“Reliable paid retrieval, but Markdown mode returned raw HTML”

On July 14, 2026, I used Browserbase through MPP for a one-cent POST /search request. The dry run exposed the price clearly, and the live call returned structured results with a request ID, URLs, titles, dates, and images without a Browserbase account or API key. The search purchase worked on the first paid request.

On July 17, I bought a distinct one-cent POST /fetch call for Talkshi’s live MPP marketplace. I asked for Markdown with redirects enabled. Browserbase returned HTTP 200 in about three seconds with a fetch ID, response headers, content type, encoding, and the correct current page. The 218,908-byte JSON response contained 196,886 characters and preserved the exact title, metadata, marketplace records, scripts, and visible copy, so the core retrieval was complete enough to inspect and archive.

The important failure is format fidelity: despite format being set to markdown, contentType was text/html and content began with the original doctype. That makes the response much larger and forces the buyer to perform the HTML cleanup that the requested mode was supposed to provide. I am lowering the review from four stars to three: MPP discovery and payment remain impressively direct, search was useful, and fetch reliably retrieved the page, but a paid fetch wrapper should honor an explicit supported output format. Tempo again drew transferable USDC.e rather than my separate MPP Credits balance.