. It has no neural or deep search like Exa and no crawl jobs, JSON extraction or Interact like Firecrawl, and per search it costs more than both.

Where do these numbers come from?

Firecrawl's pricing page and billing docs, and Exa's pricing docs (exa.ai/docs/pricing), checked Nov 9, 2026, plus switch402's live payment terms. Prices can change; check the sources before you decide.

Firecrawl vs Exa Pricing (2026): Cost per Search, per Page and per Month

Firecrawl and Exa both give AI agents web search and page contents, but bill differently. Per firecrawl.dev/pricing (checked Nov 9, 2026), Firecrawl sells monthly credit plans: free for 1,000 credits a month, Hobby $19 for 5,000, Standard $99 for 100,000, Growth $399 for 500,000; a page is 1 credit and a search 2 credits per 10 results. Per Exa's pricing docs (same day), Exa is pay as you go with no subscription: Search Lite $4 and Auto $7 per 1,000 requests (up to 10 results), Deep $12, Contents $1 per 1,000 pages, and a $10 free balance every month. Short answer: Exa costs less at low and uneven volume and has no monthly minimum; with a plan you fill, Firecrawl Standard is cheaper per search ($0.002 vs $0.004 on Exa Lite) and about the same per page ($0.001). switch402 is $0.008 per search or page ($0.003 on lite) with no account: more per search than both, and per page less than Firecrawl Hobby but more than Exa or Firecrawl Standard.

Firecrawl: monthly credit plans
One credit pool: scrape and crawl 1 credit a page, map 1 per call, search 2 per 10 results; JSON, Question and Highlight formats add 4 credits a page. Hobby, Standard and Growth credits reset monthly with no rollover. Pay-as-you-go top-ups in $5 steps need a paid plan.
Exa: pay as you go in dollars
No subscription or minimum. Search Lite $4 and Auto $7 per 1,000 requests including up to 10 results ($1 per 1,000 extra results), Deep $12 to $15, Answer $5, Contents $1 per 1,000 pages per content type. AI page summaries add $1 per 1,000 pages.
Free tiers
Firecrawl: 1,000 credits a month, about 500 searches or 1,000 pages. Exa: $10 of credit, reset on the first of every month, about 2,500 Lite searches or 10,000 pages of text.
switch402: no account
/v1/search $0.008 per successful call (up to 10 results), /v1/scrape $0.008 per page, /v1/scrape/lite $0.003. Paid per call in USDC on Base over x402, charged only on success. No neural search, deep research or structured extraction.

Cost per job, Firecrawl plan credits fully used, as of Nov 9, 2026

Job	Firecrawl Hobby ($19 / 5,000 credits)	Firecrawl Standard ($99 / 100,000)	Exa Lite	Exa Auto	switch402
1 search, up to 10 results	2 credits = $0.0076	2 credits = $0.002	$0.004	$0.007	$0.008
1 page as text	1 credit = $0.0038	1 credit = $0.001	$0.001 (Contents)	$0.001 (Contents)	$0.008 ($0.003 lite)
Search, then read the top 10 pages	12 credits = $0.0456	12 credits = $0.0119	$0.014 (search + 10 Contents)	$0.017 (search + 10 Contents)	$0.038 (search + 10 lite pages)
Free each month	1,000 credits	1,000 credits (Free plan)	$10 credit	$10 credit	None
Monthly minimum past the free tier	$19	$99	$0	$0	$0

Firecrawl columns assume every credit in the month is used; a plan you only half use costs twice as much per job. The Exa search-and-read row prices page text through /contents separately, as an upper bound; Exa search can also return page contents in the same request, so check Exa's docs for your setup. Honest reading: Exa is cheaper than Firecrawl Hobby for every job here and needs no plan; Firecrawl Standard is cheapest for search and search-and-read once you fill 100,000 credits. switch402 searches cost more than both; its lite pages ($0.003) cost less than Firecrawl Hobby's ($0.0038) but more than Exa Contents and Firecrawl Standard. Its trade is no account, API key, plan or credits.

Sources, checked Nov 9, 2026: firecrawl.dev/pricing, docs.firecrawl.dev/billing, exa.ai/docs/pricing. Prices can change; check the source before you decide.

Example: an agent runs 3,000 searches and reads 3,000 pages a month. Firecrawl uses 6,000 + 3,000 = 9,000 credits: Hobby's 5,000 plus four $5 top-ups = $39, or Standard $99. Exa Lite: 3,000 x $0.004 + 3,000 x $0.001 = $15, minus the $10 free credit = $5 (Auto: $24 - $10 = $14). switch402: 3,000 x $0.008 + 3,000 x $0.003 (lite) = $33. Exa costs least here; at 50,000 searches a month with no page reads, Firecrawl Standard ($99) would beat Exa Lite ($190).

Code example

Exa search, Lite, $4 per 1,000 requests (curl)

curl -s -X POST https://api.exa.ai/search \
  -H "x-api-key: $EXA_API_KEY" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"query": "x402 payment protocol", "type": "lite", "numResults": 10}'

Firecrawl search, 2 credits per 10 results (curl)

curl -s -X POST https://api.firecrawl.dev/v2/search \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $FIRECRAWL_API_KEY" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"query": "x402 payment protocol", "limit": 10}'

switch402 search, then read a result, paid per call (JavaScript)

// npm i @x402/fetch @x402/evm viem
import { wrapFetchWithPaymentFromConfig } from '@x402/fetch'
import { ExactEvmScheme } from '@x402/evm'
import { privateKeyToAccount } from 'viem/accounts'

const account = privateKeyToAccount(process.env.AGENT_KEY)
const fetchWithPayment = wrapFetchWithPaymentFromConfig(fetch, {
  schemes: [{ network: 'eip155:8453', client: new ExactEvmScheme(account) }],
})

const s = await fetchWithPayment('https://api.switch402.com/v1/search', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json', 'User-Agent': 'my-agent/1.0' },
  body: JSON.stringify({ q: 'x402 payment protocol', limit: 10 }),
})
const { results } = await s.json() // $0.008

const p = await fetchWithPayment('https://api.switch402.com/v1/scrape/lite', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json', 'User-Agent': 'my-agent/1.0' },
  body: JSON.stringify({ url: results[0].url }),
})
const { markdown } = await p.json() // $0.003, charged only on success

FAQ

Is switch402 live?: Yes. POST https://api.switch402.com/v1/scrape with {"url": "..."} returns the page as markdown for $0.008 USDC on Base per call, paid over x402 and charged only on success. A lower-cost endpoint, /v1/scrape/lite, is $0.003 per call.
Is Firecrawl or Exa cheaper?: Exa, unless you fill a big Firecrawl plan. Checked Nov 9, 2026: one search is $0.004 on Exa Lite vs $0.0076 on Firecrawl Hobby and $0.002 on Firecrawl Standard (credits fully used); one page of text is $0.001 on Exa Contents vs $0.0038 on Hobby and $0.001 on Standard. Exa has no monthly minimum and $10 of free credit each month.
How much does Exa cost?: Per Exa's pricing docs, checked Nov 9, 2026: pay as you go, no subscription. Search Lite and Instant $4, Auto and Fast $7 per 1,000 requests (up to 10 results; $1 per 1,000 extra results), Deep $12, Deep Reasoning $15, Answer $5, Monitors $2, Contents $1 per 1,000 pages per content type. The free tier gives $10 of credit, reset on the first of each month.
How much does Firecrawl cost?: Per firecrawl.dev/pricing, checked Nov 9, 2026, monthly billing: Free $0 (1,000 credits a month), Hobby $19 (5,000), Standard $99 (100,000), Growth $399 (500,000) and Scale $749 (1,000,000); billed annually $16, $83, $333 and $599 a month.
Do Firecrawl and Exa credits expire?: Firecrawl Hobby, Standard and Growth credits reset monthly with no rollover; Scale carries unused credits for one month. Exa's free $10 balance resets on the first of each month; Exa usage draws down a prepaid dollar balance. switch402 has no credits to expire.
Can switch402 replace Firecrawl or Exa?: For simple search and page-to-markdown jobs, yes, at $0.008 per search and $0.003 to $0.008 per page with no account. It has no neural or deep search like Exa and no crawl jobs, JSON extraction or Interact like Firecrawl, and per search it costs more than both.
Where do these numbers come from?: Firecrawl's pricing page and billing docs, and Exa's pricing docs (exa.ai/docs/pricing), checked Nov 9, 2026, plus switch402's live payment terms. Prices can change; check the sources before you decide.