Brave Search API alternative: page text, no card, crypto credits

Why do developers look for a Brave Search API alternative?

Usually because of the card, the data terms, or the content format. Brave's FAQ answers "Why do you ask for a credit card?" with "To prevent abuse." That applies to the free monthly credit too.

The terms of service, last updated on 2026-09-01, set two default limits. Section 3(b)(i) bars storing, caching or building a database of search results. Section 3(b)(xiii) bars using results to create, train, fine-tune or benchmark AI models. Brave says a plan with storage rights allows it, without naming the plan on the pages we read.

Finally, the LLM Context endpoint returns extracted chunks, not the whole page. For many agents that is enough. For long documents, the agent may still need to fetch the page.

What did Brave change in 2026?

Brave moved to its current plans on 2026-02-12, according to its own blog post. The Search plan costs $5 per 1,000 requests and covers web search, LLM Context, news, videos and images. Every plan includes a $5 monthly credit. An Answers plan grounds LLM answers at $4 per 1,000 queries plus $5 per million input and output tokens.

Brave's API page also carries a banner about Google's Custom Search JSON API, which ends for existing customers on 2027-01-01. Teams leaving it compare Brave, standalone AI search APIs and model-provider grounding tools.

When is Brave the better choice?

Brave is the right pick when an independent index matters. Its results never come from another engine, which some teams need for diversity of sources or contractual reasons. It also covers images, video and news on the same plan, supports Goggles to re-rank results, and handles 50 queries per second.

Its chunks-based LLM Context is compact and cheap for short answers. OpenClaw tries Brave first in its auto-detect order, so many OpenClaw users already have a key. If your agent fits those needs and a card is not a problem, Brave is a solid choice. If you need whole pages, no card and no documents, or results you can keep, LLMWebSearch fits better.

How do I switch an OpenClaw or MCP setup from Brave?

Replace the search tool, not the agent. In OpenClaw, add our MCP server next to the built-in tools, as shown in the OpenClaw guide. In Claude Code or Cursor, register the MCP server under a new name and remove Brave's.

In code, Brave's q, count, country and freshness map to our q, max_results, country and time_range. Brave's LLM Context options have no direct equivalent: use read and max_chars to set how much page text comes back.