Brave Search API pricing and alternatives: cached web search API

0% complete: none of the 6 key fields we checkSee the 6 fields

$0.00per 1,000 searchesThe cheapest of the 43 plans we rank by price is Parallel, top-up, Pay as you go, POST /v1/search, Search (fast), at $1.00 per 1,000 searches.

Plan: Search (free monthly credits) one of Brave Search API's 3 plans

Call: GET /res/v1/web/search Brave Search API's only call

GET /res/v1/web/searchFree$0.00 per 1,000

API: Cached web search API Brave Search API's only API

Cached web search API

About this item

Stored. You get pages from Brave Search API's index. Brave Search API doesn't say how old its data is.
None of the 6 key fields we check: Date, Author, Text, Summary and 2 more.
Nothing to pay. You get $5 of credit a month, enough for 1,000 calls. Unused credit expires: month.
One call. You send q to GET /res/v1/web/search. The call returns the matching web pages.
Who can get it: with conditions. Keep data: with conditions. Use data: with conditions.

Brave Search API: cached web search API alternatives

The table starts with Brave Search API's cheapest paid plan. Next come plans from other providers with the price per 1,000 searches closest to Brave Search API's.

	Brave Search API, top-up from $5	Exa, $1,000 pack, Developer (pay as you go), $1,000 in credits within 30 days: 25 QPS for 90 days, POST /search, Search, instant	Parallel, top-up, Pay as you go, POST /v1/search, Search (advanced)	Firecrawl, $7,190 yearly
$ per 1,000 searches	$5.00	$4.00	$5.00	$7.19
Completeness	0%	100%	33%	17%
Billing	pay first	pay first	pay first	yearly
Pay	$5	$1,000	any amount	$7,190
Enough for	1,000 calls	250,000 calls	as many as you pay for	about 83,333 calls a month
Freshness	stored	stored	stored	2 days
Who can get it	anyone with a credit card	anyone not in a U.S.-embargoed country or on a U.S. restricted-party list	anyone outside the jurisdictions export law bars	anyone at least 18 years old, or 13 years or older with the express permission of a parent or guardian

Cached web search API pricing: plans compared

Sources

From each provider's own pricing page and docs, and from what providers tell us. We read this row from these pages on 2026-10-27.

Product details

The key fields this plan's answer can hold, then each filled column in its row on the sheet.

Date, not in the answer
Author, not in the answer
Text, not in the answer
Summary, not in the answer
Links, not in the answer
Answer, not in the answer

Price
$ per 1,000 searches	$0.00
Per	call
Billing	free

Charges
Most per search	200
Also pays for	from the same budget: LLM Context · News search · Video search · Image search

Not found
$ per 1,000	$0.00

In their words
Their pitch	The real-time search data your chatbots & agents need to generate answers.

Data
Freshness	stored
Keep data	nothing stored, cached or put in a database, in whole or in part, but the transient storage an application needs, storing results needs a plan that includes storage rights, asked of searchapi-support@brave.com, nothing kept after the agreement ends
Use data	"a limited, worldwide, revocable (as provided in this Agreement), non-exclusive, non-transferable and non-assignable, non-sublicensable license during the Term to (i) use the API and Documentation solely to develop, test, and integrate the API with, the Customer Applications, (ii) use the Search Results with the Customer Applications, and (iii) use and display the Provider’s Marks solely as provided herein." [...] "Customer shall not use the API, Search Results, Documentation or Provider’s Marks for any purposes beyond the scope of the license granted in this Agreement and the restrictions in this Section. Customer shall not and shall not permit End Users or others to: (i) store, cache, or create a database of Search Results, in whole or in part, other than transient storage required for operation of Customer Applications or related software, service or systems, (ii) create derivative works of the API, Documentation or Search Results, (iii) rent, lease, lend, sell, distribute, publish, sublicense, assign, transfer, or otherwise make available the API or Documentation to any third party, in whole or in part, (iv) reverse engineer, disassemble, decompile, decode, adapt, or otherwise attempt to derive or gain access to any software component of, the API, in whole or in part, (v) circumvent or bypass rate limits or service limits through any method, including by creating multiple accounts, (vi) remove any proprietary notices from the API or Documentation, (vii) use the API or Search Results in any manner or for any purpose that infringes, misappropriates, or otherwise violates any intellectual property right or other right of any person, or that violates any applicable law, rule or regulation, (viii) use the API or Documentation in any manner that harms the Provider, including without limitation, Provider’s products, services, systems, infrastructure, brand, or goodwill, (ix) combine or integrate the API with any software, services, systems, technology or materials not authorized by Provider, other than Customer Applications, (x) use the API in Customer Applications to replicate or attempt to replace the functionality of the API, or circumvent use of the API, (xi) attempt to obfuscate or conceal Customer’s identity or the identity of the Customer Applications when requesting authorization to use the API, (xii) redistribute, resell, or sublicense the Search Results, (xiii) use the Search Results to create, evaluate, train, re-train, fine-tune, benchmark or otherwise improve artificial intelligence models or services offered by Customer or third parties, (xiv) upon expiration or termination of this Agreement, continue any further use of the API or Documentation or retain Documentation or Search Results in Customer’s possession and control, or (xv) use the API in connection with any spyware, adware, or other malicious programs or code, counterfeit goods, items subject to US embargo, unsolicited mass distribution of email, multi-level marketing, hate materials, hacking, surveillance, interception, or descrambling equipment, libelous, defamatory, obscene, abusive, or otherwise offensive content, stolen products, and items used for theft, hazardous material, or any illegal activities." [...] "Customer hereby grants Provider a worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, sublicensable through multiple levels, royalty-free and fully paid, license during the Term to use Search Query Data for purposes of use with the API, providing the Search Results, and otherwise performing hereunder."

Plan
Pay	$0
You get	$5 a month
Enough for	1,000 calls a month
Expires	month

Rate limit
Per second	50

The call
You send	q. Optional: country, search_lang, ui_lang, count, offset, safesearch, spellcheck, freshness, text_decorations, result_filter, units, goggles, extra_snippets, summary, enable_rich_callback, include_fetch_metadata, operators, x-loc-lat, x-loc-long, x-loc-timezone, x-loc-city, x-loc-state, x-loc-state-name, x-loc-country, x-loc-postal-code, api-version, cache-control, user-agent
Method	GET
Path	/res/v1/web/search

About the plan
Plan	Search (free monthly credits)
Who can get it	anyone with a credit card: it is checked with a $0 or $1 hold, refunded, and the prepay amount can be left at $0

The 80 fields the plan's answer can hold

page title, URL, description, extra snippets, page date, page age, page fetched date, content fetched timestamp, language, family friendly, result type, result subtype, live result, local source, local and global source, source profile, deep results, schemas, URL metadata, thumbnail, location, video, movie, FAQ, question and answer, book, rating, article, product, product cluster, cluster type, cluster, creative work, music recording, review, recipe, software, organization, content type, icons, original query, altered query, cleaned query, safesearch active, strict safesearch warning, navigational query, local intent query, local decision, local locations index, trending query, breaking news query, ask for location, query language, query country, header country, spellcheck off, low quality results, fallback ranking, more results available, query latitude, query longitude, query postal code, query city, query state, custom location label, Reddit cluster, summary key, search operators applied, cleaned query without operators, operator sites, related queries, discussion results, FAQ results, infobox results, location results, news results, video results, result ranking, rich vertical, rich callback key