Alternatives · SEO APIs
Tavily alternatives
As of Nov 12, 2026, the highest-graded Tavily alternative is Firecrawl (2.6 GPA). It's also the best free one. The catch, in its listing's words: "1,000 credits a month."
Tavily compared with 8 alternatives: Firecrawl, Linkup, Brave Search API, Serper, ScrapingBee and 3 more.
Tavily has a free plan. Paid plans start at $30 per month for 4,000 API credits. 6 of the 8 alternatives are free or have a free plan. 2 more offer a free trial.
Listings checked up to Nov 12, 2026 · Where the facts come from
Black Friday: is there a Tavily sale?
At a glance
| Tool | Price | Free plan | Runs on |
|---|---|---|---|
| TavilyThis tool | Free plan · from $30/mo | Yes | Web |
| Firecrawl | Free plan · from $16/mo | Yes | Web |
| Linkup | Free plan | Yes | Web |
| Brave Search API | Free plan | Yes | Web |
| Serper | Free trial · from $50 one-time | Trial only | Web |
| ScrapingBee | Free trial · from $19/mo | Trial only | Web |
| Jina AI | Free plan · from $50 one-time | Yes | Web |
| Parallel | Free plan · from $1,000/mo | Yes | Web |
| Exa | Free plan | Yes | Web |
Price against what you get
Tavily starts at $30 a month and scores 2.7 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. None of the 3 alternatives on this chart both scores higher and starts lower.
Firecrawl and ScrapingBee start lower without scoring higher.
Features, ease of use and platforms, averaged
What paid plans start at, a month (each step along is roughly double) →
- The best score at each price
- Has a free plan
- No free plan
How each one differs from Tavily
Firecrawl
Web search, scrape and crawl API that returns LLM-ready data
- Firecrawl starts at $16 per month for 5,000 credits, billed annually ($19 billed monthly).
- Firecrawl is open source and self-hostable, according to its own site.
- Firecrawl does not cover AI search and research, which Tavily does.
Suits: Developers feeding web pages into LLM or RAG pipelines
Linkup
Pay-per-request web search and fetch API for AI agents
Suits: Developers who want to pay per request with no subscription
Brave Search API
Web search API from Brave's own index, built for AI agents and apps
- Brave Search API does not cover AI search, AI agents and research, which Tavily does.
Suits: Developers grounding AI agents and chatbots in current web results
Serper
Google search results API sold in prepaid credit packs
- Serper starts at $50 one-time for 50,000 credits ($1.00 per 1,000 queries).
- Serper has no free plan, only a free trial, unlike Tavily.
- Serper does not cover AI search, AI agents and research, which Tavily does.
Suits: AI chatbots and agents that need current Google results
ScrapingBee
Web scraping API with a Google search endpoint, priced by credits
- ScrapingBee starts at $19 per month for 75,000 API credits.
- ScrapingBee has no free plan, only a free trial, unlike Tavily.
- ScrapingBee does not cover AI search, AI agents and research, which Tavily does.
Suits: Developers who want proxies and headless browsers handled for them
Jina AI
Reader, search, embeddings and reranker APIs for AI search
- Jina AI starts at $50 for 1 billion tokens, one-time top-up.
- Jina AI does not cover AI agents, which Tavily does.
Suits: Developers grounding an LLM with page text and web search
Parallel
Web search, extract and research APIs for AI agents
- Parallel starts at $1,000 per month in credits, or $10,000 per year.
Suits: Developers who want agent web search billed per request
Exa
Web search API built for AI agents and applications
- Exa does not cover sERP API, which Tavily does.
Suits: Developers adding web search to an AI agent or chatbot
Limits worth knowing in Tavily
- Cost depends on the call: advanced search takes 2 credits, so the entry plan's 4,000 credits may mean only 2,000 advanced searches.
- On the free plan, requests stop when the month's credits run out until they reset or you upgrade.
- It is a developer API with no desktop or mobile apps; use is through the dashboard, SDKs and HTTP calls.
- It is a general web search API, not an SEO tool: it has no rank tracking or keyword metrics.
Common questions
What are the alternatives to Tavily?
The alternatives to Tavily in this directory are Firecrawl, Linkup, Brave Search API, Serper, ScrapingBee, Jina AI, Parallel and Exa. Each one has a side-by-side comparison with Tavily.
Is there a free alternative to Tavily?
Yes. Firecrawl, Linkup, Brave Search API, Jina AI, Parallel and Exa have a free plan alongside paid ones.
Is there an open-source alternative to Tavily?
Firecrawl is described as open source on its own site.
When were these prices checked?
Each listing shows its own date. On this page they run from Oct 23, 2026 to Nov 12, 2026. Vendors change prices without notice, so confirm on their site before you buy.