Tavily review (2026): is the free plan enough?
Web search, extract and crawl API built for AI agents
Black Friday: is there a Tavily sale?
Tavily report card
Fair · out of 4.0 · graded Nov 12, 2026
Best for web search and extraction for AI agents
Tavily is a search and extract API for AI agents, with crawl, map and a research endpoint. The free plan is 1,000 credits a month, but an advanced search takes 2 credits and requests stop when you run out.
Who Tavily is for
- Fits if an agent needs web search results it can read
- Works for people who prefer pay as you go to a monthly bill
Who Tavily is not for
- Tight if you stay free: 1,000 credits, and requests stop until the month resets
- Watch out: an advanced search takes 2 credits, so 4,000 credits may mean 2,000 searches
- Pricey if you scale: 100,000 credits is $500 a month on the slider
- Watch out: it is a developer API only, with no desktop or mobile app
Why Tavily gets a 2.4
Five grades, each with its reason. The GPA is their average: an A is 4 points, an F is none.
- CValue for money$30 a month for 4,000 credits, or $0.008 a credit pay as you go, in the middle of this category ($19 to $44.10).
- CFree plan and trial1,000 API credits a month with no card, resetting monthly. Requests stop when they run out.
- BFeaturesSearch, extract, crawl, map and a research endpoint, with request safeguards. Nothing in the listing shows a gap in the core job.
- CEase of useNo store rating on record. It is an API key and code, or an agent connector.
- BPlatforms and integrationsWeb only, but it lists LangChain, Claude and Databricks.
What these grades rest on. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Tavily's own pages on 12 November 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews. How we review and grade.
Make Tavily? Put this grade on your site
Paste this where you want the badge. It links here and follows the grade if it changes. About badges
<a href="https://toolgpa.com/tools/tavily#review"><img src="https://toolgpa.com/badge/tavily.svg" alt="Tavily: 2.4 GPA on ToolGPA" width="196" height="56"></a>Where Tavily stands among SERP and SEO data APIs
Tavily's GPA of 2.4 is higher than 21 of the 48 other SERP and SEO data APIs we grade, and level with 17.
It stands best on features (B, above 33 of 48) and worst on ease of use (C, above 1).
Its paid plans start at $30 a month, against a middle price of $29 for the category: 19 of the 33 others that charge start lower.
On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.7 out of 4. Nothing scores higher for less, though at least one tool matches that score at a lower price.
Each grade against the category
Every bar is all 49 SERP and SEO data APIs we grade, cut by the letter each got. Tavily’s own letter is outlined.
- CValue for moneyAbove 2 of 48, level with 26
- CFree plan and trialAbove 3 of 48, level with 39
- BFeaturesAbove 33 of 48, level with 14
- CEase of useAbove 1 of 48, level with 45
- BPlatforms and integrationsAbove 12 of 48, level with 36
Price against what you get
Each dot is one of 34 SERP and SEO data APIs. Further left costs less, and higher up scores better on features, ease of use and platforms. Point at a dot to see which tool it is.
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
Keep Tavily, or make your own?
Keep it
To replace Tavily you would be making search results fetched at scale from many countries without being blocked. That is not a weekend's work, with an AI app builder or without one.
It costs $360 a year.
What you could not
- Search results fetched at scale from many countries without being blocked.
- A search engine with an AI model behind it.
- A library of papers and sources to search.
- An AI agent, with the models and the safeguards behind it.
- It plugs into other products, LangChain, Claude and Databricks among them, and has an API.
- The depth: we grade its features B, which means it covers the whole job.
What this rests on. Tavily’s listing: what it does, where it runs, what it plugs into and what it costs. It is a judgement about the kind of software this is. We have not built a replacement for it, and making your own means looking after it too. How we decide, and every tool’s verdict.
What is Tavily?
Tavily is an API that gives AI agents and language-model apps access to live web data. It offers search, extract, crawl, map and research endpoints, and returns results already trimmed into chunks for a model to read. Usage is billed in API credits, with a free monthly allowance.
Worth knowing
- 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.
Key features
- Search
- Returns web results for a query. A basic search costs 1 credit and an advanced search costs 2 credits.
- Extract
- Pulls page content from given URLs. Every 5 successful basic extractions cost 1 credit, and failed extractions are not charged.
- Crawl and map
- Crawl extracts content across a whole site, and map lists the URLs a site contains without extracting them.
- Research endpoint
- An agent endpoint for in-depth web research, listed beside search and extract in the product menu.
- Request safeguards
- The homepage says requests pass through layers that block PII leakage, prompt injection and malicious sources.
- Agent connectors
- Docs cover an MCP server, a command-line tool and a plugin for Claude Code, plus Python and JavaScript SDKs.
Tavily pricing
As of Nov 12, 2026, Tavily has a free plan, and paid plans start at $30 per month for 4,000 API credits.
- Starts at
- $30 per month for 4,000 API credits
- Free plan
- Researcher plan: 1,000 API credits a month, no credit card required. Credits reset on the first of each month.
- Free trial
- None listed
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Researcher | $0 | 1,000 API credits a month, email support, no card needed. Requests stop when credits run out. |
| Pay As You Go | $0.008per credit, billed as used | No monthly fee; pay per credit used and cancel anytime. Docs say it also covers usage past a plan's credit limit. |
| Project | $30per month for 4,000 API credits | Higher rate limits. The slider also offers 15,000 credits for $100, 38,000 for $220 and 100,000 for $500. |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom credits and rate limits, enterprise support with SLAs, and enterprise security and privacy. |
Read from tavily.com on Nov 12, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Tavily before you buy.
Ways to pay less
- Startups100k free API credits for startups
The pricing page says startups in the program get 100,000 free API credits plus hands-on support from the team.
Stated on tavily.com - EducationFree for students
The pricing page says Tavily offers its service at no cost to students.
Stated on tavily.com
Works with
Tavily alternatives
- Tavily vs Firecrawl
Free plan · from $16/mo
- Tavily vs Linkup
Free plan
- Tavily vs Brave Search API
Free plan
- Tavily vs Serper
Free trial · from $50 one-time
- Tavily vs ScrapingBee
Free trial · from $19/mo
Common questions
Does Tavily have an Android app?
No Android app was listed when its pages were read on Nov 12, 2026. Tavily is listed for Web.
Does Tavily have an iPhone app?
No iPhone app was listed when its pages were read on Nov 12, 2026. Tavily is listed for Web.
Is Tavily open source?
Tavily is not described as open source on its own site, as read on Nov 12, 2026.
Does Tavily have an API?
Yes. Tavily offers a public API, according to its own site.
Sources for this page
The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Nov 12, 2026.