Comparison

Grabber vs Jina Reader

Jina Reader turns a URL into Markdown when you put r.jina.ai in front of it, and charges by the tokens it returns. Grabber charges a flat price per page, however long it is.

Get API key All comparisons

At a glance

	Grabber	Jina Reader
How you pay	Prepaid credit, from $5. No plans	Prepaid token packs: $50 for 1 billion tokens
Pay without a subscription	Yes: it is the only way to pay	Yes: one-off packs, with optional auto top-up
A static page	$0.001	By length: $0.05 per million output tokens on the $50 pack
A JavaScript page	$0.005 with js_render=true	The same token price, with the browser engine
Failed requests	Never charged. A page that loads with a 404 or 500 status is charged	Not charged
Unused credit	Valid for 365 days	Expiry not stated on the pricing page
Free tier	$1 at signup, about 1,000 pages, no card	10 million tokens for non-commercial use; 20 requests a minute without a key
Formats	Markdown, HTML, text, links, raw body, page metadata	Markdown, HTML, text, screenshots, JSON extraction with ReaderLM-v2
MCP server	Yes, remote	Yes, remote
Rate limit	60 requests a minute per key	500 requests a minute with a paid key

Checked on October 27, 2026 against Jina Reader's own pricing page and docs. Prices change, so check the sources below before you decide.

What it costs

Example	Grabber	Jina Reader
Smallest purchase	$5	$50
A page of 5,000 output tokens	$0.001	About $0.00025
A page of 40,000 output tokens	$0.001	About $0.002

Jina prices on the $50 pack. The token count of a page is roughly its length in words, times 1.3.

When Jina Reader is the better choice

Your pages are short or medium length. At $0.05 per million tokens, a typical page costs a fraction of $0.001.
You want to try it without signing up: Reader works without a key, at 20 requests a minute.
You need screenshots, CSS selectors to keep or remove parts of a page, or forwarded cookies.
You need very high throughput: premium keys allow 5,000 requests a minute.

When Grabber is the better choice

You want to start small: Grabber top-ups start at $5, and Jina's smallest pack is $50.
You want a price you can predict: every page costs $0.001, however long it is.
Your free use is commercial: Grabber's signup credit has no non-commercial limit.
You want links, page metadata and the raw body as separate fields of one response.

Switching from Jina Reader

Reader puts the target in the path and options in headers. Grabber puts both in the query.

Jina Reader	Grabber
`https://r.jina.ai/https://example.com`	`/fetch?url=https://example.com&formats=markdown&unwrap=true`
`X-Engine: browser`	`js_render=true`
`X-Return-Format: html`	`formats=html`
`X-Return-Format: text`	`formats=text`
`Authorization: Bearer jina_…`	`Authorization: Bearer gsh_…`

Questions

Something else? The docs cover every parameter and error, and you can reach us from the dashboard.

Is Grabber cheaper than Jina Reader?

Usually not per page: Jina charges by output tokens, and a typical page costs less than $0.001. Grabber costs less to start, $5 instead of $50, and a long page costs the same as a short one.

Does Jina Reader render JavaScript?

Yes, with its browser engine. Grabber renders a page when you add js_render=true, for $0.005.

Can I use Jina's free tier in a commercial product?

Jina's free tokens are for non-commercial use. Grabber's signup credit can be used for anything our terms allow.