# Zhihu, free: Web search API

> 全网搜索是专为大模型设计的高可信搜索引擎。通过整合知乎站内高质量问答与全网权威信源，为AI应用提供结构化、可溯源、高信源的内容输入。

Zhihu's Daily free quota plan for the web search API costs $0.00 per 1,000 searches. Zhihu's docs list 2 of the 6 fields on our checklist: Author, Text.
We haven't run Zhihu through [our web search API benchmark](https://datacircle.dev/best-web-search-api.txt) yet.
This plan is free. We rank 778 plans for web search APIs by price. Half the plans cost $3.844 or less per 1,000 searches. [See the best free web search API plan.](https://datacircle.dev/best-web-search-api.txt)
[SerpScraper.dev's $499 monthly plan](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/serpscraper-dev/499-monthly/llms.txt) is the cheapest paid plan per 1,000 searches: $0.033. [Octen's top-up plan](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/octen/top-up-from-5-base-post-pulse-search-pulse-search/llms.txt) costs the least for 10,000 searches a month: $5.00.
[Clawifi](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/clawifi/299-monthly/llms.txt), [SerpScraper.dev](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/serpscraper-dev/19-monthly/llms.txt) and [browserfoundry by keirolabs](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/browserfoundry-by-keirolabs/10-pack-starter-pack-post-api-v2-search-lite/llms.txt) are the best web search API providers in the Datacircle benchmark.

- This page: https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/zhihu/free
- [Web search API in 2026: the best of 50+ providers compared](https://datacircle.dev/best-web-search-api.txt)
- Get it: https://developer.zhihu.com/docs?key=billing_price&utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=web-search-api-pricing
- Request: `GET https://developer.zhihu.com/api/v1/content/global_search`
- API key: with the plan, on https://developer.zhihu.com/docs?key=billing_price&utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=web-search-api-pricing
- Its API docs: https://developer.zhihu.com/docs?key=global_search&utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=web-search-api-pricing
- Sold by: Zhihu (https://developer.zhihu.com?utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=web-search-api-pricing)
- Checked: 2026-11-07

## In the answer

- Completeness: 33%
- Author: ✓
- Text: ✓

## Price

- $ per 1,000 searches: $0.00
- Per: call
- Billing: free

## Aggregators

- Aggregators: none

## Charges

- Most per search: 20
- Also pays for: nothing else

## Not found

- $ per 1,000: $0.00

## In their words

- Their pitch: 全网搜索是专为大模型设计的高可信搜索引擎。通过整合知乎站内高质量问答与全网权威信源，为AI应用提供结构化、可溯源、高信源的内容输入。

## Data

- Keep data: no limit
- Use data: 转载在知乎平台之外，无论出于商业或非商业目的，均应联系原作者获得单独授权，并注明原作者姓名及原始链接，注明「发表于知乎」；未经知乎的书面许可，不得用于自己的网站、用于技术（包括但不限于大语言模型、其他人工智能、算法模型等）研发或数据训练或者用于其他商业目的

## Plan

- Pay: $0
- You get: 5,000 requests a day
- Enough for: 5,000 calls a day
- Expires: at 00:00 Beijing time, when the daily quota resets, unused calls don't carry over

## Rate limit

- Per day: 5,000
- Batch: 1

## Speed

- Answer: in the call
- Median: 0.60 s

## The call

- You send: Query, X-Request-Timestamp header, Content-Type header "application/json". Optional: Count, Filter, SearchDB
- Method: GET
- Path: /api/v1/content/global_search

## About the plan

- Plan: Daily free quota
- Who can get it: anyone with a Zhihu account (the platform is open to every user: an Access Secret is made in the personal center)

## The 15 fields the plan's answer can hold

page title, content type, content ID, snippet, URL, comment count, upvotes, author name, author profile picture, author badge, author badge text, edited at, featured comments, authority level, has more

## Zhihu's plans (2)

- [Zhihu, free](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/zhihu/free/llms.txt): $0.00 per 1,000, 33% complete
- [Zhihu, top-up](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/zhihu/top-up/llms.txt): $1.795 per 1,000, 33% complete

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

- `GET /api/v1/content/global_search`: [Zhihu, free](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/zhihu/free/llms.txt)

## Zhihu's APIs (2)

- [Zhihu: Zhihu question answer API pricing, 2 plans](https://datacircle.dev/zhihu-question-answer-apis/zhihu/free/llms.txt)
- [Zhihu: web search API pricing, 2 plans](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/zhihu/free/llms.txt)

## Zhihu: web search API alternatives

- [ScrapeNest, $599 monthly, Scale, POST /v1/search/deep, Deep Search](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/scrapenest/599-monthly-scale-post-v1-search-deep-deep-search/llms.txt): $1.797 per 1,000, 17% complete, live
- [Searlo, $74.99 pack, Scale, POST /search-and-scrape, Search and Scrape, full](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/searlo/74-99-pack-scale-post-search-and-scrape-search-and-scrape-full/llms.txt): $1.80 per 1,000, 17% complete
- [Anakin, $300 monthly, Advanced (social data)](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/anakin/300-monthly-advanced-social-data/llms.txt): $1.80 per 1,000, 33% complete
- [Scrapingdog, $90 monthly](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/scrapingdog/90-monthly/llms.txt): $1.80 per 1,000, 0% complete

## Sources

From each provider's own pricing page and docs, and from what providers tell us. We read this row from these pages on 2026-11-07.

- https://developer.zhihu.com?utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=web-search-api-pricing
- https://developer.zhihu.com/docs?key=authorization&utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=web-search-api-pricing
- https://developer.zhihu.com/docs?key=billing_price&utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=web-search-api-pricing
- https://developer.zhihu.com/docs?key=global_search&utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=web-search-api-pricing
- https://developer.zhihu.com/docs?key=quota&utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=web-search-api-pricing
- https://www.zhihu.com/term/zhihu-terms?utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=web-search-api-pricing