Alternatives
Screenshot API alternatives
Eight ways to turn URLs into screenshots, PDFs or Open Graph images, compared on price and features. Shotkiln and CaptureAPI share the lowest price at 2,000 renders a month ($9); several others block ads and cookie banners, which Shotkiln does not.
Monthly cost by volume
Cheapest published plan that covers each volume, before overage.
| Renders a month | 1,000 | 2,000 | 10,000 | 50,000 | 100,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shotkiln | $9 Starter | $9 Starter | $19 Pro | $49 Scale | above listed tiers |
| ScreenshotOne | $17 Basic | $17 Basic | $79 Growth | $259 Scale | above listed tiers |
| Urlbox | $19 Lo-Fi | $19 Lo-Fi | $99 Ultra | above listed tiers | above listed tiers |
| ApiFlash | $7 Lite | $35 Medium | $35 Medium | $180 Large | $180 Large |
| CaptureAPI | $9 Starter | $9 Starter | $29 Pro | $79 Business | above listed tiers |
Urlbox Lo-Fi ($19) renders third-party sites as thumbnails only; full captures of other sites start on Hi-Fi ($49 for 5,000).
Features
| Feature | Shotkiln | ScreenshotOne | Urlbox | ApiFlash | CaptureAPI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free tier | 100/month, watermarked | 100/month | no | 100/month | 200/month, PDF on paid plans |
| URL or HTML to PDF | yes | yes | yes | no (images only) | yes (Starter and up) |
| Render raw HTML to an image | PDF only | yes | yes | not in the docs | PDF only |
| Built-in OG card templates | 3 templates | no (render your own HTML) | no (render your own HTML) | no | yes (templates) |
| Remote MCP server | yes | yes | yes (hosted, added 12 Oct 2026) | not listed | not listed |
| Ad and cookie-banner blocking | no | yes | yes | yes | yes (cookie banners and chat widgets, on by default) |
| Upload to S3 or webhooks | no | yes | yes (Hi-Fi and up) | yes (S3 export) | webhooks for batch jobs; no hosted storage |
| Proxies or geo-targeting | no | yes (IP location on Growth and Scale) | yes | Enterprise plan | not listed |
| Official SDKs | no (plain HTTP) | yes | yes | code samples | no (plain REST) |
The screenshot APIs
- ScreenshotOne. ScreenshotOne has more capture options, including ad and cookie-banner blocking, S3 upload, webhooks and video. Shotkiln costs less at every published tier and adds OG card templates.
- Urlbox. Urlbox has the widest option set here, including video, proxies, SLAs and enterprise contracts. Its $19 plan captures third-party sites as thumbnails only, so full captures start at $49. Shotkiln costs less and has a free tier.
- ApiFlash. ApiFlash is a screenshot-only API with ad and cookie-banner blocking on every plan, and its Large plan costs less per screenshot. Shotkiln costs less at 2,000 and 10,000 a month and adds PDFs and OG images.
- CaptureAPI. CaptureAPI has the same three outputs and the same $9 entry price, plus cookie-banner removal, batch requests and EU hosting. Shotkiln costs less at 10,000 and 50,000 a month and has a remote MCP server.
Other options
- Screenshotlayer (Screenshot API from APILayer). Free 100/month (non-commercial); $19.99 for 10,000; $59.99 for 30,000; $149.99 for 75,000. Lowest list price per screenshot here ($2.00 per 1,000). PNG, JPEG and GIF; WebP on paid plans. Overage fees apply after the quota, and the plan picker pre-selects a paid annual support add-on. Pricing source.
- HTML/CSS to Image (HTML/CSS and URL to image, templates, dynamic OG images). Free 50/month; $14 for 1,000; $29 for 3,000; $69 for 10,000. Better than Shotkiln for OG images from your own HTML or a visual template editor. PDFs on paid plans. Optional overage at $10 per 1,000. Has an MCP server. Pricing source.
- Bannerbear (Template-based images, video and PDFs). 30 trial credits; $49 for 1,000 credits; $149 for 10,000; $299 for 50,000. A design-template product, not a page renderer. Instant URLs (Scale plan and up) produce OG images from query strings. Choose it for brand-designed social graphics. Has an MCP server. Pricing source.
- Cloudflare Browser Rendering (Headless Chromium on Cloudflare (now also called Browser Run), with a REST screenshot endpoint and Puppeteer or Playwright access). Workers Free: 10 browser-minutes a day. Workers Paid ($5/month): 10 browser-hours a month, then $0.09 per hour. What Shotkiln runs on. Calling it directly is cheapest at volume if you write the API keys, quotas, caching, URL checks and OG templates yourself. Pricing source.
Monthly list prices in US dollars from each vendor's pricing page (October 2026), before tax and annual discounts.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the cheapest screenshot API?
- Of the APIs compared here, Shotkiln Scale has the lowest list price per 1,000 screenshots: $0.98 at 50,000 a month. At 2,000 a month, Shotkiln and CaptureAPI tie at $9.
- Which screenshot APIs also generate PDFs?
- Shotkiln, ScreenshotOne, Urlbox, CaptureAPI and HTML/CSS to Image generate PDFs, the last two on paid plans only. ApiFlash and Screenshotlayer return images only.
- Which screenshot APIs have an MCP server?
- Shotkiln, ScreenshotOne, Urlbox, HTML/CSS to Image and Bannerbear list an MCP server. ApiFlash, Screenshotlayer and CaptureAPI do not.
- When should I call Cloudflare Browser Rendering directly?
- When you already run Workers, render hundreds of thousands of pages a month and will build keys, quotas, caching and URL checks yourself. Browser time costs $0.09 an hour after 10 included hours on the $5 plan.