Best practices

Security

• Call the API from your server, never from browsers or mobile apps. Keys in client code will leak.
• Use one key per service and environment, with an alias you'll recognize in logs.
• Set per-key quotas and expiry dates on keys you share or use in less-trusted environments.
• Rotate keys periodically.
• Verify webhook signatures before trusting payloads.

Reliability

• Retry only what's retryable — 5xx, timeouts and plan rate limits. See Error handling.
• Set a client timeout slightly above the 60-second server limit (for example 65 s).
• Use is_async=true for heavy pages, batch jobs and serverless functions with short time limits. See Timeouts.
• Pick a deterministic wait strategy: wait_for_selector beats an arbitrary delay.

Speed

• Cache repeated URLs with cache=true and a sensible cache_ttl.
• Block what you don't need: block_resources=media,font or block_urls=analytics,tracking speeds up rendering.
• Prefer format=webp or jpeg with image_quality=80 for thumbnails; PNG is lossless but larger.
• Use selector to capture only the element you need.
• Keep concurrency within your plan's rate limits.

Cost

• Failed requests are free — but avoid sending invalid URLs in bulk; validate inputs first.
• Use fields to reduce payload size (it doesn't change the credit cost, but saves bandwidth).
• Monitor balances with /v1/usage and enable auto top-up for predictable spend.
• Use per-key quotas to cap spend from a single integration.

Clean output

• remove_cookie_banners=true and remove_ads=true for marketing-quality captures.
• remove_selectors for site-specific overlays (chat widgets, promo bars).
• full_page_scroll=true to load lazy images before full-page captures.
• dark_mode=true and scale_factor=2 for docs and retina displays.

Respect target sites

• Only capture pages you're allowed to access.
• Avoid hammering a single site with high concurrency; spread requests and cache results.