Help Centre

Parsepin accepts input in two ways:

• URL mode: You enter a URL. Parsepin sends it to its API server, which fetches the URL and inspects the response — status code, content-type header, body size, and the body itself. If the body contains JSON, it is parsed and any parse error is reported with line, column, and expected-token details. If the status is non-2xx, Parsepin notes that every derived verdict is based on the error response, not a successful one.
• Paste mode: You paste JSON text. The text is parsed by your browser's built-in JSON.parse() — nothing leaves your machine. Parsepin converts the generic error message (e.g. "unexpected token at position 4471") into a line, column, and surrounding context.

Pasted JSON: No. The Paste JSON mode runs entirely in your browser's JavaScript engine. No pasted content is ever transmitted. You can verify this by checking your browser's network tab — there will be no outbound request containing your JSON text.

URLs: The URL you submit is sent to Parsepin's API server so it can fetch the resource (your browser cannot fetch arbitrary URLs due to CORS restrictions). The URL and the fetched response data are processed in real-time and discarded. Parsepin does not log, store, or retain submitted URLs or their responses.

See the Privacy Policy for full details.

There are several common reasons:

• Cloudflare: Parsepin's server cannot reach hosts that are themselves behind Cloudflare's proxy. If your API uses Cloudflare, it will appear unreachable from our platform even though it responds correctly from your browser. This is a hard limitation of how the platform routes traffic.
• Non-2xx status: If the API returns a 4xx or 5xx status, Parsepin reports the error and marks every verdict as "not established from a successful response." Check your API's status code first.
• Fetch error: The server might be down, firewalled, or unreachable from Parsepin's network. The error message distinguishes connection failures from HTTP errors.
• Not JSON: If the response content-type is not JSON or the body does not parse as JSON, Parsepin tells you what it actually received (often an HTML error page).

Sometimes an API returns HTTP 200 with a body that contains error-related fields (like "error": true, "errors": [...], "success": false). Most JSON parsers treat a 200 as success and never inspect the body for error indicators. Parsepin checks for this pattern and flags it with a warning. A 200 with an error body is arguably worse than a 500 — it tells the client everything is fine while the actual data says otherwise.

Parsepin attempts to turn the standard JSON.parse error message into something you can act on:

• Line — The line number (1-indexed) where the parser stopped. This is computed from the character position within the text.
• Column — The column number on that line where the problem was detected.
• Expected — A plain-language description of what the parser expected there (e.g. "Expected ',' or '}' after value in object").
• Context — A snippet of the surrounding JSON with a ^ pointer at the error position.

Common fixes: check for trailing commas, unquoted keys, missing commas between object entries, mismatched brackets, or unescaped quotes inside strings.

Parsepin advertises a Pro tier at $9/month on the Pricing page. The Pro tier would include 10,000 URL parses per day, and planned features like API access, priority support, and team collaboration.

However, no payment processor is connected yet. The checkout on the pricing page is a demonstration that simulates a subscription flow without taking any real payment or creating any real account. No subscription is created, no account is created, and no payment is collected.

Once the operator connects a payment processor (Stripe or equivalent), the Pro tier will become available for purchase. Until then, the Free tier is the only operational option — and it already covers unlimited paste parses and 100 URL parses per day.