100 Things You Can Do with a Screenshot API

A screenshot API takes a URL or HTML and returns an image or PDF. That sounds simple. Here's what people actually build with it.

Invoices & Documents

1. Generate PDF invoices when Stripe payments succeed
2. Issue PDF receipts for one-time purchases
3. Create branded PDF proposals from CRM deal data
4. Generate purchase orders on procurement approval
5. Produce PDF contracts from HTML templates
6. Issue payslips to employees on payroll run
7. Create PDF statements of work for clients
8. Generate PDF shipping labels and packing slips
9. Produce PDF certificates of completion for courses
10. Create branded PDF quotes from pricing data

E-commerce

11. Generate per-product OG social cards at catalog scale
12. Screenshot product pages for comparison tools
13. Create visual product catalogs from inventory data
14. Capture checkout flow screenshots for QA
15. Generate PDF order confirmations
16. Screenshot competitor pricing pages on a schedule
17. Produce PDF gift receipts
18. Create PDF packaging inserts from templates
19. Screenshot abandoned cart emails before sending
20. Generate PDF return/refund confirmation documents

CI/CD & DevOps

21. Visual regression testing on every PR
22. Screenshot preview deployments and post to GitHub PR
23. Generate PDF test reports on workflow completion
24. Capture screenshots on every deploy for archiving
25. Post screenshot alerts to Slack when a page looks broken
26. Generate PDF release notes on every GitHub tag
27. Screenshot staging vs production for diff comparison
28. Capture screenshots of error pages for bug reports
29. Generate PDF deployment manifests for change management
30. Visual smoke test after every production deploy

Monitoring & Compliance

31. Build a daily website archiver for legal compliance
32. Monitor competitor pages for changes (pricing, features)
33. Archive third-party embeds you depend on
34. Screenshot advertising landing pages for ad compliance
35. Monitor your own pages for visual regressions
36. Archive terms of service versions with timestamps
37. Screenshot rate cards and fee disclosures for records
38. Capture website state before/after major releases
39. Monitor dark mode rendering across devices
40. Archive your site before a CMS migration

Reports & Analytics

41. Send customers monthly PDF usage reports
42. Email weekly PDF dashboards to stakeholders
43. Generate per-customer account summaries
44. Create PDF export of analytics dashboards
45. Generate PDF from Metabase/Grafana/Tableau views
46. Produce PDF board reports from live data
47. Create PDF investor updates from dashboard screenshots
48. Generate PDF performance reports for ad campaigns
49. Screenshot data visualizations for slide decks
50. Produce PDF financial summaries from spreadsheet views

Marketing & Content

51. Auto-generate OG images for every blog post on publish
52. Create social cards for product launches
53. Generate OG images for every e-commerce product
54. Screenshot email campaigns before sending
55. Create thumbnail previews for video content
56. Generate social proof screenshots (customer counts, reviews)
57. Screenshot app store listings for competitive analysis
58. Create preview images for link sharing in chat apps
59. Generate branded images for Twitter/LinkedIn posts
60. Screenshot newsletter archives for visual reference

Developer Tools & Automation

61. Build a URL unfurling / link preview service
62. Add "export as PDF" to any web app in 10 lines
63. Generate PDF from a React component or Next.js page
64. Screenshot HTML email templates across viewports
65. Create a screenshot API endpoint for your internal apps
66. Generate PDF from a server-side rendered template
67. Screenshot your Storybook component library
68. Build a website thumbnail service for a directory
69. Generate preview images for a bookmarking tool
70. Create a Puppeteer replacement with zero browser setup

AI Agents & MCP

71. Give Claude Desktop the ability to screenshot any URL
72. Let an AI agent visually verify a web action completed
73. Use inspect_page to give an AI accurate CSS selectors
74. Enable AI agents to capture authenticated pages
75. Let AI generate PDFs from its own HTML output
76. Give Cursor/Windsurf screenshot tools via MCP
77. Use PageBolt in LangChain as a browser tool
78. Enable AI to monitor a page and alert on visual changes
79. Let an AI agent generate OG images on demand
80. Build a "see what I see" tool for AI web debugging

SaaS Features

81. Add PDF export to your SaaS dashboard
82. Generate PDF invoices for subscription billing
83. Create printable reports for enterprise customers
84. Add "share as image" to any chart or metric
85. Screenshot user dashboards for weekly digest emails
86. Generate PDF account statements on request
87. Create PDF exports for GDPR data portability
88. Screenshot user-submitted content for moderation review
89. Generate PDF certificates for any achievement/milestone
90. Build a "download as PDF" feature for docs pages

Events & Travel

91. Generate PDF event tickets with QR codes
92. Create branded boarding pass PDFs
93. Produce PDF hotel/booking confirmations
94. Generate PDF agendas for conferences
95. Create PDF name badges from attendee data
96. Generate PDF itineraries for travel bookings
97. Produce PDF schedules for event programs
98. Screenshot event registration pages for sponsors
99. Generate PDF speaker briefs from speaker bios
100. Create PDF post-event summary reports with photos

The pattern behind all 100

Every item on this list follows the same shape:

const res = await fetch("https://pagebolt.dev/api/v1/screenshot", { // or /pdf, /og-image, /video
  method: "POST",
  headers: { "x-api-key": process.env.PAGEBOLT_API_KEY, "Content-Type": "application/json" },
  body: JSON.stringify({ url: "https://...", /* options */ }),
});
const result = Buffer.from(await res.arrayBuffer());

One endpoint, one API key, one HTTP call. No browser to install, no Chromium to manage, no Docker container to maintain.

If you're building any of the 100 above — the free tier is 100 requests/month, no credit card.