# Firecrawl setup for PopMCP

You paste one value into PopMCP: a Firecrawl API key starting with fc-, copied from the API Keys page of your Firecrawl dashboard.

- Auth: API credentials
- Setup time: 2 min
- API base URL: https://api.firecrawl.dev/v2
- Credentials screen: https://www.firecrawl.dev/app/api-keys
- Provider docs: https://docs.firecrawl.dev/introduction

## Before you begin

- A Firecrawl account. The free plan includes 1,000 credits a month and needs no card
- Enough credits for what you plan to run: every fetch, crawl, search and watch check spends credits from your own plan
- Pages you want to read must be public. PopMCP refuses cookies, logins and custom headers for this connector

## Get your credentials

### 1. Sign up or sign in at firecrawl.dev

Create a Firecrawl account or sign in. A new account starts on the free plan with 1,000 credits a month; you can upgrade later under Settings, Billing.

Screen: https://www.firecrawl.dev/app

### 2. Open API Keys and copy your key

In the dashboard, open API Keys. Copy the key that is there, or create a new one so PopMCP has a key of its own that you can revoke separately. Keys start with `fc-`, belong to your Firecrawl team, and have no access levels to choose.

Screen: https://www.firecrawl.dev/app/api-keys

### 3. Check your credit balance

Open Usage to see how many credits are left in the current billing cycle. PopMCP reads the same balance when you connect. As a guide: one page fetched, screenshotted or mapped is 1 credit, extracting fields is 5 credits a page, a search is 2 credits per 10 results, and each watch check is 1 credit per watched page.

Screen: https://www.firecrawl.dev/app

### 4. Paste the key into PopMCP

In PopMCP, paste the key into API key and connect. PopMCP checks it by reading your remaining credits from Firecrawl.

## Fields PopMCP asks for

- API key (apiKey) [required]: Sign in at firecrawl.dev, open API Keys and copy your key (it starts with fc-). Stored encrypted and used only on our servers.

## Verify

PopMCP marks the Firecrawl connection Verified as your Firecrawl account and records the credits remaining. Asking the AI to read a public page, such as your own homepage, returns its content as markdown.

## Troubleshooting

### "Firecrawl rejected this API key. Copy it again from firecrawl.dev (API Keys) and paste only the key, which starts with fc-."

Cause: The key was copied incompletely, pasted with extra text around it, or revoked.

Fix: Copy the key again from **API Keys** and paste only the key itself. If it was revoked, create a new one.

### Tools fail with 402

Cause: Your Firecrawl team has run out of credits for the billing cycle.

Fix: Wait for the next cycle, upgrade the plan, or on a paid plan turn on pay-as-you-go under **Settings**, **Billing**. get_credit_usage shows the balance.

### Tools fail with 429

Cause: You went past your plan's per-minute rate limit or its concurrent browser limit. The free plan allows 2 crawls a minute and 2 concurrent browsers.

Fix: Wait a minute and retry, run fewer pages at once, or move to a plan with higher limits.

### "Firecrawl tools fetch public pages only, so cookies cannot be sent"

Cause: The request asked for something PopMCP does not allow on this connector: custom headers, cookies, an Authorization value, a saved browser profile, a robots.txt override, or browser actions that type, press keys or run scripts.

Fix: Remove those options. Pages behind a login are out of scope; wait, click, scroll and screenshot actions are allowed.

### "This schedule checks more often than once an hour."

Cause: A watch was set to check more often than hourly. Each check spends credits on every watched page, so this can use a free plan's monthly credits in a day.

Fix: Pick hourly or daily, or confirm the faster schedule so the AI resends it with allowSubHourly set to true.

### A crawl stops at 50 pages

Cause: crawl_site fetches 50 pages unless told otherwise, and PopMCP caps a crawl at 500 pages.

Fix: Ask for a larger limit, up to 500, or use map_site first and crawl only the section you need.

### You cannot revoke the old key

Cause: Firecrawl requires every team to keep at least one active key.

Fix: Create the new key first, update PopMCP with it, then revoke the old one.

---

Source: https://www.docs.popmcp.com/docs/integrations/firecrawl/