---
title: "Browser rendering"
description: "Give your app a headless browser to fetch rendered pages, take screenshots, and make PDFs."
---

Browser rendering gives your app its own headless Chrome. Use it to take screenshots of pages, turn pages into PDFs, or fetch the HTML of a page after its JavaScript has run. Each app gets its own browser address, so no other app can use it.

> [!NOTE]
> Available on every plan, Starter included. Not available without a plan.

## Turn on the browser

1. In your app, open **Overview**.
2. Choose **Add a browser**, then **Turn on** on the **Browser** sheet.
3. Choose **Deploy** on the sheet, or deploy the app yourself.

The browser works after the next deploy. The **Browser** row on the app card shows **On**.

## Use it

### Container apps

Post `{"url": "https://example.com"}` to one of three paths on the app's browser host, shown on the **How it works** tab:

| Path | Returns |
|---|---|
| `/content` | The page's HTML after it has rendered |
| `/screenshot` | A PNG of the page |
| `/pdf` | A PDF of the page |

```php
$png = Http::post('http://dply.<app>.internal/screenshot', [
    'url' => 'https://example.com',
])->body();

Storage::put('screenshots/example.png', $png);
```

```js
const res = await fetch('http://dply.<app>.internal/pdf', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: { 'content-type': 'application/json' },
  body: JSON.stringify({ url: 'https://example.com' }),
});
const pdf = Buffer.from(await res.arrayBuffer());
```

```bash
curl -X POST http://dply.<app>.internal/screenshot \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{"url":"https://example.com"}'
```

Only this app can reach its browser host.

### SSR and hybrid apps (Workers)

Your code reads the browser as `env.BROWSER`. Use it with `@cloudflare/puppeteer`:

```ts
import puppeteer from '@cloudflare/puppeteer';

export default {
  async fetch(request, env) {
    const browser = await puppeteer.launch(env.BROWSER);
    const page = await browser.newPage();
    await page.goto('https://example.com');
    const png = await page.screenshot();
    await browser.close();
    return new Response(png, { headers: { 'content-type': 'image/png' } });
  },
};
```

The name `BROWSER` is reserved for this binding.

## Try it from the dashboard

The **Demo** section on the browser sheet opens a public **Page address** from the dashboard. Choose **Show page**, **Show picture**, or **Show PDF** to see the same three results. It does not call your app.

## Pricing

Browser rendering is billed per browser-hour, counted per second from opening a browser session to closing it, at the invoice line **AI, browser rendering and vector search**.

<!-- generated: php artisan dply:billing:price-table rates --group="Browser rendering" -->
| Meter | Price | Unit |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Browser time | $0.117 | per browser-hour |

Close the browser when you are done (`await browser.close()`). A session your code leaves open is still running, but dply counts only the time until your request ends.

### Monthly limit

AI, browser rendering and vector search share one monthly limit per organization, **$25** unless an owner changes it on the **Billing** page. It counts every app in the organization and the demos in the dashboard. Owners are emailed at 80% and 100%. At the limit, calls are refused until the next billing period or until an owner raises it:

- A Worker app's call rejects with an error whose message says the limit is reached (`error.status` is `429`).
- A container app gets HTTP `429` with `{"error": "..."}`.

Setting the limit to `0` removes it, up to a platform maximum. dply can also turn one of these services off for everyone for a while; calls then fail with status `503` and say so. The AI, browser and vector search cards show this period's usage and the limit.

If the organization leaves its paid plan, the browser is left out of the app's next deploy.

> [!NOTE]
> In a Worker app, only your fetch, scheduled and queue handlers (and a `WorkerEntrypoint` class entry) see `env.BROWSER`. Your own Durable Object classes do not: call it from a handler instead.

## Remove the browser

Open the browser sheet and choose **Remove**, then **Remove browser**. After the next deploy the app can no longer open pages, take screenshots, or make PDFs.

## Related

- [Workers AI](/docs/resources/ai)
- [Container apps](/docs/containers)
- [Server rendering (SSR)](/docs/server-rendering)