What is the best cloud browser infrastructure for AI agents in 2026?

As of November 1, 2026: Browserbase is the best all-round platform (Developer $20 a month with 100 browser hours, Startup $99 with 500 hours and 100 concurrent browsers, then $0.10–$0.12 per hour, plus search, fetch and a model gateway). Steel is the cheapest per hour at scale ($0.10 on Launch, $0.08 on Scale, sessions up to 24 hours on Enterprise). Kernel is best for logged-in agents, with managed auth, vaults and per-GB-second billing that charges nothing for idle time. Hyperbrowser is best when one credit pool should cover browsers, sandboxes, web fetch and agent steps ($0.10 per browser hour, $0.001 per fetched page).

How much does a cloud browser for an AI agent cost per hour?

List prices on November 1, 2026: Steel $0.10 per browser hour on Launch and $0.08 on Scale; Hyperbrowser $0.10; Browserbase $0.12 on Developer and $0.10 on Startup after the included 100 or 500 hours. Kernel bills $0.0000166667 per GB-second of browser memory with no charge for idle time. Residential proxy bandwidth is extra on most platforms, typically $6–$12 per GB.

Do I need a cloud browser or can I run Playwright myself?

Run Playwright yourself for a few internal pages and low concurrency. Move to a cloud browser when you need tens or hundreds of parallel sessions, anti-bot stealth and CAPTCHA solving, residential proxies, session recordings for debugging, or persistent logins — that is what these platforms sell, and it is hard to operate reliably on your own servers.

Which cloud browser is best for agents that must log in to websites?

Kernel, because managed auth connections and credential vaults are part of the product (3 connections and 3 vaults free, unlimited on the $30 Hobbyist plan), so an agent can reuse a logged-in session without the model seeing the password. Browserbase offers verified agents and CAPTCHA solving on paid plans, and Steel and Hyperbrowser support persistent sessions and proxies.

Quick Answer

Best Cloud Browser Infrastructure for AI Agents (2026)

Published: November 1, 2026

The short answer

Pick by your bottleneck: breadth of features, price per hour, logged-in sessions, or one bill for everything. As of November 1, 2026:

Browserbase — best overall: browsers plus search, fetch, a model gateway and serverless functions in one platform.
Steel — cheapest per browser hour at scale ($0.08 on Scale) and the longest sessions (up to 24 hours on Enterprise).
Kernel — best for agents that work inside logged-in accounts: managed auth, vaults, and no charge for idle time.
Hyperbrowser — best single credit pool across browsers, sandboxes, web fetch and agent steps.

All four work with Playwright, Puppeteer and agent frameworks such as Browser Use and Stagehand.

The comparison

	Browserbase	Steel	Kernel	Hyperbrowser
Free tier	1 browser hour, 3 concurrent	$30 one-time credit, 10 concurrent	$5/month credit, 5 concurrent	5,000 credits (≈50 browser hours), 1 concurrent
Entry paid plan	Developer $20/mo: 100 hrs, 25 concurrent	Launch: $0.10/hr	Hobbyist $30/mo: $10 credit, 10 concurrent	Startup $30/mo: $30 usage, 25 concurrent
Scale plan	Startup $99/mo: 500 hrs, 100 concurrent	Scale: $100/mo usage included, 100 concurrent, $0.08/hr	Start-up $200/mo: $50 credit, 150 concurrent	Scale $100/mo: $100 usage, 100 concurrent
Browser-hour rate	$0.12 (Dev) / $0.10 (Startup)	$0.10 / $0.08	$0.0000166667 per GB-second, idle free	$0.10
Proxies	$12/GB Dev, $10/GB Startup	$10/GB Launch, $6/GB Scale	Unlimited on Hobbyist+	$10/GB
Max session	15 min on Free	15 min Launch · 1 hr Scale · 24 hr Enterprise	—	—
Logged-in agents	Verified Agents (Scale), CAPTCHA solving	Persistent sessions, CAPTCHA $1–3 per 1,000	Managed auth + vaults	Stealth, CAPTCHA solving
Extras	Search, Fetch, Model Gateway, Functions	/scrape tool, dedicated IPs $5	GPU acceleration, regional browsers	Sandboxes, Fetch $0.001/page, agent steps $0.02

Prices are list USD from vendor pricing pages, read November 1, 2026.

1. Browserbase — best overall

Browserbase has grown from a headless-browser API into a browser-agent platform. Plans: Free (1 browser hour, 3 concurrent browsers, 15-minute sessions), Developer $20/month (100 browser hours then $0.12/hour, 25 concurrent, 1 GB proxies then $12/GB), Startup $99/month (500 hours then $0.10/hour, 100 concurrent, 5 GB proxies then $10/GB) and custom Scale with 250+ concurrent browsers, HIPAA BAA and SSO. Every paid plan adds CAPTCHA solving, a Search API (1,000 calls, then $1–$12 per 1,000 depending on the Parallel or Exa backend), a Fetch API, a model gateway at market prices and serverless Functions. Choose it when you want one vendor for browsing, search and extraction.

2. Steel — cheapest per hour at scale

Steel’s rates are the lowest at volume: $0.10 per browser hour on Launch and $0.08 on Scale, proxy bandwidth $10/GB falling to $6/GB, CAPTCHA solves $3 then $1 per 1,000, and $5 per 1,000 calls to its /scrape browser tool. Scale includes $100 of usage a month, 100 concurrent sessions, one-hour sessions and 600 requests per minute; Enterprise raises sessions to 24 hours and concurrency to 1,000+, with a HIPAA-ready BAA and SSO. Choose it for long-running jobs and high-volume crawling where cost per hour dominates.

3. Kernel — best for logged-in agents

Kernel bills browser compute at $0.0000166667 per GB-second, with no charge for idle time or proxies, on top of a plan fee: Free (with $5 of credit a month), Hobbyist $30/month and Start-up $200/month (150 concurrent browsers, GPU acceleration, regional browsers, bring-your-own proxies). What sets it apart is managed auth and vaults: three connections and three vaults on Free, unlimited from Hobbyist. An agent that must act inside a customer’s accounts can reuse authenticated sessions without the model ever handling the password. Kernel reports 11,000+ teams on the platform.

4. Hyperbrowser — one credit pool

Hyperbrowser sells credits (1,000 credits = $1) usable across four products: browsers at $0.10 per hour, sandboxes at $0.045 per vCPU-hour, a Web API at $0.001 per fetched page ($0.005 per search), and agent steps at $0.02 for HyperAgent or Browser Use. Plans are Free (5,000 credits), Startup $30/month and Scale $100/month, with usage included. Choose it when your agent mixes headless browsing, plain fetching and code execution and you want one meter.

How to choose

Prototype or first production agent: Browserbase Developer ($20).
Thousands of browser hours a month: Steel Scale — at $0.08/hour, 5,000 hours is $400 of browser time on Steel (Scale includes $100 of usage a month), against $549 on Browserbase Startup ($99 with 500 hours included, plus 4,500 hours at $0.10).
Agents working in user accounts: Kernel.
Browsing + fetching + sandboxes in one bill: Hyperbrowser.
Always: keep credentials out of the prompt; see how to give AI agents credentials without leaking them. For the agent frameworks that drive these browsers, see best AI browser automation tools.

Last verified: November 1, 2026.