Quickstart
Make your first webscraperapi.ai API call in under 60 seconds.
Quickstart
Get your API key
Sign up at webscraperapi.ai and copy your API key from Settings.
Save it so you can use it in your shell:
export WEBSCRAPERAPI_API_KEY="wsa_sk_..."Scrape a web page
Get the Hacker News front page as clean markdown:
curl -G "https://api.webscraperapi.ai/v1/scrape" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $WEBSCRAPERAPI_API_KEY" \
--data-urlencode "url=https://news.ycombinator.com" \
--data-urlencode "output=markdown"import os
import requests
response = requests.get(
"https://api.webscraperapi.ai/v1/scrape",
params={
"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com",
"output": "markdown",
},
headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['WEBSCRAPERAPI_API_KEY']}"},
)
print(response.text)const params = new URLSearchParams({
url: 'https://news.ycombinator.com',
output: 'markdown',
});
const response = await fetch(
`https://api.webscraperapi.ai/v1/scrape?${params}`,
{
headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.WEBSCRAPERAPI_API_KEY}` },
}
);
console.log(await response.text());Extract specific data with prompt
Instead of getting the full page, use prompt to ask a question. You get just the answer back — no parsing needed.
curl -G "https://api.webscraperapi.ai/v1/scrape" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $WEBSCRAPERAPI_API_KEY" \
--data-urlencode "url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic" \
--data-urlencode "prompt=When was Anthropic founded and who are the founders?"import os
import requests
response = requests.get(
"https://api.webscraperapi.ai/v1/scrape",
params={
"url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic",
"prompt": "When was Anthropic founded and who are the founders?",
},
headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['WEBSCRAPERAPI_API_KEY']}"},
)
print(response.text)Alternative: MCP (one-command setup)
If you use Claude Code, Cursor, or Claude Desktop, you can connect via MCP instead of using API keys directly:
claude mcp add --transport http webscraperapi https://api.webscraperapi.ai/mcpThen ask your agent to use webscraperapi tools. See MCP Quickstart for full setup.
Next steps
- Scrape endpoint reference — all parameters, output formats, and credit costs.
- MCP Quickstart — connect your AI agent in one command.
- API Reference — explore all 7 endpoints.