Claras vs HARPA: a browser agent or a video tool
Claras vs HARPA is a choice between breadth and depth. HARPA is an AI agent that lives in your browser and works on any page, YouTube included. Claras only works with video and audio, including videos that have no captions.
Claras vs HARPA, side by side
They overlap on summarizing and chatting with YouTube videos. Most of HARPA is about other work in the browser.
| Claras | HARPA | |
|---|---|---|
| Best at | Getting a transcript, summary and answers from videos and recordings | Working on any web page: page-aware chat, reusable commands, automations and page monitors |
| A YouTube video | Paste the link in the web app, or click the Claras button under the video with the extension | Click Summarize with HARPA AI, or open HARPA and run its YouTube summary command |
| Videos with no captions | AI transcription: up to 30 minutes on the free plan, 3 hours on a paid one | Its guide says videos with no transcript can't be summarized |
| Long videos | One summary, with chapters across the whole video | Long transcripts are split into chunks, and the summary comes in segments |
| Asking questions | Ask AI answers from the transcript and usually gives the timestamp, for one video or many | Talk to the video and jump to timestamps, from its home page |
| The transcript itself | Timestamped, searchable, click a line to jump. Download TXT or .srt from the web app, PDF from the extension. | Available to custom commands, with or without timestamps. We found no guide to downloading it. |
| Whole playlists | Bulk Summaries reads a playlist or search page in one run | Not mentioned on the pages we checked |
| Other sources | Instagram and TikTok links up to 30 minutes, and video or audio files up to 6 hours | Web pages, PDFs and files |
| Beyond video | Draft social posts from a video, and Send to AI | Web automations that click, fill forms and extract data, plus monitors that alert you when a page or price changes |
| AI models | Claras picks the model. Your own OpenAI, Anthropic or Gemini key works in the Chrome extension. | GPT, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Perplexity, Grok and Llama, through its cloud, your own chatbot logins or API keys |
| Where it runs | Web app and Chrome extension | A browser extension for Chrome and Chromium-based browsers |
| Free plan | 3 videos a month and 1 bulk run, no card needed | A demo plan: 10 messages a day on chatbot logins and 100 command runs in total |
| Paid plans | See Claras pricing | Billed annually: for Everyone $12 a month, for Pros $19 a month, for Life $240 once |
Competitor details checked on their own sites on 11 November 2026, and they can change. Sources: HARPA home page, HARPA pricing, HARPA guide to YouTube summaries, HARPA command parameters.
The main differences, explained
What each one is really for
HARPA calls itself an AI agent for web browsing. It sits in your browser and can read whatever page you're on. You can chat about the page, save prompts as reusable commands, build automations that click buttons, fill forms and pull data, and set monitors that tell you when a page or a price changes. Summarizing YouTube, PDFs and articles is one part of that.
Claras does one job: getting what you need from videos and recordings. You give it a YouTube, Instagram or TikTok link, or a file, and you get the transcript, a summary, chapters and a chat that answers from the transcript. It doesn't automate websites or watch prices. If that's what you're after, HARPA is built for it and Claras isn't.
The same job in each: a one-hour YouTube video
In HARPA, its guide gives three ways in.
- Click the button. Choose Summarize with HARPA AI.
- Use the menu. Open HARPA with Alt+A, or Control+A on a Mac, and pick the YouTube summary command.
- Type it. Enter /youtube in the HARPA chat.
You don't need to pause the video. HARPA reads the YouTube transcript in the background. For long videos it splits the transcript into chunks and gives you the summary in segments. Its home page says you can also talk to the video and jump to timestamps. The one hard rule in its guide: the video must have a transcript on YouTube. Without one, HARPA tells you it can't summarize it.
In Claras, you sign in with a free account and paste the link, or click the Claras button under the video if you have the extension. If the video has captions, Claras reads them. If it has none, Claras transcribes the audio with AI, up to 30 minutes on the free plan and 3 hours on a paid one. That's the main practical difference for YouTube: a talk, a small channel's upload or a recorded webinar with no captions still works. You get the full transcript, a summary, chapters across the whole video and Ask AI, and you can download the transcript as TXT or .srt from the web app.
A few honest limits: YouTube Shorts and live links don't work in Claras yet, there are no speaker labels, the transcript can't be edited, and timestamps in chat answers aren't clickable.
HARPA AI pricing in practice
HARPA's paid plans are in the table, billed annually. Its tokens, called Megatokens, pay for its own cloud models, and its FAQ estimates one Megatoken covers roughly 100 YouTube summaries, with premium models costing more. You can also connect your own ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini login, or an API key, instead. The Life plan is a one-off payment that relies mostly on those. Claras prices are on the pricing page. Three example months:
- Watching competitors' prices and pulling data from sites. That's HARPA's home ground. Claras can't do any of it.
- You already pay for ChatGPT and want summaries of captioned videos. HARPA can run on your ChatGPT login. Its demo plan may cover the odd video, and the Life plan is a one-off payment. The free Claras plan stops at 3 videos a month.
- A 40-lecture course, some without captions. Bulk Summaries in Claras reads the playlist in one run and says which lectures are worth your time. The lectures without captions can still be transcribed one by one. HARPA would take each video separately, and skip the ones with no transcript.
Where HARPA is stronger
- Everything outside video. Page-aware chat, reusable commands, automations and page monitors. Claras has none of these.
- Model choice. Seven model families, plus your own chatbot logins and API keys from OpenRouter, Azure and others.
- Paying once. The Life plan is a single payment, with your own logins or keys doing the AI work.
- Custom YouTube commands. Its command parameters give you the transcript, with or without timestamps, to build your own prompts.
- Free daily use. 10 messages a day on the demo plan, against 3 videos a month on the free Claras plan.
Where Claras is stronger
- Videos with no captions. Claras transcribes them with AI. HARPA's guide says it can't summarize them.
- Many videos at once. Bulk Summaries covers a playlist or search page, and Ask AI can answer across all of it.
- A transcript you can keep. Searchable, timestamped, and downloadable as TXT, .srt or PDF.
- More than YouTube. Instagram and TikTok links, and your own video and audio files up to 6 hours.
- No setup. Paste a link in the web app. No commands to learn, and no extension needed.
You can also compare Claras and Monica, another all-in-one assistant, or go back to all comparisons.
Who should choose which
Choose HARPA if
- You want AI help across the web: on articles, search results and shop pages, not only videos.
- You'd like to automate repeat work in the browser, or be told when a page or price changes.
- You already pay for ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini and want to use that account on the page you're reading.
- Most of the videos you summarize have captions, and a summary is enough.
For these, HARPA is the better fit, and Claras would only cover a small part of what you need.
Choose Claras if
- Video is a big part of how you learn or research.
- Some of your videos have no captions, like small channels, talks or webinars.
- You work through whole playlists or search results, not one video at a time.
- You want transcripts to keep, or videos from Instagram, TikTok or your own files.
If you want your own model
Both let you bring your own key. HARPA supports far more providers. In Claras, an OpenAI, Anthropic or Gemini key works on any paid plan and is set up in the Chrome extension. The web app doesn't have this yet, and its settings send you to the extension. Read more about using your own model in Claras.
Using both, or moving across
Using both
This works, because they barely overlap. Keep HARPA for automations, monitors and help on ordinary pages. Use Claras for the videos that matter, especially long ones, playlists and anything without captions. Both are Chrome extensions that can summarize the YouTube video you're watching, so decide which one you reach for there. There's no direct connection between them. A Claras transcript is plain text, so you can copy it into a HARPA chat if you want to run one of your own commands on it.
Moving from HARPA to Claras
For video there's little to move. HARPA's paid plans keep your chat history across devices, but the pages we checked don't describe exporting summaries. Paste the links you care about into Claras. Your commands, automations and monitors have no Claras equivalent, so keep HARPA if you rely on them.
Moving from Claras to HARPA
Download the transcripts and summaries you want to keep before your plan ends. Videos you processed in Claras because they had no captions won't work in HARPA, so keep those transcripts in particular.
HARPA and Claras: common questions
Is this a HARPA AI review?
Not quite. We compared what each product says it does, on its own site, and haven't tested HARPA's summaries ourselves. Where HARPA's pages don't cover something, we say so instead of guessing.
How much does HARPA AI cost?
HARPA lists its plans billed annually: for Everyone at $12 a month, for Pros at $19 a month, and for Life at $240 once. There's a free demo plan with 10 messages a day on chatbot logins and 100 command runs in total. Prices can change.
Can HARPA summarize a YouTube video without captions?
No. HARPA's guide says videos that have no transcript can't be processed into summaries. Claras transcribes videos with no captions using AI, up to 30 minutes on the free plan and 3 hours on a paid one.
Can I download a YouTube transcript with HARPA?
Its docs describe transcript parameters you can use in your own commands, with or without timestamps, but we found no guide to downloading a transcript file. Claras downloads transcripts as TXT or .srt from the web app and as a PDF from the extension.
Do I need my own ChatGPT account for HARPA?
No. HARPA's paid plans include tokens for its own cloud models. You can also connect your ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini login, or an API key. Claras doesn't need any outside account.
Does HARPA work in Firefox?
Its FAQ says not at the moment. HARPA is a Chrome extension that also runs in Chromium-based browsers. Claras has a Chrome extension too, plus a web app you open in your browser.
Which one is better for long videos?
For a long video with captions, both can summarize it. HARPA splits long transcripts into chunks and summarizes in segments. Claras gives one summary with chapters across the whole video, and caps AI transcription at 3 hours on paid plans when there are no captions.
Watch less. Learn more.
Paste a video link and get the summary, chapters and answers in seconds.