# WebLens, pay as you go: Hacker News search API

> What Hacker News said about a topic: matching stories with points, comment counts and links to the threads, plus aggregates.

WebLens's Pay per call (x402) plan for the Hacker News search API costs $4.00 per 1,000 searches. WebLens's docs list all 4 fields on our checklist: Text, Links and tags, Engagement, Author.
We haven't run WebLens through [our Hacker News search API benchmark](https://datacircle.dev/best-hacker-news-search-api.txt) yet.
We rank 76 plans for Hacker News search APIs by price. Half the plans cost $2.96 or less per 1,000 searches. This plan costs less per 1,000 searches than 42% of the 76 plans.
[Scrollhound's $39 monthly plan](https://datacircle.dev/hacker-news-search-apis/scrollhound/39-monthly/llms.txt) is the cheapest paid plan per 1,000 searches. Scrollhound's $39 monthly plan charges nothing per call. You get as many searches as Scrollhound's rate limit allows. [Zapi's Rp49,000 monthly plan](https://datacircle.dev/hacker-news-search-apis/zapi/rp49000-monthly/llms.txt) costs the least for 10,000 searches a month: about $2.72.
[Scrollhound's $25 pack](https://datacircle.dev/hacker-news-search-apis/scrollhound/25-pack/llms.txt) covers any number of searches. Scrollhound's $25 pack costs less up front than Scrollhound's $39 monthly plan.
[Algolia](https://datacircle.dev/hacker-news-search-apis/algolia/free-get-api-v1-search/llms.txt), [Scrappa](https://datacircle.dev/hacker-news-search-apis/scrappa/10-pack/llms.txt) and [Social Fetch](https://datacircle.dev/hacker-news-search-apis/social-fetch/29-monthly/llms.txt) are the best Hacker News search API providers in the Datacircle benchmark.

- This page: https://datacircle.dev/hacker-news-search-apis/weblens/pay-as-you-go
- [Hacker News search API: the 6 best of 30+ providers compared](https://datacircle.dev/best-hacker-news-search-api.txt)
- Get it: https://api.weblens.dev/.well-known/x402?utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=hacker-news-search-api-pricing
- Request: `POST https://api.weblens.dev/discussions`
- API key: not needed
- Its API docs: https://api.weblens.dev/docs?utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=hacker-news-search-api-pricing#tag/search/POST/discussions
- Sold by: WebLens (https://api.weblens.dev?utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=hacker-news-search-api-pricing)
- Checked: 2026-11-08

## In the answer

- Completeness: 100%
- Text: ✓
- Links and tags: ✓
- Engagement: ✓
- Author: ✓

## Price

- $ per 1,000 searches: $4.00
- Per: call
- Billing: pay as you go

## Charges

- Most per search: 50
- Also pays for: nothing else

## In their words

- Their pitch: What Hacker News said about a topic: matching stories with points, comment counts and links to the threads, plus aggregates.

## Data

- Keep data: no limit
- Use data: Use the service lawfully. You are responsible for what you do with the content you retrieve, including copyright, database rights, the target site's terms, and data-protection law for any personal data in it. For that data, you are the controller. Do not use the service to attack, overload or gain unauthorised access to any system. Do not bypass access controls or paywalls, collect credentials, or send spam.

## Plan

- Pay: per call

## Rate limit

- Batch: 1

## Speed

- Answer: in the call

## The call

- You send: query. Optional: limit, sort
- Method: POST
- Path: /discussions

## About the plan

- Plan: Pay per call (x402)
- Who can get it: anyone, with no account or API key, paying each call in USDC on Base or Solana from a wallet (x402)

## The 17 fields the plan's answer can hold

request ID, search query, sort order, title, link URL, score, comment count, author username, created at, permalink, total results, results returned, points returned, comments returned, top domains, first seen, last seen

## WebLens's plans (1)

- [WebLens, pay as you go](https://datacircle.dev/hacker-news-search-apis/weblens/pay-as-you-go/llms.txt): $4.00 per 1,000, 100% complete

## WebLens's calls for this API (1)

- `POST /discussions`: [WebLens, pay as you go](https://datacircle.dev/hacker-news-search-apis/weblens/pay-as-you-go/llms.txt)

## WebLens's APIs (5)

- [WebLens: web scraping API pricing, 2 plans, POST /free/fetch](https://datacircle.dev/web-scraping-apis/weblens/free-post-free-fetch/llms.txt)
- [WebLens: web scraping API pricing, 2 plans, GET /r/{url}](https://datacircle.dev/web-scraping-apis/weblens/free-get-r-url/llms.txt)
- [WebLens: Hacker News search API pricing, 1 plan](https://datacircle.dev/hacker-news-search-apis/weblens/pay-as-you-go/llms.txt)
- [WebLens: company enrichment API pricing, 1 plan](https://datacircle.dev/company-enrichment-apis/weblens/pay-as-you-go/llms.txt)
- [WebLens: tech stack API pricing, 1 plan](https://datacircle.dev/company-technology-apis/weblens/pay-as-you-go/llms.txt)
- [WebLens: domain WHOIS API pricing, 1 plan](https://datacircle.dev/domain-whois-apis/weblens/pay-as-you-go/llms.txt)

## WebLens: Hacker News search API alternatives

- [SocialCrawl, £49 pack](https://datacircle.dev/hacker-news-search-apis/socialcrawl/49-pack/llms.txt): $3.267 per 1,000, 100% complete, live
- [ScrapingIsNotACrime, $5 pack](https://datacircle.dev/hacker-news-search-apis/scrapingisnotacrime/5-pack/llms.txt): $3.333 per 1,000, 100% complete, live
- [Monocrawl, $19 pack](https://datacircle.dev/hacker-news-search-apis/monocrawl/19-pack/llms.txt): $3.80 per 1,000, 100% complete
- [Anysite, $1,199 monthly](https://datacircle.dev/hacker-news-search-apis/anysite/1199-monthly/llms.txt): $4.996 per 1,000, 100% complete, live

## Sources

From each provider's own pricing page and docs, and from what providers tell us. We read this row from these pages on 2026-11-08.

- https://api.weblens.dev?utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=hacker-news-search-api-pricing
- https://api.weblens.dev/.well-known/x402?utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=hacker-news-search-api-pricing
- https://api.weblens.dev/discovery?utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=hacker-news-search-api-pricing
- https://api.weblens.dev/docs?utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=hacker-news-search-api-pricing
- https://api.weblens.dev/llms.txt?utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=hacker-news-search-api-pricing
- https://api.weblens.dev/openapi.json?utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=hacker-news-search-api-pricing
- https://api.weblens.dev/privacy?utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=hacker-news-search-api-pricing
- https://api.weblens.dev/refunds?utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=hacker-news-search-api-pricing
- https://api.weblens.dev/terms?utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=hacker-news-search-api-pricing