Screenshot API for Social Media Automation

The Problem

You're building a social media automation tool, a content curation app, or a marketing workflow. You need website thumbnails or link preview images — but you don't want to spin up Puppeteer, manage Chrome instances, or deal with headless browser crashes.

The Solution

GrabShot captures any URL as an image with a single API call. Use it to generate thumbnails for link posts, create visual content from web pages, or build dynamic social cards.

// Capture a website thumbnail for a social media post
const screenshot = await fetch('https://grabshot.dev/api/screenshot', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
    'X-API-Key': 'gs_your_key'
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    url: 'https://example.com/article',
    width: 1200,
    height: 630,
    format: 'webp',
    quality: 85
  })
});

// Returns the image directly — upload to your social platform
const imageBuffer = await screenshot.arrayBuffer();

Use Cases

• Content curation tools — Show thumbnails of curated links before users click
• Social scheduling apps — Auto-generate preview images when users paste a URL
• Newsletter tools — Create visual link cards for email newsletters
• Monitoring dashboards — Share dashboard snapshots on Slack or Teams
• Portfolio generators — Automatically screenshot client websites for portfolios
• Competitive analysis — Track competitor landing page changes over time

Why GrabShot?

• Simple REST API — no SDKs, no dependencies, works with any language
• AI cleanup — removes cookie banners so your thumbnails look clean (paid plans)
• Fast — cached results, typically under 3 seconds
• Affordable — free tier for testing, paid plans from $9/month
• Reliable — no Chrome instances to manage, no memory leaks, no crashes