In 2026, getting a browser agent to work is the easy part; knowing what it costs once it runs every night is the hard part. Gartner expects many agentic AI projects to be cancelled before they pay off, with escalating costs among the reasons, so the way an agent's browser is billed now decides whether a project survives its first budget review.
Anchor Browser and Solari use two different meters. Anchor sells monthly plans that bill credits per completed task, with a separate infrastructure rate for browsers you drive yourself; Solari bills cloud headless browser time by the hour from one balance, so your cost follows how long a session stays open. This guide explains what each Anchor line pays for, what the same work costs on Solari, and which meter fits which kind of agent.
Why Does the Billing Model Matter Now?
A browser agent used to be a script that ran a few times a day, and its bill was a rounding error. Today agents run on schedules, in fleets, behind logins and bot checks, and the same job can finish in minutes one night and hold a browser open for most of the next.
That makes the meter a design decision. A per-task fee keeps a fixed workflow predictable but says little about long or failed runs; an hourly meter tracks browser time exactly. Pick the meter that matches how your agent's work varies, and the budget becomes a number you can forecast from your own logs.
How Does Anchor Browser Pricing Work?
Anchor charges a monthly plan fee that includes a credit allowance, then spends those credits per completed task. Anchor's plan table lists a Free plan with 5 credits a month, Starter at $50 a month for up to 25 concurrent browsers, Team at $500 a month for up to 50, Growth at $2,000 a month for up to 200 and a custom Enterprise plan from 500+ concurrent browsers, with every plan charging 0.1 credits per completed task and every paid plan billing overage at $1.00 per credit.
Failed runs follow a different rule. Anchor's pricing docs say a run that fails pays no task fee; its browser time and proxy data bill at infrastructure rates instead. For each run, Anchor bills whichever is higher: the task fee or the infrastructure cost of the session.
That infrastructure side is a second rate card, and it also covers browsers you drive yourself over the SDK or CDP. Anchor's docs list a fee per browser created, an hourly browser rate counted to the nearest full minute and a per-GB rate for Anchor's own proxy. A short task that finishes cleanly costs its flat fee; a run that holds a browser open for an hour or pulls heavy proxy traffic moves onto the meter.
Features decide the tier as often as volume does. Anchor puts authenticated browsers, automated CAPTCHA bypass and any geolocation on Starter; Team adds custom proxies and longer data retention; Growth adds SOC2 Type 2, ISO27001, GDPR and Anchor Chromium, its full stealth solution; Enterprise adds unique fingerprinting, HIPAA and bring-your-own-cloud or on-premise deployment. A team that needs Anchor's full stealth browser pays the Growth fee whatever its volume.
How Does Solari Pricing Work?
Solari bills browser time by the hour from one balance that covers browsers, sandboxes and desktops. Here is what that means for your agents:
One balance, no surprise overage. Solari's Free plan includes $3 of monthly credits, Starter is $20 a month and Professional is $200 a month, and each paid plan's fee comes back as usage credits on one balance. There is no end-of-month overage charge, so a busy month never arrives as a second invoice.
Browser time, not task counts. Solari bills $0.15 per browser hour on Free, $0.10 on Starter, $0.07 per browser hour on Professional and $0.05 on Team. A session that closes after a few minutes costs a few minutes, and a failed run costs only the time it used.
Room for a fleet. Solari runs 3 concurrent browsers on Free, 20 on Starter and 150 on Professional. As the fleet grows, Solari supports up to 100,000 concurrent browsers on Enterprise, at a tenth of Team's rate, so you can run a whole list of jobs at once.
Stealth, proxies and captchas from Starter. Stealth mode comes with every paid plan and is required for proxies and captcha solving; stealth sessions run under a separate, lower concurrency cap. Solari bills proxy traffic at $6.00 per GB on Starter and $4.00 per GB from Professional, and captcha solving at $0.01 per solve on Starter and $0.005 from Professional.
Logins on every plan. Profiles keep a login between runs in Playwright's storage state format, the Free plan included. Your agent signs in once, and every later session opens already signed in.
The same balance runs Solari sandboxes for the code an agent writes and Solari desktops for apps with no API, so your agent can run code and operate the web on one bill. Solari's launch announcement covers all three surfaces.
Where Do the Two Bills Diverge?
The figure below sets the two billing models next to each other.
The meter is the first difference. Anchor's per-task fee rewards a fixed workflow that finishes quickly and the same way every time, because the fee stays flat whatever the run does inside the browser. Solari's hourly meter rewards an open-ended agent whose sessions vary in length, because cost tracks browser time rather than a count of finished jobs.
Proxy and captcha traffic is the second, and on blocked sites it often outweighs browser time. On Solari it bills at the per-GB and per-solve rates above; on Anchor, proxy traffic heavy enough to beat a task's flat fee moves the run onto the infrastructure meter.
Concurrency per dollar is the third. A fleet the size of Solari's Professional ceiling stays on a self-serve plan, while on Anchor the same fleet passes Team's limit and starts at the Growth plan.
Which Meter Fits Your Agent?
The right meter depends on the job. These are the workloads teams price most often:
Fixed workflows that finish the same way. A form fill or status check that completes in the same few steps every run suits a per-task fee. Anchor's flat fee makes that bill easy to predict.
Research agents with open-ended sessions. An agent that reads, clicks and backtracks until it finds an answer runs as long as the page demands. Solari's hourly meter charges for exactly that time, so a quick answer stays cheap.
Scraping behind bot checks. Proxy data drives a web scraping bill more than browser time, so compare per-GB rates first. Then cut the traffic itself: create a Solari session with blockHeavy on and the browser skips video and large images, so they never cross the proxy.
Logged-in jobs across many accounts. Agents that work inside portals need a login that survives between runs. Solari profiles carry that login on every plan, while Anchor's authenticated browsers start at Starter.
Agents that also run code. An agent that collects a page and then analyses the result needs a machine as well as a browser. Solari bills sandboxes from the same balance, while Anchor's docs list code execution from its Growth plan.
Anchor is the broader bundle for managed web tasks; Solari is the younger, focused infrastructure company and moves faster on speed and price.
Where Is Agent Browser Pricing Going Next?
Over the next year, four changes will shape what browser agents cost:
Meters matched to the work. Fixed workflows will keep task pricing and open-ended agents will move to time-based billing. Teams will route each job to the cheaper meter.
Proxy data as the line to watch. As more sites add bot checks, proxy traffic will grow faster than browser time. Keeping heavy media off the proxy will matter more than headline browser rates.
One bill for browsers and machines. Agents increasingly run code between page visits. Separate vendors for browsers and sandboxes will give way to one account.
Cost per outcome, measured by the team. Teams will divide their own browser spend by completed jobs and compare that figure across vendors. No single vendor's unit will settle the question.
What stays human is judgment: which jobs are worth automating, what an agent may do under your name, and when a bill says a workflow needs redesigning rather than more browsers.
Get Started With Solari
Start with the job that costs the most today: point its Playwright code at a Solari session, attach a profile for its login and watch a week of browser hours before you move the rest. Solari is the fastest and cheapest way to run cloud browsers and VMs for browser agents. Get started with a free account and start running your agents today.
