Web search API with the largest free tier
Default pickParallel Search API
Parallel has the largest free tier of the search APIs here at 5000 requests per month, ahead of Linkup (a monthly credit worth about 4000 standard queries) and Exa (about 1400 searches monthly, cut back from 20000). Brave and Tavily sit around 1000 per month and SerpAPI at 250. Free-tier units differ — credits, requests and queries are not identical — so treat these as approximate equivalents. A light estimate from provider pricing pages, August 2026.
DefaultParallel Search APIfree_tierParallel Search API
Provider offerings
| Offering | Price ($/1000 queries) | Relevance | Latency | Free/mo | Capabilities |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brave Search API (Data for AI)Brave Software | 5 | 14.89 | 669 ms | 1000 | — |
| ExaExa Labs | 7 | 14.39 | 1200 ms | 1400 | LLM-ready |
| Tavily Search APITavily (acquired by Nebius, Feb 2026) | 8 | 13.67 | 998 ms | 1000 | LLM-ready |
| LinkupLinkup | 5 | — | — | 4000 | LLM-ready |
| Parallel Search APIParallel Web Systems | 5 | — | — | 5000 | LLM-ready |
| Perplexity Sonar / Search APIPerplexity AI | 5* | 12.96 | 11000 ms | — | LLM-ready |
| SerpAPI (Google SERP API)SerpApi LLC | 25* | 12.28 | 2400 ms | 250 | — |
* token-/credit-priced — the headline understates real per-unit cost, so it is excluded from the cheapest ranking.
Sources
- Brave Search API — Pricing (provider docs)2026-08-20
- Exa — API Pricing (provider docs)2026-08-20
- Exa — Pricing reference (provider docs)2026-08-20
- Tavily — Credits & Pricing (provider docs)2026-08-20
- Linkup — Pricing (provider docs)2026-08-20
- Linkup — Pricing reference incl. deep search (provider docs)2026-08-20
- Parallel — Pricing (provider docs)2026-08-20
- Perplexity — API Pricing (provider docs)2026-08-20
- SerpApi — Plans and Pricing (provider docs)2026-08-20
- AImultiple — Agentic Search: Benchmark 8 Search APIs for Agents (independent eval, page updated 2026-08-17; scores unchanged from the previous run)2026-08-20
- Nebius announces agreement to acquire Tavily (announced 2026-02-10)2026-08-20