#3 in Research & searchUsage-based
Exa
Web search API built for agents and apps.
Exa is a search API. You send a query from your own app or agent and get web results, with contents you can pass to a model. It is a developer product, not a consumer answer page.
Why this rank
Perplexity is where a person researches. Exa is what you call when the product you are building needs search.
Best for
Adding web search to an agent or an app.
Pricing
Usage-based API with a free starting allowance. See exa.ai for current request prices.
Pricing checked November 7, 2026. Confirm it on the official site.
Before you commit
- There is no polished consumer research app to hand a non-developer.
- You pay as the agent searches, so a loop can spend more than one query.
Also look at
- Perplexity — Answer engine that cites the pages it used.
- OpenAI API — The default API for GPT models and OpenAI tools.
- OpenRouter — One API key for many models and providers.