Website screenshot API

URL to PNG in one request

Put the target URL in the url parameter and write the response to a file. The same request works from curl, a browser fetch, a cron job or a CI step.

curl "https://shotkiln.com/v1/screenshot?url=https://example.com&width=1440&height=900&format=png" \
  -H "x-api-key: $SHOTKILN_KEY" -o example.png

import os, requests

r = requests.get("https://shotkiln.com/v1/screenshot",
    params={"url": "https://example.com", "full_page": "true", "format": "webp"},
    headers={"x-api-key": os.environ["SHOTKILN_KEY"]}, timeout=60)
r.raise_for_status()
open("example.webp", "wb").write(r.content)

Full-page and mobile screenshots

full_page=true captures the full scroll height instead of the viewport. For a phone-sized capture, set width=390&height=844&device_scale_factor=3: the page gets a 390 px viewport and the image comes back at 1,170 px wide.

dark_mode=true sets prefers-color-scheme: dark, so sites with a dark theme render in it. delay waits up to 10,000 ms after the load event for animations, web fonts or lazy content.

What happens on each request

1. Validate. Parameters are checked against your plan's limits. Errors come back as JSON with the parameter name.
2. Check the address. The hostname is resolved and refused if it points at a private, loopback, link-local or metadata address, or a known malicious host.
3. Look up the cache. If the same parameters were rendered within cache_ttl, the stored file is returned and no quota is used.
4. Render. Chromium opens the page, re-checks every redirect and subrequest, and captures the image within the plan's time budget (15–30 s).
5. Respond. The image is the response body. Headers report quota, rate limit, render time and the target page's HTTP status.

How fast it is

A typical screenshot comes back in about 2.5 seconds. Repeat requests come straight from cache, often in under half a second. Script-heavy news sites take longer, static pages less.

Set cache_ttl as high as your freshness needs allow: cached responses use no quota.

Running on Cloudflare Browser Rendering

Cloudflare Browser Rendering (also called Browser Run) gives Workers a headless Chromium. Cloudflare also offers a REST screenshot endpoint, billed at $0.09 per browser-hour after 10 included hours on the $5 Workers Paid plan.

Shotkiln adds the parts you would otherwise write yourself: API keys and quotas, a shared render cache, SSRF checks on every redirect and subrequest, a malicious-host denylist, PDF and OG endpoints, and an MCP server. If you already run Workers and want full control, calling Browser Rendering directly is cheaper at high volume.