Brave Search API vs Exa (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Brave Search API and Exa share a 2.2 GPA, both have a free plan and their prices can't be set side by side, so the choice depends on whether you care more about ease of use, where Brave Search API grades higher, or the free plan, where Exa does.
Checked Oct 23, 2026 and Nov 12, 2026 · graded Oct 23, 2026 and Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA
They get the same grade on value for money, features and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Brave Search API
Web search API from Brave's own index, built for AI agents and apps
Free plan
Which one is for you
Pick Brave Search API if
- Fits if you're grounding an AI chatbot in current web results without scraping Google
- Works for apps moving off Google's Custom Search JSON API
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you need Google or Bing rankings, as results come only from Brave's index
- Watch out: a credit card is needed to sign up, even for the free monthly credit
- Watch out: storing results or training models on them needs a plan with storage rights
- Tight if you need volume, at 50 requests a second on Search and 2 on Answers before Enterprise
- Pricey if you use Answers, at $4 per 1,000 queries plus $5 per million tokens each way
Pick Exa if
- Fits if you're building an AI agent that needs to search the live web
- Works for developers who want search results returned as page contents
Look elsewhere if
- Not for you if you want an app to read or take notes in, as it's an API
- Tight if you go past $10 of credits a month, when billing is by usage with no fixed price
- Pricey if you need zero data retention, which is Enterprise with a $12,000 annual credit commitment
- Watch out: Starter allows 10 searches per second and 50 agent concurrency
How we grade them
| 2.2GPABrave Search APIFair | 2.2GPAExaFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | CNo subscription: Search is $5 per 1,000 requests from prepaid credits, after $5 of free credit a month. That's the dear end of what this category charges per search, and Answers adds token charges on top. | CNo fixed monthly price: search from $4 per 1,000 requests, contents $1 per 1,000 pages and agent runs $0.012 to $1.00 each. It's a different kind of thing from a reading app, so it sits at C, and the bill depends on usage. |
| Free plan and trial | C$5 of free credit every month on each plan, about 1,000 searches, but a credit card is needed to sign up. | BThe Starter plan is $10 of credits every month plus a $10 onboarding bonus, with no payment method needed. A solo developer testing can live on that. |
| Features | CWeb, news, image, video and places search from Brave's own index, an LLM Context endpoint, cited Answers and Goggles to rerank results. The listing's own gap: it can't show what ranks on Google or Bing. | CSearch, Contents, Agent and Monitors APIs plus agent tooling. A developer building block rather than a research tool, and zero data retention needs a $12,000 annual Enterprise commitment. |
| Ease of use | CJudged on how fast a developer gets a first result: one key for every search type, and an Answers interface that works with the OpenAI SDK. No rating on record, and a card is asked for at sign-up. | DNo store rating on record. You need code, an API key and a client to use it, so it's a D. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb, with an API and the OpenAI SDK, Amazon Bedrock and OpenClaw. No desktop or phone app, so B is the top. | BWeb API with Claude, ChatGPT and MCP hooks. No desktop or mobile apps, as the listing says. |
| Best for | web results from an independent index | giving AI agents a web search API |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Brave Search API and Exa. How we grade
Where they differ
- Brave Search API also covers sERP API.
- Exa also covers AI search, AI agents and research.
In commonFree planWebPublic API
At a glance
| Brave Search API | Exa | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free plan |
| Starts at | Not published | Not published |
| Free plan | $5 of free credit every month on each prepaid plan (Search, Answers, Spellcheck and Autosuggest), applied automatically. A credit card is needed to sign up. | Starter: $10 in credits every month plus a $10 onboarding bonus, no payment method required. |
| Free trial | None listed | None listed |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Brave Software, Inc. | Exa Labs Inc. |
| Price read from | api-dashboard.search.brave.com | exa.ai |
| Checked | Oct 23, 2026 | Nov 12, 2026 |
Worth knowing
Brave Search API
- Usage is billed from prepaid credits: Search is $5 per 1,000 requests, and Answers $4 per 1,000 queries plus $5 per million input and output tokens.
- Spellcheck and Autosuggest cost $5 per 10,000 requests, and storing results or training models on them needs a plan with storage rights.
- Results come only from Brave's index, so it does not report what ranks on Google or Bing.
- Capacity is 50 requests per second on Search and 2 on Answers; more needs an Enterprise agreement.
Exa
- The free Starter allowance is $10 of credits per month; past that, the Developer plan bills by usage with no fixed monthly price.
- Per-request prices: search from $4 per 1,000 requests, contents $1 per 1,000 pages, monitors $2 per 1,000 requests, agent runs $0.012 to $1.00 each.
- Zero data retention is an Enterprise option with a $12,000 annual commitment in API credits.
- It is an API for developers, not a reading or note-taking app; it has no desktop or mobile apps.
Key features
Brave Search API
- Brave's own index
- Every result comes from Brave's crawler and ranking, informed by opt-in signals from Brave users, with no fallback to Google or Bing for any query.
- LLM Context endpoint
- Returns ranked, extracted page content for a model to answer from, sized from 1k to about 33k tokens, with a relevance threshold and a URL and timestamp per source.
- Web, news, image, video and places
- The Search plan covers human-readable web results plus news, images, videos and location-aware places with map data, under one API key.
- Goggles and richer results
- Goggles rerank results and limit them to chosen sites; up to five extra snippets per result and schema-enriched results with added metadata.
- Answers endpoint
- Writes answers grounded on one or several searches, with citations and streaming, through an interface compatible with the OpenAI SDK.
- Privacy and security
- Brave says queries are never shared or used for training, retention is zero by design, and the service is SOC 2 Type II attested.
Exa
- Search API
- Returns web results with page text and highlights, with latency settings from about 450 ms to 10 seconds and categories such as news, companies, research papers and people.
- Contents API
- Fetches full page contents or token-efficient highlights for use as model context, with configurable live-crawl policies.
- Agent API
- Runs asynchronous deep-research tasks that return structured output with citations.
- Monitors API
- Runs searches on a schedule and sends updates by webhook.
- Agent tooling
- The Starter plan lists an MCP server, a Claude connector, a ChatGPT plugin and more than 50 integrations.
Plans
Brave Search API
Free monthly credits$0
$5 of credit a month on each of Search, Answers, Spellcheck and Autosuggest; usage beyond it is drawn from prepaid credits.
EnterpriseCustom
Custom terms, capacity and endpoints, full-funnel zero data retention, NDAs, invoicing and enterprise support. Sold through sales.
Exa
Starter$0
$10 of credits each month, access to all endpoints, 10 search queries per second and 50 agent concurrency.
EnterpriseCustom
Zero data retention, custom MSA and DPA, SSO and SCIM, SLAs and custom indexes, sold through sales.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Brave Search API or Exa?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Brave Search API publishes no starting price, and Exa publishes no starting price.
Which has a free plan, Brave Search API or Exa?
As of Nov 12, 2026, both Brave Search API and Exa have a free plan.
More comparisons
How this page was made
- The verdict at the top follows a fixed rule. When both tools are in the same category and either is in our top three for it, the verdict follows that ranking: the higher-placed tool is our pick. The top three weigh who each tool suits as well as its grades, so a pick can go against the GPA. Otherwise the page does not pick one and says which grades higher: the higher GPA first; on a tie, the one with a free plan, then the one that starts cheaper in dollars a month, counted the same way for both; if they are still level, what the choice depends on.
- The grades are our own, from each tool’s review or report card. The GPA is their average.
- Prices, plans and platforms come from each tool’s listing. The table above says where each price was read and when.
- The differences and the answers to the questions are worked out from those listings.