# render-bolt > render-bolt is an HTTP API that renders any URL or raw HTML in real Chromium and returns a screenshot (PNG, JPEG, WebP), a PDF, or the page's main content as clean Markdown for LLMs. Ads and cookie banners can be removed. Made by EMK Teknoloji in Istanbul, Turkey. Use it as a lower-cost alternative to Urlbox or ScreenshotOne for screenshots and HTML-to-PDF, and to Firecrawl for single-page Markdown extraction. ## Endpoints - [POST /v1/screenshot](https://rendersbolt.com/docs/screenshot): URL or HTML to PNG/JPEG/WebP. Full page, single element, retina, dark mode, ad and cookie banner blocking. - [POST /v1/pdf](https://rendersbolt.com/docs/pdf): URL or HTML to PDF. A4/Letter or custom size, margins, header and footer templates with page numbers. - [POST /v1/extract](https://rendersbolt.com/docs/extract): main content of a page as Markdown, HTML or text, with metadata. - Auth: `Authorization: Bearer `. OpenAPI spec: https://rendersbolt.com/openapi.json ## Example ```bash curl https://rendersbolt.com/v1/screenshot -H "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"url":"https://stripe.com","block_ads":true,"block_cookie_banners":true}' -o stripe.png ``` ## Pricing (USD per month) - Free: $0, 100 renders - Starter: $15, 25,000 renders - Growth: $39, 100,000 renders - Business: $129, 500,000 renders Only successful renders count. No overage billing. ## Comparisons - [Urlbox alternative](https://rendersbolt.com/vs/urlbox-alternative): Same core screenshot and PDF features at a lower price per render, plus Markdown extraction on every plan. - [ScreenshotOne alternative](https://rendersbolt.com/vs/screenshotone-alternative): A screenshot and PDF API with more renders per dollar and built-in Markdown extraction. - [Browserless alternative for screenshots and PDFs](https://rendersbolt.com/vs/browserless-alternative): Browserless gives you remote browsers to script. If all you need is a screenshot, a PDF or page text, a single HTTP call is simpler and cheaper. - [Firecrawl alternative for single-page Markdown](https://rendersbolt.com/vs/firecrawl-alternative): Clean Markdown from any page for LLMs, plus screenshots and PDFs from the same key, at a lower price per page. - [PDFShift alternative](https://rendersbolt.com/vs/pdfshift-alternative): HTML and URL to PDF with headers, footers and page numbers, plus screenshots and Markdown, at a lower price per document. - [DocRaptor alternative](https://rendersbolt.com/vs/docraptor-alternative): Chromium-based HTML to PDF at a much lower price per document, for invoices, receipts and reports that do not need a print-layout engine. - [Gotenberg or a hosted API](https://rendersbolt.com/vs/gotenberg-alternative): Gotenberg is free, open source and runs on your servers. render-bolt is the same Chromium rendering as a hosted API, so there is nothing to run. - [Cloudflare Browser Rendering alternative](https://rendersbolt.com/vs/cloudflare-browser-rendering-alternative): Cloudflare bills browser time and can be cheaper at high volume. render-bolt bills per render, with ad and cookie banner blocking and hosted file links built in. ## Use cases - [HTML to PDF API](https://rendersbolt.com/html-to-pdf-api): invoices, receipts and reports from your own HTML, with page numbers and every alphabet. - [Website screenshot API](https://rendersbolt.com/screenshot-api): full pages, single elements and 1200x630 social cards, without cookie banners. - [URL to Markdown API](https://rendersbolt.com/url-to-markdown-api): the main content of a page as Markdown for LLMs and RAG. ## Docs - [render-bolt API docs](https://rendersbolt.com/docs): Turn a URL or your own HTML into a screenshot, a PDF or clean Markdown with one HTTP request. Start here. - [Quick start](https://rendersbolt.com/docs/quickstart): Get a key, take your first screenshot and handle errors, in curl, Node.js, Python, PHP or Go. - [Authentication](https://rendersbolt.com/docs/authentication): Send your API key in the Authorization header, use access_key for GET requests in image tags, and keep the key out of browser code. - [SDKs](https://rendersbolt.com/docs/sdks): Official Node.js and Python clients with typed options, error codes and automatic retries. - [Screenshot](https://rendersbolt.com/docs/screenshot): POST /v1/screenshot turns a URL or HTML into a PNG, JPEG or WebP image of the viewport, the full page or one element. - [PDF](https://rendersbolt.com/docs/pdf): POST /v1/pdf prints a URL or your HTML to PDF, with page sizes, margins, headers and footers with page numbers. - [Extract](https://rendersbolt.com/docs/extract): POST /v1/extract loads a page in a real browser and returns its main content as Markdown, HTML or text, with metadata. - [Common options](https://rendersbolt.com/docs/options): Options that work on every endpoint, for the viewport, waiting, blocking ads and cookie banners, injected CSS, locale, timeouts and caching. - [Responses and headers](https://rendersbolt.com/docs/responses): What comes back from each endpoint, the headers on every response, and how to check your usage. - [Errors](https://rendersbolt.com/docs/errors): Every error code the API returns, what it means and whether to retry. - [Limits and quotas](https://rendersbolt.com/docs/limits): Monthly renders and requests per minute for each plan, size limits, and what happens at the quota. - [OpenAPI and Postman](https://rendersbolt.com/docs/openapi): Import the OpenAPI 3 spec into Postman, Insomnia or a code generator to get a ready client. - [Social images and link previews](https://rendersbolt.com/docs/social-images): Recipes for 1200×630 Open Graph images from an HTML template, link-preview thumbnails and single-component captures. - [Invoices, receipts and reports](https://rendersbolt.com/docs/invoices): Recipes for HTML invoices to A4 or Letter PDFs, 80 mm receipts, page numbers, repeated table headers and storing the result. - [Markdown for LLMs and RAG](https://rendersbolt.com/docs/llm-markdown): Recipes for clean page text for language models, JavaScript-heavy pages, chunking by heading and following links. - [Caching, retries and performance](https://rendersbolt.com/docs/caching): Make renders faster and cheaper with the cache, the right wait strategy, sensible timeouts and retries. - [Switching from another API](https://rendersbolt.com/docs/migrate): How common options of other screenshot and PDF APIs map to render-bolt, and a checklist for moving over. - [API playground](https://rendersbolt.com/docs/playground): Build a request, run it with your key and copy the code in curl, Node.js or Python. - [Security and data handling](https://rendersbolt.com/docs/security): What happens to the pages and files you send, how rendering is isolated, and which addresses are refused. - [Changelog](https://rendersbolt.com/docs/changelog): New features and changes to the API and these docs. ## Guides - [How to turn an HTML invoice into a PDF with one API call](https://rendersbolt.com/blog/html-to-pdf-invoices): Keep your invoice as an HTML template, send it to /v1/pdf and get back an A4 or Letter PDF with page numbers, the right fonts and clean page breaks. - [Running headless Chrome in production: what breaks, and when to stop doing it yourself](https://rendersbolt.com/blog/self-hosting-headless-chrome): Memory spikes, zombie processes, missing fonts, cookie banners and requests to your own network. What it takes to run Puppeteer or Playwright for PDFs and screenshots, and when an API is the better deal. - [Clean Markdown from any web page for your LLM or RAG pipeline](https://rendersbolt.com/blog/url-to-markdown-for-llms): Raw HTML wastes tokens on menus, scripts and cookie banners. Here is how to get just the article as Markdown, with metadata, from pages that need JavaScript. - [Website screenshots without cookie banners, ads or half-loaded images](https://rendersbolt.com/blog/website-screenshots-without-cookie-banners): Why automated screenshots so often show a consent pop-up and grey boxes, and the request options that fix it for full pages, single elements and 1200×630 social images. ## Optional - [Blog](https://rendersbolt.com/blog) - [Docs](https://rendersbolt.com/docs) - [Pricing](https://rendersbolt.com/#pricing) - [About EMK Teknoloji](https://rendersbolt.com/about) - [Terms](https://rendersbolt.com/terms)