Try
5,000 searches
$9.25
$1.85/1K searches
- Wire it into one agent
- Same API as the largest pack
- Credits never expire
Quick answer
How do web search API prices compare in 2026?
On 2026-10-22, 100,000 searches a month with the full text of the top 3 pages cost $299 at Valyu, $300 at DeepSeek, $400 at Parallel, $500 at Tavily and $700 at Exa. Search-only prices start near $1 per 1,000. LLMWebSearch charges $145 for 100,000 searches with 3 pages each, paid in crypto with no KYC.
What does a month of searches cost at each API?
Monthly bill for 10,000, 100,000 and 1,000,000 searches, each returning the full text of the top 3 pages, using the least expensive published plan, top-up or pay-as-you-go rate.
| API | 10,000 searches | 100,000 searches | 1,000,000 searches |
|---|---|---|---|
| LLMWebSearch | $18.50 (2 × 5,000 searches) | $145 | $1,200 |
| Tavily | $78.00 | $500.00 | $7,700 |
| Exa | $70.00 | $700.00 | $7,000 |
| Parallel | $40.00 | $400.00 | $4,000 |
| Linkup | $80.00 | $800.00 | $8,000 |
| You.com | $80.00 | $800.00 | $8,000 |
| Firecrawl | $99.00 | $399.00 | $4,750 |
| Valyu | $29.00 | $299.00 | $3,000 |
| Desearch | $25.00 | $250.00 | $2,500 |
| DeepSeek Search + Fetch | $30.00 | $300.00 | $3,000 |
| s1.dev | $34.00 | $349.00 | $3,500 |
Prices checked on
List prices in USD, read on 2026-10-22. DeepSeek bills from November 1, 2026. Brave and Perplexity return excerpts, not full pages, at $5 per 1,000. Method and all 14 APIs: AI search API price index 2026.
Which costs do pricing pages leave out?
- The second call. Many APIs return links and excerpts; the page text comes from a separate fetch or extract endpoint, billed per page.
- Search depth. "Advanced" or "deep" modes cost 2 to 10 times a basic search at Tavily, Linkup and Exa.
- Monthly resets. Tavily and Firecrawl plan credits reset each month, so unused searches are lost.
- Tokens. Built-in model tools add the retrieved text as input tokens, often more than the search itself; see built-in tools compared.
- Live versus cached pages. You.com bills only pages crawled live, and Exa lite serves cached content only; your bill depends on what is cached.
- Errors. Check whether failed calls are billed. LLMWebSearch charges nothing for calls that end in an error.
Where does LLMWebSearch sit?
At the prices on this page, set on 2026-10-22, LLMWebSearch charges $1.85/1K searches per search on the smallest pack, $1.45/1K searches on the 100,000 pack and $1.20/1K searches on the 1 million pack, with the top 3 pages included. Credits are prepaid, never expire and are paid in BTC, USDT, USDC, ETH, SOL, LTC with no KYC.
We do not claim to cost less than everyone in every case: Jina's token billing and LangSearch's free tier can cost less for some workloads. Our reader also respects robots.txt and never works around a refusal, so a few pages that other tools return will come back without content.
What does LLMWebSearch cost?
Prepaid packs; one credit per search with the top 3 pages read; credits never expire. Prices set on 2026-10-22.
Builder
25,000 searches
$41.25
$1.65/1K searches
- A coding agent or a research assistant
- MCP, LangChain and n8n ready
- Credits never expire
Production
100,000 searches
$145
$1.45/1K searches
- Agents in production
- Higher rate limit on request
- Credits never expire
Best rate
Volume
1,000,000 searches
$1,200
$1.20/1K searches
- Platforms serving many agents
- Higher rate limit on request
- Credits never expire
In every plan: Top 3 pages read as Markdown · Country, language, time and domain filters · Failed calls not charged · Credits never expire
Web search API pricing: common questions
What is the cheapest web search API for LLMs in 2026?
Without page text, DeepSeek Search + Fetch ($0.75), Parallel ($1.00) listed the lowest entry prices per 1,000 searches on 2026-10-22. With the full text of 3 pages at 100,000 a month, Desearch ($2.50), Valyu ($2.99) listed the lowest flat prices. Compare at your own volume.
Is Tavily expensive?
At small volumes it sits at $7.50 to $8 per 1,000 basic searches. On its $500 Growth plan the price falls to $5, with raw page content and no surcharge listed. Its plan credits reset monthly.
Do I pay for searches that fail?
It depends on the provider. Perplexity states that failed and rate-limited requests are not billed. LLMWebSearch does not charge for calls that end in an error.
Can I pay for a search API with crypto?
Per request, yes: Tavily, Exa, Parallel, Linkup, You.com take USDC through x402 or MPP. As a prepaid account funded in crypto, LLMWebSearch takes BTC, USDT, USDC, ETH, SOL, LTC with no KYC.
Sources (10)
- Tavily: pricing docs.tavily.com/documentation/api-credits — Tavily (read 2026-10-22)
- Exa: pricing exa.ai/pricing — Exa (read 2026-10-22)
- Parallel: pricing parallel.ai/pricing — Parallel (read 2026-10-22)
- Linkup: pricing docs.linkup.so/pages/documentation/development/pricing — Linkup (read 2026-10-22)
- You.com: pricing you.com/pricing — You.com (read 2026-10-22)
- Firecrawl: pricing docs.firecrawl.dev/features/search — Firecrawl (read 2026-10-22)
- Valyu: pricing docs.valyu.ai/pricing — Valyu (read 2026-10-22)
- Desearch: pricing desearch.ai/pricing — Desearch (read 2026-10-22)
- DeepSeek Search + Fetch: pricing — DeepSeek (read 2026-10-22)
- s1.dev: pricing s1.dev/pricing — s1.dev (read 2026-10-22)