Screenshot API

Screenshot API for Full Page Website Screenshots, Saved as a Searchable PDF

Most teams reach for a screenshot API when what they need is a record of a page. A PNG gives you pixels. SitePDF gives you the full page as a searchable PDF plus a timestamped archived snapshot, from one call.

PDF and archive in one call
Plans from $49 a month
Your HTML stays yours

Live demo

Runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded. One PDF free to try, then a plan.

Sample Page size Orientation Margins

Your HTML

Live preview

Your PDF is downloading. That was the free one. The Starter plan converts as many as you need, for $49 a month or $288 a year, half price.

See the plan

When a screenshot is the wrong tool

Screenshots are perfect for thumbnails and visual previews. They are a poor way to keep evidence: text in a PNG cannot be searched or indexed, long pages get stitched or cut, and an image file carries no capture metadata anyone can verify. When an image genuinely is the goal, because you are generating a social card or an OG image rather than preserving a page, that is a different market with different pricing, and our HTML to image API pricing comparison covers it. If the reason you want a screenshot API is "we need to know what this page said", you want a record, not a picture.

SitePDF renders the entire page, full height, in managed Chromium and writes it to a paginated, text searchable PDF. The same call can store the page as a timestamped snapshot, so the capture has provenance, not just pixels.

Everything a screenshot pipeline needs, minus the pipeline

Wait for a selector before capture so charts and lazy content are on screen. Choose paper size and orientation for the PDF output. Batch thousands of URLs. Trigger from a webhook or a cron job. It is the same infrastructure that powers our URL to PDF API, so you inherit the rendering quality without running headless Chrome yourself.

Monitoring competitor pages, capturing campaign states, keeping marketing claims on file: our guide to dated page copies walks through the common setups.

And if you do want images

PNG and JPEG output comes from the same render call as the PDF. If image output is the feature that decides whether SitePDF fits your stack, tell us when you create your account.

Dedicated image vendors bill per finished render rather than per second of browser time, which makes them look expensive next to raw Chrome and considerably less so at volume. The arithmetic on both sides of that line is on our Browserbase pricing comparison.

The API call shape: full page capture as searchable PDF plus snapshot.

curl https://api.sitepdf.com/v1/render \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SITEPDF_KEY" \
  -d url="https://competitor.com/launch" \
  -d wait_for=".hero" \
  -d format=A4 \
  -d archive=true

This is the documented API call shape. Full request and response walkthrough.

Questions about this job

Why would I use a PDF instead of a screenshot?

A PDF keeps the text as text: searchable, extractable, indexable, and readable at any zoom. It paginates long pages instead of producing a 40,000 pixel image, prints cleanly, and pairs naturally with a timestamped archive entry. For evidence and records it simply holds up better.

Can SitePDF return an actual PNG or JPEG?

Yes. The same render call returns PNG or JPEG alongside a full page searchable PDF and, optionally, the archived snapshot of the page.

Does it capture the full page or just the viewport?

The full page, at its rendered height, paginated into the paper size you choose. Viewport only capture is an option alongside image output.

Can I run captures on a schedule for monitoring?

Yes, call the API from any scheduler. Each capture becomes a dated entry in your archive, so a weekly cron over a competitor's pricing page builds a complete change history by itself.

Index

More PDF and archiving tools

Get started

Render and archive with one API call

A pixel perfect PDF and a dated copy of the page from the same request. Plans from $49 a month, half price billed yearly.