What does DIY reading cost you?

The formula

No hidden assumptions — check the math yourself. A typical article weighs about 10,000 input tokens of raw HTML and comes back as about 2,000 output tokens of cleaned markdown. Doing that cleanup with GPT-4o costs:

(10,000 in-tokens × $2.5/M) + (2,000 out-tokens × 
  0/M)
= $0.045 per page  ×  10,000 pages
= $450 per month

Skim does the same job for a flat $0.002 per read, paid in USDC over x402 — no subscription, no signup, and failed reads are never charged. Token prices are public list prices as of May 2026 (GPT-4o-mini $0.15/$0.60, Haiku 4.5 /$5, GPT-4o $2.50/ 0, Sonnet 4 $3/ 5 per million tokens in/out). Your real numbers will move with article size and model choice, but the shape of the gap does not. Above 50,000 reads/month Skim's per-call price scales down automatically, so at high volume the flat line above is an upper bound.

Already on a subscription reader?

Subscription APIs like Firecrawl sell monthly credit plans (from 9/month) — and unused credits do not roll over, per their own pricing FAQ. If your agent's reading volume is spiky or unpredictable, you are paying for quota you never use in quiet months and hitting caps in busy ones.

Skim has no plan to size. 10,000 reads cost $20; zero reads cost $0. For volume users, Skim's volume discount starts automatically at 50,000 reads per month — no negotiation, no sales call. To be fair: if you already pay for a plan and reliably use most of your credits, switching saves you less — per-call pricing favors variable volume. See the full honest comparison on the compare page.

Competitor pricing facts checked 2026-07-07 at firecrawl.dev/pricing.