Human Browser vs Browserbase: pricing and features, compared honestly.

Two different products

Browserbase is browser infrastructure. You create a session, connect Playwright or Puppeteer to it over CDP, and write each step yourself, or use Stagehand, their open-source SDK, to mix code with LLM steps. Browserbase supplies the browser, proxies, captcha solving on paid plans, and stealth that varies by plan.

Human Browser is a goal-level agent API. You send a task in plain English, for example “log in, open reports, export last month’s CSV”. Our agent drives a real headful Chrome on a residential IP, handles captchas, and returns the result. If it needs a one-time code or gets stuck, it asks a human through the live viewer. There is no CDP endpoint to attach your own script to.

So which one is cheaper depends on what you are measuring. For browser hours, Browserbase is far cheaper. For finished tasks where you would otherwise build the agent, the proxy setup and the human fallback yourself, compare on cost per task and on engineering time.

Pricing comparison (as of Sep 2026)

Browserbase figures come from browserbase.com/pricing. Human Browser figures come from our pricing page. Both were checked on 27 September 2026.

What that means in dollars

• One typical task. Measured on our production over 132 successful customer tasks in September 2026: median about 8 agent steps and 4.5 billed minutes, median all-in cost at today’s rates $0.24 (p25 $0.12, p75 $0.39) for steps with the AI included, browser time, residential traffic and captchas together. About 13% of these tasks met a captcha. On either service 4.5 minutes of browser time is under a cent. Your LLM calls, proxy traffic beyond the included GB, and the time to build and maintain the script come on top.
• 1,000 such tasks a month. About 75 browser hours in total. On Browserbase that fits inside Developer’s 100 included hours, so it costs $20 plus your LLM and extra proxy traffic. On Human Browser, at the measured median, it comes to roughly $240 with the agent and captchas included.
• 300 raw browser hours a month for your own scripts. Browserbase Developer costs $20 + 200 × $0.12 = $44. Human Browser does not sell raw browser hours: there is no CDP connection, every session is driven by our agent, so this workload belongs on Browserbase.

Where Human Browser is actually cheaper: residential traffic ($4/GB vs $12/GB on Developer and $10/GB on Startup) and no monthly fee, which helps if your usage is spiky. Per browser-hour the rates are now the same ($0.10), but Browserbase includes 100–500 hours in its plans and lets your own code drive the browser, so for raw browser hours it wins.

Choose Browserbase if…

• You need compliance paperwork. Browserbase offers HIPAA and SSO on the Scale plan. Human Browser does not offer them today.
• You want raw CDP and your own code in control. You have Playwright or Puppeteer scripts, or you build with Stagehand, and want to connect to a remote browser directly. Human Browser does not expose CDP.
• You need high concurrency. 25 browsers on Developer, 100 on Startup and 250+ on Scale, against our 10 per paid token.
• You need many raw browser hours for your own code. 100–500 hours included, then $0.10–0.12/hr, and you connect over CDP. We do not sell raw hours.
• You want a large ecosystem. Stagehand and its community, SDKs, and a mature session API.

Choose Human Browser if…

• You want results, not sessions. You would rather send “do X and return Y” than write and maintain selectors.
• Your targets need a residential IP and you move enough traffic that $4/GB against $10–12/GB matters.
• Flows sometimes need a person, for a one-time code or an unusual challenge. Human takeover is built in, and that time is not billed.
• Your agent already speaks A2A or MCP. Human Browser shows up as one more agent or tool, with no browser SDK to wire in.
• Your usage is spiky. A prepaid balance with no subscription and no monthly minimum, paid by card or crypto, instead of a plan that sits idle.

For the broader market, including Steel, Browser Use Cloud and Hyperbrowser, see our Browserbase pricing and alternatives guide and the comparison of the best cloud browsers for AI agents.

Code: a Browserbase session vs a Human Browser task

This is not a drop-in replacement, because the two products work differently. On Browserbase you connect to a browser and drive it. On Human Browser you send a goal, then poll the task for the result.

import Browserbase from '@browserbasehq/sdk';
import { chromium } from 'playwright-core';

const bb = new Browserbase({ apiKey: process.env.BB_KEY });
const session = await bb.sessions.create({
  projectId: process.env.BB_PROJECT,
  proxies: true
});

const browser = await chromium.connectOverCDP(session.connectUrl);
const page = browser.contexts()[0].pages()[0];
await page.goto('https://target.com/login');
// ...your selectors, your LLM calls,
// your retries, your OTP handling...

const A2A = 'https://agent.humanbrowser.cloud/a2a';
const headers = {
  'Authorization': 'Bearer ' + process.env.HB_TOKEN,
  'Content-Type': 'application/json'
};
const rpc = async (id, method, params) => (await (await fetch(A2A, {
  method: 'POST', headers,
  body: JSON.stringify({ jsonrpc: '2.0', id, method, params })
})).json()).result;

let task = await rpc(1, 'message/send', {
  message: { role: 'user', parts: [{ kind: 'text',
    text: 'Log into target.com and export the CSV from /reports' }] },
  metadata: { country: 'gb', profile: 'reports-bot' }
});
// task.metadata.viewer_url: watch live or take over
while (['submitted', 'working'].includes(task.status?.state)) {
  task = await rpc(2, 'tasks/get', { id: task.id, wait_seconds: 30 });
}
// completed | failed | canceled | input-required (e.g. OTP)

Prefer MCP? Add https://agent.humanbrowser.cloud/mcp to Claude Code, Cursor or any MCP client with an Authorization: Bearer hb_live_... header. You can also run npx -y @virixlabs/humanbrowser mcp locally with HB_TOKEN set. See the MCP docs and the A2A docs.

How to test it against your Browserbase setup

1. Sign up with an email and try it for $1. That is enough for about 4 typical tasks; later top-ups start at $5.
2. Choose the Browserbase flow that breaks most often or takes the most upkeep. Write it as one plain-English goal.
3. Send it with message/send and watch the viewer_url.
4. Compare cost per completed task and engineering time. Keep Browserbase for jobs where your own script already runs cheaply.

FAQ