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Exa

Web search API for AI agents, with page contents, deep-research agents, monitors and an MCP server.

Sources checked Oct 20

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Pricing: Pay as you go with a free tier. Every account gets $10 of free credits each month (enough for up to 2,500 Lite searches) plus a one-time $10 bonus for finishing onboarding, with no card needed. After that you buy prepaid credits and pay per request: search from $4 per 1,000 requests, page contents $1 per 1,000 pages, Deep Search $12–15, Monitors $15 and Answer $5 per 1,000 requests, and Agent runs from $0.012 to $1.00 each at fixed effort levels. There is no subscription or minimum spend. Enterprise plans add custom pricing, invoicing and zero data retention. Official source 1 ↗
Available as: A REST API with official Python (exa-py) and JavaScript (exa-js) SDKs, managed through a web dashboard for API keys, credits and invoices. · A free, open-source hosted MCP server that works in Cursor, VS Code, Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, Windsurf, Zed, Gemini CLI and other MCP clients; it can be tried without an API key. Official source 1 ↗ · Official source 2 ↗ Official source 1 ↗
Primary group: Research & Data

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What it does

Exa is a web search engine built for AI agents and LLM apps rather than people. Developers call its APIs to search the web, pull clean page text and highlights, run multi-step research agents and set up recurring searches that post new results to a webhook. Exa runs its own crawler and an independent index of about 100 billion pages, plus structured collections such as companies, people, papers and local businesses. A hosted MCP server plugs the same search into Claude, Cursor, Codex and other AI tools. Exa 3.0, released on 19 October 2026, improved search quality and added the cheaper Lite search type. It is made by Exa Labs Inc.

Official source 1 ↗ · Official source 2 ↗ · Official source 3 ↗ · Official source 4 ↗

Features

Pricing & free limits

Free (Starter)

$0free; $10 credits reset monthly

$10 of credits on the first of every month (up to 2,500 Lite searches) plus a one-time $10 onboarding bonus. Access to all endpoints, MCP server, Claude connector and ChatGPT plugin; 10 queries per second and 50 concurrent Agent runs. No payment method required; does not include Exa Snapshot. Official source 1 ↗ · Official source 2 ↗

Developer (pay as you go)

Usage-based (from $4 per 1,000 searches)prepaid credits, no subscription

Everything in Free plus usage billing from prepaid credits, standard email support and self-serve Exa Connect data providers. 10 QPS by default, rising to 25 QPS for 90 days after buying $1,000 of credits within 30 days. Official source 1 ↗ · Official source 2 ↗

Enterprise

Customvolume pricing, optional postpaid invoicing

Custom MSA and DPA, zero data retention, HIPAA, SSO/SCIM, Slack support, SLAs, custom rate limits, up to 1,000 results per search and custom indexes. Official source 1 ↗

Startup and Education Grants

Free credits (up to $1,000)one-off grant on application

Free credits for startups and education projects, granted on request. Official source 1 ↗

Billing details

Search prices cover up to 10 results per request; each extra result costs $1 per 1,000, and AI page summaries add $1 per 1,000 pages. The Contents API bills each content type (text, highlights, summary) separately. Official source 1 ↗

Metered Agent runs bill compute units ($0.10 per ACU), search calls ($0.005 each) and contact lookups ($0.02 per email, $0.07 per phone number), capped at $5 per run on auto and $20 on ultra by default. Official source 1 ↗

Credits are prepaid through Stripe and can auto-recharge at a threshold you set; when they run out, API calls fail with 402 Payment Required. Unused free monthly credits do not roll over and are never refunded. Official source 1 ↗

Free access & limits

$10 of credits a month that reset on the first of each month, plus a one-time $10 onboarding bonus; only a user's first team receives the monthly grant. Official source 1 ↗

Free and default rate limits: 10 searches per second (5 for Deep Search), 100 per second for Contents, and 50 Agent runs in progress at once. Official source 1 ↗

Best for & limitations

Giving a coding agent current documentation and code examples from GitHub, docs and Stack Overflow, so it writes code against today's APIs. Official source 1 ↗

Adding live web search to a chatbot or personal AI assistant, for example to answer questions about today's news. Official source 1 ↗ · Official source 2 ↗

Building and enriching lists of companies or people for sales and go-to-market research, with structured fields and citations. Official source 1 ↗ · Official source 2 ↗

Watching a topic such as competitor announcements or regulatory changes and getting new results pushed to a webhook every day. Official source 1 ↗

Built for developers, not a consumer search app. Exa is used through an API, SDKs or an MCP server; there is no end-user search app, so you need to build or connect an AI tool to use it. Official source 1 ↗ · Official source 2 ↗
Queries may be used to train models. The privacy policy says query data is used to improve Exa, including training and fine-tuning its models, and asks users not to put personal information in queries. Zero data retention is offered on Enterprise plans. Official source 1 ↗ · Official source 2 ↗
Costs scale with usage. Extra results, AI summaries, each Contents content type and third-party data providers are all billed on top of the base request price, and metered Agent runs can cost up to $5–20 each by default. Official source 1 ↗ · Official source 2 ↗
Rate limits on self-serve plans. Self-serve accounts are limited to 10 queries per second (25 after a $1,000 top-up) and 50 concurrent Agent runs; more requires a sales conversation. Official source 1 ↗