Skip to main content
Not every page is equally easy to fetch. A static blog post loads in a hundred milliseconds. A product detail page behind aggressive bot protection might refuse you three times before finally serving content. Reader handles both. You pick how.

​
The two modes

You set the mode with proxyMode on the request:
Omit proxyMode entirely and Reader defaults to standard.

​
When to use premium

Force proxyMode: "premium" when the target site actively blocks datacenter proxies. Amazon product pages, LinkedIn profiles, booking sites, many e-commerce platforms, and most large social networks require premium residential proxies to get clean content.

​
When to use standard

standard is the default and works for the vast majority of the web. Use it explicitly when you want to guarantee cost at exactly 1 credit per page, or when you want a clear error signal if a site blocks you (rather than silently paying more).

​
Pre-flight credit checks

Reader checks your balance before the scrape runs:
  • premium: rejected upfront if your balance is below 3 credits per page.
  • standard: rejected upfront if your balance is below 1 credit per page.

​
Cache hits are free

A scrape served from cache is 0 credits regardless of mode. If the cached version was captured with standard and you now ask for it with premium, Reader still serves the cached copy and bills you nothing. The mode you requested only matters when Reader has to actually fetch the page. See Caching for how keys and TTLs work.

​
What the mode does not control

  • Content extraction: onlyMainContent, includeTags, excludeTags work identically across all modes
  • Formats: markdown and html are available in every mode
  • Rendering: whether a page needs JavaScript execution is decided by Reader internally; it’s not something you toggle alongside proxyMode

​
Next