Percyvs
Applitools
Applitools: If you want AI-based visual comparison with fewer false positives and are willing to pay more per checkpoint
Percy
Visual regression testing owned by BrowserStack, with a permanent free tier for low screenshot volume
As of 1 September 2026, Percy is free to use. A screenshot-diffing visual regression tool, now owned by BrowserStack after its acquisition, offering a genuinely usable free tier of 5,000 screenshots a month before paid plans begin. Softwr lists it under Testing. Percy is made by BrowserStack, available on Web.
Overview
What Percy does
Percy captures screenshots of web pages or components during a test run, typically driven from Cypress, Playwright, Selenium or Storybook, and flags visual differences against an approved baseline for a reviewer to accept or reject. It is a pixel-comparison approach rather than the AI-based perceptual comparison Applitools uses, which keeps its per-screenshot cost lower but generally produces more rendering-noise false positives that a reviewer has to triage. The ownership fact worth knowing is that Percy was acquired by BrowserStack and now operates as one of several separately priced modules alongside BrowserStack's core device and browser testing, Test Management and Accessibility products. Buyers evaluating BrowserStack's headline device cloud pricing should not assume Percy is included; it is billed on its own screenshot volume, and stacking Percy, Accessibility Testing and Test Observability onto a core BrowserStack contract is reported to add a meaningful percentage to total contract value. Buyers are teams wanting visual regression testing at a lower cost than Applitools, often already using BrowserStack for device testing and adding Percy as a natural extension, or teams starting on the free tier for a low-traffic project before scaling into a paid plan. The trade-off against Applitools is the same trade-off as any pixel-diffing tool: cheaper per screenshot, but more false positives from rendering noise that a reviewer has to manually dismiss over time.
What people use it for
- A team already on BrowserStack for device testing that wants to add visual regression without a separate vendor relationship
- A low-traffic project that can run indefinitely on the 5,000-screenshot free tier without paying anything
- A team wanting a lower cost per screenshot than Applitools and willing to tolerate more manual false-positive triage
- A Cypress or Playwright test suite adding visual checks without changing its existing test runner
Related searches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Percy.
- Pixel-based diffing generates more false positives from font rendering and anti-aliasing noise than Applitools' AI-based comparison, which trains some teams to start ignoring diff alerts over time.
- It is billed separately from core BrowserStack device testing, and stacking Percy with other BrowserStack modules such as Accessibility Testing materially increases total contract value beyond the headline device testing price.
- Paid tier pricing above the free tier is not transparently published as a fixed number, requiring a quote to know actual cost at scale.
- The free tier's 5,000-screenshot cap is easy to exceed for any team running visual tests across multiple browsers and viewports on every commit, pushing many active projects into a paid tier faster than the free number suggests.
- As part of a larger acquired portfolio, Percy's roadmap priority within BrowserStack's broader product strategy is less certain than it would be as a standalone company's sole focus.
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Percy
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- PercyvsBrowserStack
BrowserStack: If you want the core device and browser testing product Percy is sold alongside
- PercyvsCypress
Cypress: If your priority is functional end-to-end testing with visual checks as a secondary concern
Pricing
What Percy costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Free
Free
- 5,000 screenshots a month
- Unlimited users and projects
- 30-day build history
Percy
On request
- Priced by screenshot volume above the free tier
- Sold separately from core BrowserStack device testing plans
- Get a current quote before assuming bundled pricing with other BrowserStack products
Capabilities
Features
Screenshot diffing
Pixel-level comparison of rendered pages or components against an approved baseline
Framework integrations
Native support for Cypress, Playwright, Selenium and Storybook test runners
Responsive and cross-browser snapshots
Captures visual state across multiple viewport sizes and browsers in one test run
Review workflow
Web dashboard for approving or rejecting flagged visual differences before merge
Build history
Stores prior builds and diffs for audit and comparison over time
BrowserStack platform integration
Sits alongside BrowserStack device testing, Accessibility and Test Management as a separately billed module
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Is Percy free?
Yes for up to 5,000 screenshots a month with unlimited users and projects; beyond that it is a paid, quote-priced module.
Is Percy included if I already pay for BrowserStack device testing?
No, it is billed separately by screenshot volume, not bundled into core device testing plans.
How does it compare to Applitools?
Percy uses pixel-based diffing, which is generally cheaper per screenshot but produces more false positives than Applitools' AI-based perceptual comparison.
Keep looking
Where to go from Percy
- Percy alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Percy pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Percy badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Testing softwareThe full category
- Best Testing softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Testing software for
Compare Percy with
- Applitools
- BrowserStack
- Cypress
- TestRail
- Sauce Labs
- Katalon
- Jest
- PractiTest
- Xray Test Management
- JUnit
- Cucumber
- QA Wolf
- Ranorex
- Split
- Tricentis Tosca
- Sauce Labs
- Appium
- WebdriverIO
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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Percy, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on Percy
Percy alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
Percy pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare Percy
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