Best web search APIs for AI agents
The best web search API depends on the job. Exa is strongest for research by meaning, Tavily for citation-ready results, Brave Search for an independent index, and Serper for low-cost Google results. Prices below are live from the o11 catalog.
- 1
Exa API
Best for: Research by meaning, plus company and people search.
Exa is an AI-native search engine. It finds pages by meaning, returns their contents, and can search for companies and people.
From $0.001 / call 14 tools
- 2
Tavily API
Best for: Citation-ready results for RAG and chat answers.
Tavily is a search API built for LLMs. It returns ranked results with extracted content that agents can cite.
From $0.008 / call 7 tools
- 3
Brave Search API
Best for: An independent index that is not Google or Bing.
Brave Search API returns web, news, and image results from Brave’s own independent index.
From $0.005 / call 8 tools
- 4
Parallel AI API
Best for: Deep research tasks that need many pages.
Parallel offers web search and extraction APIs designed for AI agents and deep research.
From $0.005 / call 2 tools
- 5
Perplexity API
Best for: A written answer with sources instead of raw links.
Perplexity’s API answers questions from live web results and returns the sources it used.
From $0.001 / call 2 tools
- 6
Serper API
Best for: Low-cost Google results as JSON.
Serper returns Google search results as JSON, including web, news, images, and places.
From $0.001 / call 11 tools
- 7
SerpApi
Best for: Google verticals like Maps, Shopping, Hotels, and Scholar.
SerpApi returns structured results from Google and other engines, including Maps, Shopping, Hotels, and Scholar.
From $0.015 / call 176 tools
How to choose
- Research and discovery: start with Exa or Parallel.
- Answers your agent will quote: use Tavily or Perplexity, which return sources with results.
- Fresh, local, or shopping results from Google: use Serper or SerpApi.
- Independence from Google and Bing: use Brave Search.
- Compare the cost of a useful answer, including page fetches and retries, not just the price per request.
Questions
- What is the best web search API for AI agents?
- It depends on the job. Exa is strongest for research by meaning, Tavily for citation-ready results, Brave Search for an independent index, and Serper for low-cost Google results. Many agents use two: one for discovery and one for fresh or local results.
- What is the cheapest web search API for agents?
- On o11, the lowest per-call price right now is $0.001 / call, from Exa API, Perplexity API, Serper API. Compare the cost of a useful answer, not only the price per request: retries, page fetches, and extra model tokens add up.
- Can one agent use several search APIs?
- Yes. Through o11, one MCP connection reaches every search API on this page, billed per call from one wallet, so the agent can pick the right one for each query.
