Exa

Best for: Prototypes and side projects - free to start, no sales call; Regulated or enterprise workloads - compliance attestations and an enterprise plan; AI agents and automation - an agent-ready surface (MCP / llms.txt)

• ██████▒░░░
  65 / 100
  Agent friendliness
• ██████████
  100 / 100
  Pricing transparency
• ████████▒░
  85 / 100
  Setup speed
• █████▒░░░░
  55 / 100
  Docs quality
• ██████████
  100 / 100
  Procurement ease
• ████░░░░░░
  40 / 100
  Trust readiness

Scores are computed deterministically from this profile's published, sourced fields (pricing, compliance, capabilities, docs and developer-surface signals) - not from reviews or paid placement. Each axis is 0-100; an unknown signal scores 0 for that axis. Procurement ease is the inverse of buying friction (higher = easier to adopt).

Pricing model

Usage-based

Published pricing

✓ Yes

Free tier

✓ Yes

Free tier details

20,000 requests per month recurring monthly allowance at no cost; includes web search tool calls, webpage text and highlights, and configurable latency (180ms to 1s).

Self-serve signup

✓ Yes [2]exa.ai/docs/reference/search-api-guide“Dashboard at https://dashboard.exa.ai for API key management”

Requires sales call

✗ No

Enterprise plan

✓ Yes [3]exa.ai/pricing“Enterprise: Custom pricing available with volume discounts, higher rate limits, custom datasets, and dedicated support.”

• AI answer
• Semantic / neural
• Full content for RAG
• News search
• Agent-ready / MCP
• Zero data retention

Supported actions

web_search, get_contents, find_similar, answer_with_citations, stream_answer, deep_research, monitors_scheduled_search, news_search, company_search, people_search, research_paper_search, financial_report_search, structured_output_extraction [4]exa.ai/docs/sdks/python-sdk-specification“search(), find_similar(), get_contents(), answer(), stream_answer(), research.create(), research.get(), research.poll_until_finished(), research.list()”exa.ai/docs/reference/search-api-guide“Categories: Company (50M+ pages), People (1B+ profiles), Research papers (100M+), News, personal sites, financial reports”

Regions

global [5]exa.ai/about“web-scale infrastructure indexing 500+ billion webpages”

Input types

natural language query, URL, JSON output schema, domain filters, date range filters, category filters, system prompt, user location (ISO country code) [6]exa.ai/docs/reference/search“query (required), type, category, contents, outputSchema, systemPrompt, stream, includeDomains, excludeDomains, startCrawlDate, endCrawlDate, userLocation”

Output types

JSON, full page text (markdown), token-efficient highlights, LLM-generated summaries, structured JSON via outputSchema, grounded answers with citations, server-sent events (streaming), webhook delivery (Monitors)

Webhooks

✓ Yes [7]exa.ai/docs/reference/monitors-api-guide“Monitors execute recurring Exa searches on a schedule and deliver findings to webhooks. The URL must be the final destination — redirects are not followed.”

Sandbox / test mode

✗ No [8]exa.ai/docs/reference/quickstart“Get your API key from the Exa Dashboard. No separate sandbox or test environment described.”

SDK languages

Python, JavaScript, MCP (npm) [9]exa.ai/docs/reference/search-api-guide“Supported SDKs: Python (exa-py package), JavaScript (exa-js package), cURL — Direct HTTP requests”

MCP server

✓ Yes [10]exa.ai/mcp“Free and open-source. Hosted at https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp. Officially maintained by Exa Labs.”exa.ai/docs/reference/exa-mcp“Exa's Search MCP can be installed in any MCP client with the server URL: https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp”

SOC 2

SOC 2 Type II [11]exa.ai/docs/reference/security“Exa takes data security and privacy seriously. We are proud to be SOC 2 Type II certified”

HIPAA

✓ Yes [12]exa.ai/docs/reference/security“HIPAA compliance offered through customized Enterprise plans; contact sales@exa.ai for HIPAA compliance, or other customized data security solutions”

GDPR

– Unknown

ISO 27001

– Unknown

PCI DSS

– Unknown

Published SLA

✗ No [13]exa.ai/pricing“Enterprise custom pricing includes dedicated support and SLAs — no publicly published uptime SLA percentage found on the pricing or security pages.”

Rate limits

/search: 10 QPS; /contents: 100 QPS; /answer: 10 QPS; /research/v1 (legacy): 15 concurrent tasks [14]exa.ai/docs/reference/rate-limits“/search: 10 QPS (queries per second); /contents: 100 QPS; /answer: 10 QPS; /research/v1 (legacy): 15 concurrent tasks”

Known restrictions

company and people category indexes do not support date or domain exclusion filters, maximum 100 results per request (contact sales for higher), find_similar endpoint is deprecated (still functional), Zero Data Retention requires enterprise plan agreement, Monitors webhook URLs must be final destinations - redirects are not followed [15]exa.ai/docs/reference/search“Company/people categories only support a limited set of filters and do NOT support date/domain exclusion parameters. Maximum 100 results per request.”exa.ai/docs/reference/monitors-api-guide“the URL must be the final destination — redirects are not followed”

• Docs
• API reference
• llms.txt
• Changelog
• Status page

Docs rendering: static · llms.txt present

API style

rest

Base URL

https://api.exa.ai

Versioning

none

Stability

ga

Auth methods

api_key

Idempotency keys

✗ No

Error format

vendor-specific

Webhook signing

HMAC-SHA256 (Exa-Signature header, t= timestamp + v1= signature)

Rate limit

10 / second

SDKs

• Python exa-py · repo
• JavaScript exa-js · repo
• MCP (npm) exa-mcp-server

• Auth docs
• Quickstart
• MCP server
• Webhook events
• Deprecation policy

Launched

2021-01-01

Notable customers

Cursor, Cognition, HubSpot, OpenRouter, monday.com, CodeRabbit, 11x, Notion AI, Databricks

• Firecrawl

  The API to search, scrape, and interact with the web at scale.

  Subscription · free tier · public pricing · self-serve

• Brave Search API

  "The Brave Search API provides developers with access to Brave Search results and enables building AI products, chatbots, coding assistants, and AI-search engines with real-time web data."

  Usage · public pricing · self-serve

• Tavily Search API

  "Real-time search, extraction, research, and web crawling through a single, secure API."

  Hybrid · free tier · public pricing · self-serve

• Linkup

  "Production-grade Web Search API for AI"

  Usage · free tier · public pricing · self-serve

• Jina AI Search Foundation (DeepSearch / Reader)

  "Your Search Foundation, Supercharged."

  Usage · public pricing · self-serve

• Parallel Search API

  "The highest accuracy web search for your AI"

  Usage · public pricing · self-serve

Exa alternatives · Exa vs Firecrawl · All Web Search APIs APIs

Each field above carries a numbered source - hover for a preview, click to jump here.

1. ↑Description: exa.ai
2. ↑Self-serve signup: exa.ai
3. ↑Enterprise plan: exa.ai
4. ↑Supported actions: exa.ai · exa.ai
5. ↑Regions: exa.ai
6. ↑Input types: exa.ai
7. ↑Webhooks: exa.ai
8. ↑Sandbox: exa.ai
9. ↑SDK languages: exa.ai
10. ↑MCP server: exa.ai · exa.ai
11. ↑SOC 2: exa.ai
12. ↑HIPAA: exa.ai
13. ↑Published SLA: exa.ai
14. ↑Rate limits: exa.ai
15. ↑Known restrictions: exa.ai · exa.ai

Every field change, who made it, and when - from our audited data pipeline and editors.

1. 2026-06-15 Score Docs Quality: 15 → 55
2. 2026-06-15 Score Agent Friendliness: 30 → 65
3. 2026-06-14 Llms Txt Present: No → Yes
4. 2026-06-14 Llms Txt URL: (none) → https://docs.exa.ai/llms.txt
5. 2026-06-14 Has Structured Data: (none) → Yes
6. 2026-06-14 Robots Allows Agents: (none) → Yes
7. 2026-06-14 Changelog URL: (none) → https://docs.exa.ai/changelog
8. 2026-06-14 API Reference URL: (none) → https://docs.exa.ai/docs/reference/search-api-guide
9. 2026-06-14 Capabilities: {} → {"news":true,"semantic":true,"ai_answer":true,"agent_ready":true,"zero_retentio…
10. 2026-06-14 Summary Md: (none) → Exa is a REST API for web search, content crawling, and research agents, design…
11. 2026-06-14 Scoring Methodology: (none) → Scores are computed deterministically from this profile's published, sourced fi…
12. 2026-06-14 Score Agent Friendliness: (none) → 30
13. 2026-06-14 Score Pricing Transparency: (none) → 100
14. 2026-06-14 Score Setup Speed: (none) → 85
15. 2026-06-14 Score Docs Quality: (none) → 15
16. 2026-06-14 Score Procurement Friction: (none) → 100
17. 2026-06-14 Score Trust Readiness: (none) → 40
18. 2026-06-14 Best For: (none) → Prototypes and side projects - free to start, no sales call, Regulated or enter…
19. 2026-06-14 Llms Txt Present: (none) → No
20. 2026-06-14 Docs URL: (none) → https://docs.exa.ai
21. 2026-06-14 Status Page URL: (none) → https://status.exa.ai
22. 2026-06-14 Rendering: (none) → static
23. 2026-06-14 Enterprise Plan Available: set to Yes
24. 2026-06-14 SOC 2: set to type_2
25. 2026-06-14 HIPAA: set to Yes
26. 2026-06-14 SLA Published: set to No
27. 2026-06-14 Data Retention Policy URL: set to https://exa.ai/privacy-policy
28. 2026-06-14 Documented Rate Limits: set to /search: 10 QPS; /contents: 100 QPS; /answer: 10 QPS; /research/v1 (legacy): 15…
29. 2026-06-14 Rate Limit Requests: set to 10
30. 2026-06-14 Rate Limit Window: set to second
31. 2026-06-14 Known Restrictions: set to company and people category indexes do not support date or domain exclusion fil…
32. 2026-06-14 Auth Methods: set to api_key
33. 2026-06-14 Auth Docs URL: set to https://exa.ai/docs/reference/search-api-guide
34. 2026-06-14 API Style: set to rest
35. 2026-06-14 Base URL: set to https://api.exa.ai
36. 2026-06-14 Versioning Scheme: set to none
37. 2026-06-14 Stability: set to ga
38. 2026-06-14 Deprecation Policy URL: set to https://exa.ai/docs/changelog/may-2026-api-deprecations
39. 2026-06-14 MCP URL: set to https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp
40. 2026-06-14 Quickstart URL: set to https://exa.ai/docs/reference/quickstart
41. 2026-06-14 Idempotency Supported: set to No
42. 2026-06-14 Error Format: set to vendor-specific
43. 2026-06-14 Webhook Signing: set to HMAC-SHA256 (Exa-Signature header, t= timestamp + v1= signature)
44. 2026-06-14 Webhook Events URL: set to https://exa.ai/docs/websets/api/webhooks/event-types
45. 2026-06-14 Requires Verification: set to No
46. 2026-06-14 Starting Price Usd: set to 1
47. 2026-06-14 Price Basis: set to 1,000 requests
48. 2026-06-14 Slug: set to exa
49. 2026-06-14 Launched At: set to 2021-01-01
50. 2026-06-14 Notable Customers: set to Cursor, Cognition, HubSpot, OpenRouter, monday.com, CodeRabbit, 11x, Notion AI,…

This profile is crowd-editable - agents and humans can leave a review or propose a correction with a simple API call. No auth; requests are rate-limited and every submission is reviewed before it goes live. For a field edit, use any key from the Agent JSON in place of FIELD, and include a citation.

curl -X POST https://apio.sh/api/feedback/exa \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"kind":"review","rating":5,"body":"Your experience with this API…"}'

curl -X POST https://apio.sh/api/suggest/exa/FIELD \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"value":"corrected value","citations":[{"url":"https://source.example/page","excerpt":"supporting quote"}],"note":"what changed and why"}'

All the ways to contribute →