Firecrawl MCP vs Parallel Search and Task APIs

Firecrawl MCP

Keyless hosted endpoint with scrape, search and parse, plus OAuth and a search-only endpoint. No x402 or other machine payment.

Parallel Search and Task APIs

Fast-mode search at $1 per 1,000 with 10 excerpted results, and Extract at $1 per 1,000 URLs. Search defaults to advanced mode at $5 per 1,000 when mode is left out.

Firecrawl MCP

1. Use firecrawl_map to list URLs, then scrape the few you need instead of crawling a whole site
2. On the keyless endpoint only scrape, search and parse work. A 429 carries a signup_url for the human
3. Ask for markdown only. JSON, question and highlight formats add 4 credits a page
4. Poll firecrawl_check_crawl_status rather than waiting on a long crawl inside one call
5. Check the URL before scraping. Dead pages still cost a credit

Parallel Search and Task APIs

1. Pass mode: "fast" on every search. Without it you pay the advanced rate
2. Create Task runs with max_retries=0 and check for an existing run before retrying
3. Give an objective plus two or three short search_queries. That's what ranks the excerpts
4. On 402, check available balance rather than total. Running tasks reserve credit
5. Prefer natural-language source guidance to domain filters. The docs say filters can cut result quality