Steel.dev alternative · prices as of Sep 2026

Steel gives you a browser to script. Human Browser does the task.

Steel is a fast, cheap, open-source browser API for teams that write their own automation. Human Browser is for when you want to send a goal and get the result back, from a real Chrome on a residential IP.

Try it for $1 See pricing

$0.10 per browser-hour, billed per second, plus $0.02 per agent step with the AI included. No subscription. First top-up can be $1.

The short answer

Pick Steel if

you already have Playwright, Puppeteer or Selenium code and need somewhere to run it;
you want the lowest price per browser-hour ($0.08 to $0.10);
you need to self-host, or need 100+ concurrent sessions, SSO or a HIPAA BAA.

Pick Human Browser if

you would rather describe the task than write and maintain the script;
you want residential IP on by default at $4/GB, with no plan or deposit;
a person sometimes needs to step in (an OTP, a judgement call) through a live viewer.

Side by side

Steel figures from Steel's pricing page, read 27 Sep 2026. Plans change; check theirs before you decide.

	Human Browser	Steel
What you send	Goal-level API: send a task in plain English, our agent drives the browser	Browser commands from your own code (Playwright, Puppeteer, Selenium, Steel SDK)
Browser time	$0.10/hr, billed per second; under 30 s and takeover time free	$0.10 / hr (Launch), $0.08 / hr (Scale); billed by the minute, rounded up
AI agent	Included in $0.02 per agent step (default gpt-6-luna)	Not included; bring your own agent and model
Residential proxy	$4 / GB residential, on by default, 75 countries	$10 / GB (Launch), $6 / GB (Scale)
Captcha	$0.005 each ($5 / 1,000), 12+ types	$3 / 1,000 (Launch), $1 / 1,000 (Scale)
Plans	Pay as you go: first top-up $1, then from $5, no monthly fee	Launch $0 + usage ($30 one-time credit); Scale $250 / month + usage ($100 / month credit)
Concurrency	10 per paid token	10 (Launch), 100 (Scale), 1,000+ (Enterprise)
Access	A2A 1.0 (JSON-RPC + SSE), remote MCP, OpenAPI. No raw CDP endpoint	Sessions API, CDP for Playwright/Puppeteer, SDKs
Self-host	No, managed cloud only	Yes, open-source core (Apache-2.0)
Human in the loop	Live viewer on every task; human takeover not billed	Session viewer and embeddable sessions, human-in-the-loop controls

What a task costs

On our production, over 132 successful customer tasks in September 2026, the median task took about 8 agent steps and cost$0.24 all-in at today's rates: agent steps with the model included, browser time, residential traffic and any captchas. Its 4.5 minutes of browser time cost under a cent on either service; most of our price is the agent steps. What you pay on top there is your own model bill and the time to write the script, handle blocks and keep it working when the site changes.

So the honest rule: for high-volume jobs you have already scripted, Steel is far cheaper. For work that changes shape, sits behind logins, or would take a developer a day to script, paying per finished task is usually cheaper overall.

What it looks like in code

One call starts the task. The response carries a task id and a viewer_url you can open to watch it run.

Send a task

curl -X POST https://agent.humanbrowser.cloud/a2a \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer hb_live_xxxx' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "jsonrpc": "2.0", "id": 1, "method": "message/send",
    "params": {
      "message": { "role": "user",
        "parts": [{"kind":"text","text":"Open news.ycombinator.com and return the top 5 story titles as JSON."}] },
      "metadata": { "country": "us" }
    }
  }'

Poll for the result

curl -X POST https://agent.humanbrowser.cloud/a2a \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer hb_live_xxxx' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":2,"method":"tasks/get","params":{"id":"<task id from result.id>","wait_seconds":30}}'

Full reference in the docs. Using Claude, Cursor or Codex? Add the MCP server instead.

FAQ

What is the difference between Human Browser and Steel.dev?

Steel is a browser API: you get a hosted Chrome session and drive it with your own Playwright, Puppeteer or Steel SDK code, on Steel Cloud or self-hosted from its open-source core (Apache-2.0). Human Browser is a goal-level API: you send a task in plain English over A2A or MCP, our agent drives a real Chrome on a residential IP, and you get the result plus a live viewer URL. Steel gives you the browser; Human Browser gives you the browser and the agent that drives it.

Is Steel cheaper than Human Browser?

Per browser-hour, about the same: as of Sep 2026 Steel charges $0.10 per browser hour on Launch and $0.08 on Scale, and we charge $0.10 per browser-hour. The difference is the agent: on Human Browser it costs $0.02 per step with the AI included, and on Steel you run your own code and pay your own model bill. If you already have automation code, Steel is the cheaper place to run it. Compare cost per finished task, including the engineering time to write and maintain the script.

How do proxy and captcha prices compare?

Residential traffic is $4 per GB on Human Browser, against $10 per GB on Steel Launch and $6 per GB on Steel Scale. Captchas are $0.005 each on Human Browser ($5 per 1,000), against $3 per 1,000 on Steel Launch and $1 per 1,000 on Steel Scale, so Steel is cheaper on captchas. On Launch, Steel asks for a $10 paid deposit before proxies and captcha solving turn on.

Can I self-host Human Browser like Steel?

No. Human Browser is a managed cloud service only. Steel publishes its browser core as open source, so if you need to run everything in your own infrastructure, Steel is the right choice.

Can I connect my Playwright script to Human Browser?

No. We do not expose a raw CDP or WebSocket endpoint. You describe the task and our agent drives the browser. If you want to keep your Playwright code, use Steel, Browserbase or Browser Use for the browser.

How many sessions can I run at once?

Human Browser allows 10 concurrent sessions per paid token. Steel allows 10 on Launch, 100 on Scale and 1,000 or more on Enterprise, so Steel scales further today.

Is there a free tier?

Human Browser has no free credit: your first top-up can be $1, which covers about four median tasks, and later top-ups start at $5. Steel Launch gives $30 of one-time usage credit, valid for 90 days, which is about 300 browser hours.

Try it on a real task

A $1 first top-up covers about four median tasks. Later top-ups from $5.

Try it for $1