✦ You asked for this
Free pack · $0Here are my Firecrawl setup notes. They are free.
Paste a web address and get the page back as clean text, with the menus and clutter stripped out. The free plan covers 1,000 pages a month, no card.
Show me the setupone prompt or 3 steps · on this page✦ Get it
Firecrawl
Firecrawl reads a website for you and hands back clean text, with the menus, pop-ups and clutter stripped out. That clean text is what your AI reads best. The code is open source, and the company behind it runs a free plan you can use in your browser.
What you need. Works in your browser. Sign up free, no card. If you use Claude Code, one prompt connects it so Claude can read websites itself.
Set up Firecrawl in Claude Code for me, so you can read websites as clean text. 1. Run this in the terminal: npx -y firecrawl-cli@latest init --all --browser 2. It opens my browser so I can sign in or sign up to Firecrawl's free plan (no card). Wait for me to finish. Never ask me to paste an API key into this chat. 3. When it is done, tell me to restart Claude Code. 4. After the restart, test it: scrape https://www.firecrawl.dev and show me the first 10 lines of clean text. If Node.js is missing, tell me how to install it from nodejs.org and stop.
What Firecrawl does, and what it does not
It does not
- Read pages that sit behind someone else’s login
- Ignore a site’s robots.txt rules (it follows them by default)
- Write the analysis. Your AI does that part
- Make it fine to copy someone’s words. Use what you learn, not their text
It does
- Turn a public web page into clean text
- Strip out menus, pop-ups and clutter
- Read a whole site, page by page, with Crawl
- Plug into Claude Code, so Claude can read sites itself
✦ Set it up
Set it up in 3 steps
Any website, turned into clean text your AI can read.
Who it's for
Business owners who want their AI to read a competitor’s site, their own site or any public page, without copying it in by hand.
What you need
- A free Firecrawl account.
- Any AI chat to paste the text into: Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini.
- Only for the Claude Code way: Claude Code and Node.js on your computer.
The steps by hand
- Go to firecrawl.dev and sign up for the free plan. No card needed.
- Open the Playground, choose Scrape, paste the web address you want and run it.
- Copy the clean text it gives you, paste it into Claude or ChatGPT, and ask your question. The one I would ask is below.
The question I would ask your AI
Below is the text of a competitor's website. Read it and tell me, in plain words: 1. What they sell, with prices if they show them. 2. What they promise their clients. 3. Who it is for. 4. What is missing or unclear that I could do better. 5. Three ideas I could use on my own website, in my own words. Here is the text: [paste the text from Firecrawl here]
How I'd use it
- Read a competitor’s home page and pricing page, then ask your AI what they sell, what they promise and what is missing.
- Scrape your own website and ask your AI what a new visitor would find confusing.
- Use what you learn, in your own words. Never copy someone else’s text onto your site.
Honest limits, costs and licence
- Free plan: 1,000 credits a month, refreshed monthly, no card. A basic page is one credit. Searches and extra formats use more.
- Paid plans start at $16 a month billed yearly, or $19 billed monthly, for 5,000 credits.
- The code is open source (AGPL-3.0) if you want to run it on your own server. That is a techie job. The free plan is the easy way.
- Some sites block it or load too slowly. You are responsible for following each site’s terms.
Links
Why I share it
I don't make Firecrawl and nobody pays me to share it. It's a free tool I think is worth ten minutes of your time. Try it this week and tell me what you used it for first.
✦ Get unstuck
Stuck? Find your line.
The page came back empty or blocked
Some sites block scrapers or load slowly. Try again, try another page on the same site, or check that the site allows it. Firecrawl follows robots.txt by default.
I ran out of credits
Free credits refill every month. Scrape one page at a time instead of a whole site, and skip the extra formats, which cost more credits.
Claude Code does not see Firecrawl
Restart Claude Code after the setup. New skills only load in a fresh session.
It says npx: command not found
Install Node.js from nodejs.org (the LTS version), close the terminal, open it again, and paste the prompt again.
Is there a catch?
The free plan gives you 1,000 credits a month, no card. A basic page costs one credit. The code is open source (AGPL-3.0), made by Firecrawl. By default it follows each site’s robots.txt rules, and you are responsible for respecting each site’s terms.
My screen looks different from the steps
Apps change their screens. Use the official links above, which the people who make Firecrawl keep up to date.
None of these fixed it
Email joe@mastermindshq.business. Say which step you were on and paste what you saw.
✦ What next · free
Want the next step? Watch beginners build a website.
You came for a free tool. The next step is a website you own, built by you, that you can change any time.
It is a short video from my Website Workshop. You watch real beginners build a website just by telling AI what they want, in plain English. No code, no tech words.
- Made for people who are not technical. Most people in the workshop had only used ChatGPT.
- You also see real websites my students built and put live.
- Add your name, email and WhatsApp, and the video plays right there on the page.
Not for you? Close this page. Everything above stays free.
Created by Joe Che.
ChatGPT is a trademark of OpenAI. Claude is a trademark of Anthropic. This page is not affiliated with either.