Decodo vs Fastcrawl: which one should your agent use?

Decodo and Fastcrawl both give you clean extraction from the web, but they charge differently. Decodo sells request blocks with a per-1K rate you pick; Fastcrawl is a flat, agent-first rendering API. Here's the honest comparison.

The quick verdict

Decodo is a solid choice if you want request-volume pricing with a self-selected per-1K rate and 100+ extraction templates. Fastcrawl is the better fit for AI agents: one flat credit per format, MCP-native access, clean LLM-ready markdown by default, and a $5 entry (Decodo starts at $19).

Pricing

Decodo                       Fastcrawl
───────────────                ─────────────
Free 2K requests               Free $0: 2,000 credits/mo, 100/day
$19/mo   up to ~38K req        Go $5/mo: 5,000 credits, no rate limit
$49/mo   up to ~163K req       Enterprise: custom (SLA, SSO, volume)
$99/mo   up to ~707K req
(you pick the per-1K rate — lower rate = fewer req)

Two structural differences. Decodo lets you choose the per-1K rate, which trades cost against volume within the same plan. Fastcrawl is a flat 1 credit per format, with the paid plan at $5/mo vs Decodo's $19 floor.

For AI agents specifically

• Flat credits — Fastcrawl is 1 credit per format regardless of rendering; Decodo consumes a request per page.
• MCP-native — Fastcrawl exposes all 12 tools over Model Context Protocol. Decodo is REST/SDK.
• Output — Fastcrawl returns clean markdown by default (LLM-ready). Decodo's templates give structured JSON you then map.
• Extra tools — Fastcrawl ships crawl, map, search, extract, screenshots, PDF and monitors in one API.

When Decodo wins

• You want request-volume pricing with a tunable per-1K rate.
• You need 100+ pre-built extraction templates for common sites.
• You already think in request blocks and want the rate dialed to your budget.

When Fastcrawl wins

• You want every URL → clean markdown with one call, for LLM/RAG ingestion.
• You're building an agent and want MCP-native access.
• You want a lower entry ($5 vs $19) and a recurring free tier.