Brave Search vs Exa (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 13, 2026, Brave Search grades higher than Exa: 3.2 against 2.2 out of 4.0.
Checked Nov 12, 2026 and Nov 13, 2026 · graded Nov 12, 2026 and Nov 13, 2026 by ToolGPA
Brave Search grades higher on value for money, the free plan and ease of use. They get the same grade on features and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Brave Search
Private web search engine with its own index and AI answers
Free plan · from $3/mo
Which one is for you
Pick Brave Search if
- Fits if you want web search that does not profile you
- Works for developers who want a search API with their own web index
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you need peer-reviewed papers, because it searches the open web
- Not for you if you hate ads, as free results carry them and removal costs $3 a month
- Watch out: the Search API is separate, at $5 per 1,000 requests, and asks for a credit card even for the free credits
- Too light for managing sources or citations, since it has neither
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
| 3.2GPABrave SearchVery good | 2.2GPAExaFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | AFree with ads and no account, and the ad-free Search premium is $3 a month or $29.99 a year, under the category's $4.75 mark. | 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 | AThe whole search is free with no account needed. | 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 | COwn index, Ask Brave answers, Goggles and a Search API. For research it is a web search: no scholarly filter and no citation tools. | 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 | BNo store rating on record. Type a query and read the results, nothing to set 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 search that works with the Brave browser and has a Search API. No standalone app is listed. | BWeb API with Claude, ChatGPT and MCP hooks. No desktop or mobile apps, as the listing says. |
| Best for | private web search with AI answers | 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 and Exa. How we grade
Where they differ
- Brave Search also covers web browser.
- Exa also covers AI agents and research.
In commonFree planWebPublic APIAI search
At a glance
| Brave Search | Exa | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free plan |
| Starts at | $3 per month, or $29.99 per year | Not published |
| Free plan | Search and Ask Brave are free to use and supported by ads; no account is needed. | 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 | Exa Labs Inc. |
| Price read from | brave.com | exa.ai |
| Checked | Nov 13, 2026 | Nov 12, 2026 |
Worth knowing
Brave Search
- It searches the open web, not scholarly databases, so it does not filter to peer-reviewed papers or manage citations.
- Free results include ads; removing them needs Search premium at $3 a month or $29.99 a year.
- The Search API is a separate product: $5 per 1,000 requests, or $4 per 1,000 plus $5 per million tokens for Answers, with up to $20 of free credits monthly.
- The API requires a credit card even for the free credits, which the vendor says is an anti-fraud check.
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
- Independent index
- Results come from an index Brave built itself, not from a pass-through to Google or Bing, according to the vendor.
- Ask Brave
- Combines an AI chat answer with a results page, so you get a summary plus sources and can ask follow-up questions.
- No profiling
- The vendor says it does not collect personal data to profile searchers, and its search ads are anonymous and marked.
- Ad-free option
- A paid Search premium subscription removes ads from the results pages.
- Goggles
- Custom re-ranking rules let you boost or drop domains in results; the API page lists Goggles as an option.
- Search API
- A separate developer API returns web, news, image and video results and LLM-ready page context, billed from prepaid credits.
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
Free$0
Web search with Ask Brave AI answers, with ads in the results.
Search premium$3
per month, billed monthly ($29.99 per year)
Removes ads from search results pages; the vendor lists no other differences.
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.
Ways to pay less
Brave Search
- Annual discount
Search premium costs $29.99 a year
Brave's premium page lists Search premium at $3 per month or $29.99 per year, which is below twelve monthly payments.
Exa
No public discounts listed.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Brave Search or Exa?
As of Nov 13, 2026, Brave Search starts at $3 per month, or $29.99 per year, and Exa publishes no starting price.
Which has a free plan, Brave Search or Exa?
As of Nov 13, 2026, both Brave Search 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.