Steel
Browser API for AI agents with an Apache-2.0 open-source core (steel-browser) you can self-host, plus Steel Cloud with stealth, CAPTCHA solving, proxies, live viewer and recordings.
Facts
Source per value- Environment What the agent gets: a cloud browser (headless or headful), a full Linux desktop, a Windows desktop, a macOS VM, or a choice of several operating systems.
- browser 3
- OS / engine options Browser engines or operating systems the vendor names (e.g. Chromium, Firefox, Ubuntu, Windows 11, macOS).
- Chromium 4
- Deployment Managed cloud service, self-hosted software, or both.
- both 4
- Billing basis What the meter counts: browser- or session-hours, per-minute, compute resources (vCPU/GiB), credits, bandwidth (GB), per request, a flat seat subscription, or free open-source software.
- session-hour 2
- Price per hour $/session-hr Lowest published usage rate on any self-serve plan, before plan fees, proxies and bandwidth unless the basis includes them. Conversions name their formula and tier. Resource-priced desktops name a published configuration; resource examples without a minimum stay empty.
- $0.08 2
- Hourly price basis Published rate, formula, plan and exclusions. Resource examples are not minimum or flat session rates.
- Vendor-stated $0.08/browser-hour on Scale ($250/mo + usage, $100 monthly usage credits). Launch $0/mo + $0.10/h. Proxy traffic and CAPTCHA extra; stealth Enterprise-only. 2
- Paid plan from $/mo Cheapest published paid plan per month. 0 means pure pay-as-you-go with no plan fee.
- $0.00 2
- Free tier A free plan, free hours or signup credits without a sales call.
- Yes 2
- Free tier detail What the free plan or credit includes, as the vendor states it.
- $30 one-time credit on the Launch plan, no card needed. 2
- Max session h Longest single session the vendor allows on its top self-serve plan, in hours (minutes divided by 60).
- 1 2
- Session limit detail Session limits as the vendor states them, per plan where it differs.
- 15 minutes on Launch, 1 hour on Scale, up to 24 hours on Enterprise. 2
- Concurrency sessions Most concurrent sessions published on a self-serve plan (enterprise 'custom' excluded).
- 100 2
- Stealth Anti-bot-detection or fingerprint management built in.
- Yes 3
- CAPTCHA solving Automatic CAPTCHA solving built in.
- Yes 2
- Proxies Managed residential or datacenter proxies included or sold as an add-on.
- Yes 2
- Live view A live view or embeddable stream of the session, for watching or human takeover.
- Yes 1
- Recording Session recording or replay.
- Yes 1
- Persistent profiles Saved browser profiles, contexts, cookies or disk state that survive between sessions.
- Yes 3
- CDP Connect over the Chrome DevTools Protocol (WebSocket URL).
- Yes 4
- Playwright Documented Playwright support.
- Yes 3
- MCP server An official MCP server for the product.
- Yes 3
- Computer-use API Screenshot plus mouse and keyboard actions exposed as an API, for computer-use models (OpenAI CUA, Claude computer use, Gemini computer use).
- Not published
- SDKs Official SDK languages.
- TypeScript, Python, Go, Rust 3
- Open source Core runtime published under an open-source licence.
- Yes 4
- Licence Open-source licence of the core runtime.
- Apache-2.0 4
- SOC 2 SOC 2 attestation the vendor states for this product (hyperscalers: the cloud's own report covers the service).
- Not published
- HIPAA HIPAA compliance or a BAA available, as the vendor states.
- Yes 1
- Regions Regions the vendor names for sessions.
- Not published
- Self-host Can run on your own infrastructure.
- Yes 4
- Product status Vendor-stated preview status or reference-environment scope; empty means not established.
- Not published
- Pricing model
- usage
- From
- $0.08 USD/session-hr
- Note
- Vendor-stated $0.08/browser-hour on Scale ($250/mo + usage, $100 monthly usage credits). Launch $0/mo + $0.10/h. Proxy traffic and CAPTCHA extra; stealth Enterprise-only.
Sources
- Steel accessed 2026-11-11
- Steel pricing accessed 2026-11-11
- Intro to Steel (docs) accessed 2026-11-11
- steel-dev/steel-browser (GitHub) accessed 2026-11-11
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