/api

Exa pricing and alternatives

What Exa costs, how the free credits work, and the alternatives if your agent's questions are about markets and filings.

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Exa at a glance

Free
$10 in credits a month, no card
Search
$4–$7 per 1,000 requests
Deep search
$12 per 1,000
Enterprise
custom

What Exa costs

Exa is pay-as-you-go: there is no subscription and no minimum spend. You pay per request, by search type.

ProductPriceNote
Search, lite (instant, legacy)$4 / 1k requestsEach result above 10: $1 / 1k results
Search, auto (fast, legacy)$7 / 1k requests
Deep search (deep-lite, deep)$12 / 1k requestsdeep-reasoning $15 / 1k (legacy)
Contents$1 / 1k pagesPer content type
Answer$5 / 1k requestsAn LLM answer to a question, with citations
Free tier$10 credits a month + $10 onboarding bonusNo payment method required; credits don't roll over

Search is limited to 10 queries a second, or 25 for 90 days after you add $1,000 in 30 days. Enterprise adds zero data retention, SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA, and up to 1,000 results per search.

When to use Exa

Choose it for general web results. Choose Finks when your agent's questions are about markets and filings, and every result needs a finance source.

  1. 01

    Fast, configurable web search

    General web search with latency from "450ms to 1s".

  2. 02

    Search plus page text

    Search results and the full text of each page from one vendor (Contents).

  3. 03

    Deep research with citations

    Async deep research that returns "Structured outputs with citations".

Alternatives to Exa

  • Finks

    Best for: AI agents that search financial sources in plain English and need the passage that answers, with its source.

    Finks is a search API built for AI agents. Your agent searches in plain English and gets back the results that answer it, each linked to its source. Today that covers news, SEC filings and earnings call transcripts.

    Filing results can carry the matching passage in the filing's own words, which your agent can quote and cite. The Finks MCP server adds the same search to Claude, Cursor or any MCP-compatible client.

    Exa searches the open web, including its own finance sources. Finks searches finance sources only, so every result is a finance item with its source attached.

    What Finks does not do

    Finks does not search the open web. If your agent needs general web results, keep Exa or another web search API for them.

    Try Finks for free

    Get set up in minutes. Free tier, no card required. Paid plans start at $29 a month (Starter).

    Request

    POST /v1/search
{
  "query": "material cybersecurity incident disclosed in Item 1.05",
  "types": ["filing"],
  "event_types": ["cybersecurity_incident"],
  "depth": "deep",
  "limit": 3
}

    Response

    {
  "type": "filing",
  "title": "Nutex Health Inc. — 8-K Item 1.05, Material Cybersecurity Incidents",
  "published_at": "2026-08-31T20:25:25Z",
  "url": "https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1479681/000162828026059602/nutx-20260831.htm",
  "matched": "passage",
  "passage": {
    "section_id": "8-k/item-1.05",
    "text": "…Nutex Health Inc. (the “Company”) became aware of unauthorized activity involving data stored on its computer network…"
  }
}

    Live response, 26 Oct 2026, test key (fewer fields than a production key)

  • Tavily

    Best for: fixed monthly credit plans and keyless trials.

    Tavily gives 1,000 free credits a month with no card. Plans run from $30 (4,000 credits) to $500 (100,000 credits) a month, and search has a "finance" topic option.

    Tavily pricing and alternatives

  • Brave Search API

    Best for: its own web index at high throughput.

    Brave charges $5 per 1,000 search requests, with $5 in free credits a month (a card is needed but not charged) and 50 requests a second. Its standard terms don't allow storing results.

    Brave Search API pricing and alternatives

  • Perplexity Search API

    Best for: cheap raw web results with batching.

    Perplexity's Search API costs $5 per 1,000 requests, and up to five queries in one request count as one. Fast Search costs $1 per 1,000.

    Perplexity API pricing and alternatives

Related pages

Questions about Exa pricing

Is Exa free?

Yes, with limits. Exa gives $10 in credits a month with no payment method required, plus a $10 onboarding bonus. Credits don't roll over.

How much does the Exa API cost?

Search costs $4 per 1,000 requests (lite) or $7 (auto). Deep search costs $12 per 1,000. Contents costs $1 per 1,000 pages. Prices checked 20 Oct 2026.

Exa vs Tavily: what's the difference?

Exa is pay-as-you-go per request with no subscription. Tavily sells monthly credit plans from $30 and also offers pay-as-you-go. Both have a free tier.

Does Exa have an MCP server?

Yes. Exa hosts an MCP server at mcp.exa.ai. It is open source, and you need no key to start.

Does Finks replace Exa?

Not for general web search. Finks returns the passages that answer a question, each with its source; today that covers news, SEC filings and earnings call transcripts. Use Exa for general web search and Finks for the finance answers behind it.

Finks makes this page. We took every price and limit from each company's own website on 20 Oct 2026 and link to each source. Prices change, so check them before you buy.

Sources

Add sourced finance results to your web search

Finks returns news, SEC filings and earnings call passages, each with its source.

Try Finks for free