Scalar: vendor profile
In short
Scalar serves each docs page as markdown at /index.md. Its docs returned a real 404 for a made-up path on 2026-11-05, with or without a markdown Accept header. A site stays published only on a paid plan after the 7-day trial, and a custom domain points straight at Scalar. Pro is $150 a month, or $125 yearly.
At a glance
standards.txt scalar
llms-txt = supports
markdown-negotiation = no statement
markdown-twin = supports
initial-html = partial
real-404 = no statement
vary-accept = no statement
2 supports, 1 partial or announced, 3 no statement.
Scalar Docs platform
Scalar Docs is a hosted docs product built on the open source Scalar API Reference that serves llms.txt, llms-full.txt and /index.md copies, answers Accept: text/markdown, and needs a paid plan to keep a site published.
- Type
- Docs platform
- Home page
- scalar.com, answered HTTP 200 on 2026-11-05
- Last read
- 5 November 2026
What it does for this layer
- Scalar describes itself as a team of ten engineers and designers that maintains open source API tooling. [vendor claim] source, read 5 November 2026.
- Scalar Pro costs $150 a month or $125 billed yearly ($1,500 a year), and Business costs $600 a month or $500 billed yearly ($6,000 a year). [primary source, 2026-11-05] source, read 5 November 2026.
- Scalar gives every new team a 7-day trial with Pro limits, after which publishing a Scalar Docs site requires a paid plan. [primary source] source, read 5 November 2026.
- Scalar reserves subpath hosting such as example.com/docs and SSO for the Business plan, which also raises the limits to 25 APIs and 10 editor seats. [primary source] source, read 5 November 2026.
- Scalar requires a DNS-only CNAME for a custom docs domain, because it handles load balancing and TLS itself, so the owner's own CDN or WAF cannot sit in front. [primary source] source, read 5 November 2026.
- Scalar skips TXT verification for custom domains, and the first project that publishes with the domain while its CNAME points to Scalar reserves it. [primary source] source, read 5 November 2026.
- Scalar Docs renders every API page with the MIT-licensed Scalar API Reference, which Scalar says has 15.7k GitHub stars. [primary source] source, read 5 November 2026.
- Scalar API Reference 1.71.0, released 2026-09-22, added Copy as Markdown buttons that turn the resolved OpenAPI operation or webhook into Markdown. [primary source, 2026-09-22] source, read 5 November 2026.
- Scalar API Reference 1.71.0 also loads the API Client modal and agent chat only when first opened, cutting the initial bundle by about 28 percent for read-only setups. [primary source, 2026-09-22] source, read 5 November 2026.
- Scalar Docs takes custom meta tags and scripts through siteConfig.head, and a configured script loads synchronously in the head, blocking first render unless async or defer is set. [primary source] source, read 5 November 2026.
- On 2026-11-05 the markdown response for Scalar's llms-txt docs page listed Accept as its only Vary value and came from Cloudflare. [observed, 2026-11-05] source, read 5 November 2026.
- Scalar serves the markdown copy of a page at /index.md under the page path; that URL for the llms-txt page returned HTTP 200 text/markdown on 2026-11-05. [observed, 2026-11-05] source, read 5 November 2026.
- Scalar returned a real HTTP 404 HTML page for a made-up docs path on 2026-11-05, and asking for text/markdown did not change that status. [observed, 2026-11-05] source, read 5 November 2026.
- No JSON-LD script appeared in the server HTML of Scalar's site-config docs page on 2026-11-05, and Scalar's docs describe none. [observed, 2026-11-05] source, read 5 November 2026.
Products and plans
| Product | What it is | Price | As of | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scalar Free | Hosted OpenAPI docs, built-in API client and landing pages for up to 3 APIs and 1 editor seat. | Free tier, paid plans above it Free, $0; Docs publishing needs a paid plan after the 7-day trial | 2026-11-05 | source |
| Scalar Pro | Docs, SDKs and hosted MCP servers with custom domains, Git Sync, Markdown and MDX, up to 15 APIs and 5 editor seats. | From USD 150 Pro, per month billed monthly; $125 per month billed yearly | 2026-11-05 | source |
| Scalar Business | Adds SSO and subpath hosting, up to 25 APIs and 10 editor seats. | From USD 600 Business, per month billed monthly; $500 per month billed yearly | 2026-11-05 | source |
| Scalar Enterprise | Full developer portals, SSO/SAML and RBAC, unlimited APIs and SLAs. | Quote on request Custom | 2026-11-05 | source |
| Scalar API Reference | MIT-licensed open source renderer for OpenAPI documents, with a separate server-side rendering package. | Free, open source Free and open source | 2026-11-05 | source |
Standards
| Standard | Status | What the vendor's pages say | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| llms-txt | supports | Documented as automatic on all published Scalar Docs sites, with no author setup. | source |
| markdown-negotiation | no statement | The llms.txt, domains and site-config pages say nothing about Accept headers, yet scalar.com still sent text/markdown when curl asked for it on 2026-11-05. | none |
| markdown-twin | supports | Page copies live at <path>/index.md, the URLs that the generated index links to. | source |
| initial-html | partial | Hosted Scalar Docs pages held their text in HTML on 2026-11-05, but pre-rendered HTML for the self-hosted API Reference needs the server-side rendering package. | source |
| real-404 | no statement | Scalar's redirects and domains pages do not mention missing-page status, and a made-up docs path got 404 even with a markdown Accept header. | none |
| vary-accept | no statement | Vary is not covered in Scalar's docs, while the markdown response on 2026-11-05 listed Accept as its sole Vary value. | none |
Checks on its own site
| Reading | Result | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Home page request | HTTP 200; H1 in the initial HTML: yes; 1,218 words; 0 JSON-LD blocks | 2026-11-05 |
| Request with Accept: text/markdown | HTTP 200, text/markdown, Vary: Accept | 2026-11-05 |
| /llms.txt at the host root | HTTP 200, text/plain, 76 KB, starts with an H1 | 2026-11-05 |
| A made-up path | HTTP 404 | 2026-11-05 |
| Ora score, cached | 74, grade B | 2026-09-30 |
| Cloudflare keyless scan | 80, L5 Agent-Native | 2026-11-05 |
| Shared crawl row | outside the ranked slice; home page HTTP 200; H1 in the HTML: yes; 1,239 words; JSON-LD types: none; answers markdown: yes; made-up path HTTP 404; llms.txt valid: yes | 2026-11-04 |
What it does not do
- Scalar's single-file HTML and CDN build of the API Reference draws the reference in the browser; pre-rendered HTML comes only from the @scalar/server-side-rendering package. source, read 5 November 2026.
Related pages on this site
Sources
- Scalar: home page https://scalar.com/, read 5 November 2026
- About Scalar: The API Platform for Developers & Agents https://scalar.com/company, read 5 November 2026
- Scalar Pricing: Free & Paid Plans for API Docs & SDKs https://scalar.com/pricing, read 5 November 2026
- Domains https://scalar.com/products/docs/configuration/domains, read 5 November 2026
- Server-Side Rendering https://scalar.com/products/api-references/server-side-rendering, read 5 November 2026
- API Documentation Platform for Guides & References | Scalar https://scalar.com/products/docs, read 5 November 2026
- Scalar API Reference release notes https://scalar.com/products/api-references/changelog, read 5 November 2026
- Site Config https://scalar.com/products/docs/configuration/site-config, read 5 November 2026
- llms.txt https://scalar.com/products/docs/configuration/llms-txt, read 5 November 2026
- Redirects https://scalar.com/products/docs/configuration/redirects, read 5 November 2026
Last reviewed 5 November 2026