--- title: "Arcjet: bot management profile | Agent Ready Crawlers" description: "Arcjet: bot management and agent identity profile with a graded rubric, price read 2026-11-04, what it does not do, dated news and sources. Rank 11 of 15." canonical: https://agentreadycrawlers.com/vendors/arcjet site: "Agent Ready Crawlers" last_updated: 2026-11-05 section: "Vendors" --- # Arcjet: bot management profile | Agent Ready Crawlers > Arcjet: bot management and agent identity profile with a graded rubric, price read 2026-11-04, what it does not do, dated news and sources. Rank 11 of 15. Source: https://agentreadycrawlers.com/vendors/arcjet Site: Agent Ready Crawlers Last reviewed: 2026-11-05 Vendor, ranked 11 (tied) of 15 # Arcjet In short Arcjet is a developer SDK that runs bot checks inside application code, which earns it 3 of 10 points and a shared 11th place. Verification, per-purpose policy and reporting grade partial; charging and commerce agents are not published, and paid plans begin at USD 25 a month. Developer security SDK that runs bot detection, rate limits and WAF rules inside application code; it verifies known bots by IP and reverse DNS and in late 2026 added runtime security for AI agents. Vendor description of itself, checked against its documents on 2026-11-04. [Alternatives to Arcjet](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/vendors/arcjet/alternatives/) ยท [arcjet.com](https://arcjet.com) Type [Bot management](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/vendors/by-type/bot-management/) Homepage [arcjet.com](https://arcjet.com) Last read 2026-11-05 ## The rubric, with evidence | Question | Grade | What the vendor documents | Evidence | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Tells a verified agent from a spoof | Partial | IP data and reverse DNS for known bots; Web Bot Auth not mentioned in docs (checked 2026-11-04) | Bot protection concepts page. Source, read 2026-11-04. | | Per-purpose policy (train, search, answer, act) | Partial | allow or deny by bot name or category (e.g. CATEGORY:AI) per route | Reference page allow/deny lists. Source, read 2026-11-04. | | Charging for access | Not published | support (checked 2026-11-04) | No charging feature in bot protection docs. Source, read 2026-11-04. | | Lets signed commerce agents through | Not published | Visa TAP or Mastercard Agent Pay support (checked 2026-11-04) | Not mentioned in docs. Source, read 2026-11-04. | | Cost | Not graded | published: from USD 25/month plus USD 5 per 1M web requests | Pricing page. Source, read 2026-11-04. | | Reporting | Partial | request decision logs with 1 to 24 hours retention on self-serve plans | Pricing page log retention. Source, read 2026-11-04. | | Where it runs | Not graded | app: SDK calls in application code | Concepts page: configured in your application code. Source, read 2026-11-04. | ## Cost Individual USD 25/month, Startup USD 299/month, Enterprise custom; usage USD 5 per 1M web requests and USD 50 per 1M agent requests; free plan 10,000 requests/month (hard stop) after a 15-day trial. [Source](https://arcjet.com/pricing), read 2026-11-04. ## What Arcjet does not do - No Web Bot Auth or cryptographic agent verification in bot protection docs (checked 2026-11-04). - Does not run at the CDN edge; requests reach the app before Arcjet decides (concepts page). - No AI crawler monetization or pay-per-crawl (docs read 2026-11-04). - Arcjet does not decide at a CDN; the request reaches the application before the SDK rule runs. ## Documented facts Features are as the vendor documents them; we have not tested them. A claim a vendor makes about itself is marked as a vendor claim. - Primary source Arcjet bot protection detects more than 600 bots grouped into 23 categories such as CATEGORY:AI. [Source](https://docs.arcjet.com/bot-protection/concepts), read 2026-11-04. - Primary source Arcjet checks that a bot is who it claims to be using IP data and reverse DNS lookups. [Source](https://docs.arcjet.com/bot-protection/concepts), read 2026-11-04. - Primary source Bot rules are configured inside the application code through the Arcjet SDK rather than at a CDN. [Source](https://docs.arcjet.com/bot-protection/concepts), read 2026-11-04. - Primary source A rule takes exactly one of an allow or deny list; an empty allow list blocks every detected bot. [Source](https://docs.arcjet.com/bot-protection/reference), read 2026-11-04. - Primary source Allow and deny lists draw on Arcjet's published bot list and bot categories, and docs advise checking verification status after an allow decision. [Source](https://docs.arcjet.com/bot-protection/reference), read 2026-11-04. - Primary source Paid plans cost USD 25/month (Individual) or USD 299/month (Startup), plus USD 5 per 1M web requests and USD 50 per 1M agent requests. [Source](https://arcjet.com/pricing), read 2026-11-04. - Primary source After a 15-day trial the free plan allows 10,000 requests a month as a hard stop rather than metered overage. [Source](https://arcjet.com/pricing), read 2026-11-04. - Primary source Log retention is 1 hour on Individual and 24 hours on Startup. [Source](https://arcjet.com/pricing), read 2026-11-04. - Primary source On 17 Sep 2026 Arcjet launched Agent Runtime Security, which observes agent activity via OpenTelemetry, enforces policies on tool calls, APIs and databases, and records an audit trail. [Source](https://arcjet.com/blog/introducing-agent-runtime-security-observe-enforce-audit), read 2026-11-04, dated 2026-09-17. - Primary source On 8 Oct 2026 Arcjet added security policies for coding agents including Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Muse Code and Copilot. [Source](https://arcjet.com/blog/introducing-arcjet-for-coding-agents), read 2026-11-04, dated 2026-10-08. ## Dated news - 2026-09-17**Arcjet launches Agent Runtime Security**. Arcjet introduced a product for teams building AI agents: it observes agent activity through OpenTelemetry without code changes, enforces deterministic policies on tool calls, APIs and databases before and after they run, and records inputs and decisions for audit. [Source](https://arcjet.com/blog/introducing-agent-runtime-security-observe-enforce-audit). - 2026-10-08**Arcjet for coding agents**. Arcjet extended its policies to coding agents, covering Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Muse Code and Copilot, so teams can control what those agents may do in their environments. [Source](https://arcjet.com/blog/introducing-arcjet-for-coding-agents). - 2026-10-14**Arcjet details agent behavior drift analysis**. Arcjet described how it monitors AI coding agent sessions in real time to spot behavior drift, using Cloudflare Clef. [Source](https://arcjet.com/blog/how-we-built-ai-agent-behavior-drift-analysis-with-cloudflare-clef). ## Compared with - [Arcjet vs Vercel](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/compare/arcjet-vs-vercel-botid/): Arcjet verifies known bots by IP and reverse DNS inside application code through its SDK; Vercel verifies by IP, reverse DNS and Web Bot Auth at its edge and splits AI crawlers from AI assistants in a managed ruleset since 2026-10-29. - [Arcjet vs Cloudflare](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/compare/arcjet-vs-cloudflare/): Arcjet runs in application code with published prices from USD 25 a month; Cloudflare runs at its edge with AI controls on the free plan. ## What Arcjet does for this layer ### From the vendor's own pages Arcjet's detectBot rule accepts individual bot names such as GOOGLE\_CRAWLER and BING\_CRAWLER or category names, and runs in LIVE mode to block or DRY\_RUN mode to log only. ([docs.arcjet.com](https://docs.arcjet.com/bot-protection/identifying-bots)) Arcjet defines CATEGORY:AI as bots that scrape data for AI and LLM purposes, beside categories such as CATEGORY:SEARCH\_ENGINE, CATEGORY:PREVIEW and CATEGORY:ARCHIVE. ([docs.arcjet.com](https://docs.arcjet.com/bot-protection/identifying-bots)) Arcjet exposes the same bot identifiers in TypeScript, Python and Go; Python gets a BotCategory enum and Go gets BotCategory constants. ([docs.arcjet.com](https://docs.arcjet.com/bot-protection/identifying-bots)) Arcjet's isVerifiedBot helper (is\_verified\_bot in Python) lets application code allow verified search engine bots while ignoring other signals. ([docs.arcjet.com](https://docs.arcjet.com/bot-protection/reference)) Arcjet's product menu lists Shield WAF, bot protection, rate limiting, signup form protection, email validation and sensitive information detection. ([arcjet.com](https://arcjet.com/pricing)) ## Products and plans | Product | What it does | Price model | From | As of | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Bot protection (detectBot) | In-app bot detection with allow or deny lists of named bots and 23 categories. | monthly plan plus usage Individual USD 25 a month, Startup USD 299 a month; usage fees apply. | USD 25 | 2026-11-05 | | Arcjet Guards | Runtime security policies for agent frameworks and coding agents. | No price recorded | ## Standards | Standard | Status | Evidence | | --- | --- | --- | | Web Bot Auth | No statement | Bot protection docs read 2026-11-05 mention IP data and reverse DNS only. | | Published IP list | Supports | Arcjet verifies detected bots by checking IP data. (docs.arcjet.com) | | Reverse DNS check | Supports | Arcjet performs reverse DNS lookups to catch spoofed bots. (docs.arcjet.com) | ## Our checks | Check | Result | Method | Date | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Homepage fetch | HTTP 200 | GET with the crawl user agent after a robots.txt check | 2026-11-05 | ## Related pages on this site - [All bot management vendors](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/vendors/by-type/bot-management/) 23 profiles - [The full vendor list](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/vendors/) 73 profiles in four types - [Alternatives to Arcjet](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/vendors/arcjet/alternatives/) graded on the rubric ## Sources - [arcjet.com: arcjet.com](https://arcjet.com) read 2026-11-04 - [arcjet.com: pricing](https://arcjet.com/pricing) read 2026-11-04 - [docs.arcjet.com: concepts](https://docs.arcjet.com/bot-protection/concepts) read 2026-11-04 - [docs.arcjet.com: reference](https://docs.arcjet.com/bot-protection/reference) read 2026-11-04 - [arcjet.com: introducing agent runtime security observe enforce audit](https://arcjet.com/blog/introducing-agent-runtime-security-observe-enforce-audit) read 2026-11-04 - [arcjet.com: introducing arcjet for coding agents](https://arcjet.com/blog/introducing-arcjet-for-coding-agents) read 2026-11-04 - [arcjet.com: how we built ai agent behavior drift analysis with cloudflare clef](https://arcjet.com/blog/how-we-built-ai-agent-behavior-drift-analysis-with-cloudflare-clef) read 2026-11-04 - [Identifying bots | Arcjet Docs](https://docs.arcjet.com/bot-protection/identifying-bots) read 2026-11-05 Last reviewed 2026-11-05