Exa pricing and alternatives: web search API, POST /search, Search, lite

Exa's site llms.txt Best web search API in 2026

50% complete: 3 of the 6 key fields we checkSee the 6 fields

$0.00per 1,000 searchesThe cheapest of the 243 plans we rank by price is Keenable, free, Keyless, at $0.00 per 1,000 searches.Context.dev, Serpex and Search1API are the best web search API providers in our benchmark.

Plan: World AgentKit free trial one of Exa's 7 plans

Free, World AgentKit free trialWorld AgentKit free trial$0.00 per 1,000
Free, StarterStarter$0.00 per 1,000
Pay as you go, x402 or MPP, paid per requestx402 or MPP, paid per request$4.00 per 1,000
Top-up from $5, Developer (pay as you go)Developer (pay as you go)$4.00 per 1,000
$7 pack, Nevermined card purchase, $7 of credits per purchaseNevermined card purchase, $7 of credits per purchase$4.00 per 1,000
$1,000 pack, Developer (pay as you go), $1,000 in credits within 30 days: 25 QPS for 90 daysDeveloper (pay as you go), $1,000 in credits within 30 days: 25 QPS for 90 days$4.00 per 1,000
Contact us, EnterpriseEnterprise

Call: POST /search, Search, lite one of Exa's 11 calls for this API

API: Web search API one of Exa's 3 APIs

About this item

Freshness. We don't know how fresh this plan's data is.
3 of the 6 key fields we check. Date, Author, Text.
Nothing to pay. You get up to 100 calls a month.
One call. You send query to POST /search. You set type to "lite". The call returns the matching web pages.
Who can get it: with conditions. Keep data: with conditions. Use data: with conditions.

Exa: web search API alternatives

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

	Exa, pay as you go, x402 or MPP, paid per request, POST /search, Search, lite	browserfoundry, $29.99 monthly, Essential, POST /api/v2/search/content	Firecrawl, top-up from $5, Pay-as-you-go on Growth, POST /v2/search	Keenable, top-up	Querit, top-up
$ per 1,000 searches	$4.00	$3.999	$4.00	$4.00	$4.00
Completeness	50%	17%	33%	33%	33%
Billing	pay as you go	monthly	pay first	pay first	pay first
Pay	per call	$29.99	$5	any amount	any amount
Enough for	as many as you pay for	7,500 calls a month	1,250 calls	as many as you pay for	as many as you pay for
Who can get it	AI agents paying in USDC over x402 or MPP, no Exa account or API key needed	anyone who creates an account with an email address	anyone at least 18 years old, or 13 years or older with the express permission of a parent or guardian	anyone at least 18 years old, or 13 years or older with the express consent of a parent or guardian, but no one working for a company developing an AI-powered web index	anyone at least 18 years old or of the age of majority where they live, signing in with a Google account, one account each, with a payment method

Every web search API provider we score, ranked

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
Author
Text
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

Aggregators
Aggregators	none

Charges
Most per search	10
Also pays for	Contents · from the same budget: Search (every other type and category)

Not found
$ per 1,000	$0.00

In their words
Their pitch	Low-cost, low-latency search for real-time and interactive experiences such as chat, voice agents, and autocomplete.

Data
Keep data	self-serve: nothing copied or stored past a browser's temporary display cache, unless its terms or Exa in writing allow more, Enterprise, under its Master Subscription Agreement: no limit, the output is yours
Use data	self-serve: as its documentation allows, the output for your own internal business purposes, nothing resold or sublicensed, no competing product, Enterprise: also through your own products to your end users, no competing product, no benchmarks shared

Plan
Pay	$0
Enough for	100 calls a month

Rate limit
Batch	1

Speed
Answer	in the call

The call
You send	query, type "lite". Optional: category, numResults, includeDomains, excludeDomains, userLocation, userIdentifier, startPublishedDate, endPublishedDate, contents.text, contents.highlights, contents.snapshotAsOf, objective, moderation, compliance
Method	POST
Path	/search

About the plan
Plan	World AgentKit free trial
Who can get it	AI agents in World's AgentBook backed by a World ID-verified human, 100 requests a month per human across their agents

The 13 fields the plan's answer can hold

request ID, page title, URL, published date, author, document ID, image, favicon, text, highlights, highlight scores, cost in dollars, search time

Exa pricing and alternatives: web search API, POST /search, Search, lite

About this item

Exa: web search API alternatives

Sources

Product details

Best GTM APIs