Brave Search API vs Exa
A side-by-side look at 2 AI & ML tools for 2026 — the verdict, pricing, ratings, features, and what readers think.
B
brave.com/search/api
Best for Developers building AI agents and RAG apps who want an independent index with prepaid pricing.
An independent web search API for AI agents and RAG, with an LLM Context endpoint that returns ranked, compact passages in a single call.
Visit Brave Search APIPricing compared
Brave Search API
$5/1k requests
Exa
$4/1k requests
Head to head
| Brave Search API | Exa | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $5/1k requests | $4/1k requests |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Free monthly credits; credit card required as anti-fraud check | Free plan: $10 credits monthly plus $10 bonus, no card |
| Platforms | Web · API | Web · API |
| HQ | — | San Francisco, USA |
Pros & cons
Brave Search API
Pros
- Runs on Brave's own independent index, so there is no hidden fallback to Google or Bing for long-tail queries.
- LLM Context endpoint returns ranked, token-budgeted passages instead of raw links, which cuts prompt size.
- Prepaid credits with no subscription or minimums make costs easy to cap.
- Goggles let you re-rank or restrict results to trusted domain sets.
- SOC 2 Type II attested, with Zero Data Retention options for compliance-sensitive teams.
- Official MCP server makes it simple to plug into Claude and other agent clients.
Cons
- A credit card is required even to use the free monthly credits.
- Storing or reusing results (for example to fine-tune a model) needs a plan that grants storage rights.
- Headline benchmark wins are vendor-reported or run by Brave, so verify on your own queries.
- No no-code interface; it is built for developers working through the API.
- Answers endpoint is limited to 2 queries per second on the standard plan.
Exa
Pros
- Purpose-built for agents: returns clean contents and token-efficient highlights instead of raw HTML.
- Configurable latency, from sub-second Instant search to multi-step Deep search, in one API.
- Vertical indexes for companies, people, news, research papers and code make enrichment and coding use cases easy.
- Free starter credits with no card required make evaluation cheap.
- Official MCP server, Claude connector and ChatGPT plugin speed up integration.
- Lists SOC 2 Type II, GDPR and CCPA coverage, with zero data retention available for enterprise.
Cons
- Usage-based pricing across several endpoints (search, contents, deep search, agent) takes effort to forecast.
- Aimed at developers; there is no no-code interface for non-technical teams.
- Deep search and Agent runs cost far more per request than Instant search.
- Higher rate limits, zero data retention and HIPAA require an enterprise contract.
Features compared
| Brave Search API | Exa | |
|---|---|---|
| Plans & pricing | ||
| Free tier | — | ✓ Yes |
| Pricing model | — | Per usage |
| Platforms & access | ||
| Web app | — | ✓ Yes |
| Integrations & extensibility | ||
| Public API | — | ✓ Yes |
| Security & compliance | ||
| SOC 2 | — | ✓ Yes |
| GDPR compliant | — | ✓ Yes |