Exa gives AI applications and agents search, page-content, answer and deep-research endpoints on top of its own web index, billed per request from prepaid credits with $10 of free credits every month.
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Exa is a web search and retrieval API built for AI applications and agents: it combines its own search index with page-content extraction and agentic research endpoints, so software can find sources, pull their text and return grounded, cited output. The Exa search API is called from code, agent frameworks or AI assistants.
The service is operated by Exa Labs Inc., whose privacy policy covers its website, search engine, search API and the Websets tool. The company states that, as of August 2026, its index tracks 1.4 trillion URLs and serves 100 billion pages from across the public web.
The product line has five metered API surfaces: Search (including the slower Deep Search modes), Contents, Answer, Monitors and the asynchronous Exa Agent, plus a separate list-building product called Websets. Exa describes its user base as 500,000 developers, as captured on October 5, 2026. The company says it reached a $2.2B valuation in May 2026. Independent tech coverage reported that Exa Labs had raised $250 million against a $2.2 billion valuation.
As a web search API, Exa returns ranked results with title, URL and publication date, and the same request can add highlights, full text or a summary of each page. The search type trades latency against research depth.
| Type | Documented typical latency | Intended use |
|---|---|---|
| auto (default) | about 1 second | Default balance of quality and speed |
| fast | about 450 ms | Latency-sensitive requests |
| instant | about 250 ms | Real-time paths such as autocomplete or voice |
| deep-lite | about 4 seconds | Lightweight research and synthesis |
| deep | 4–15 seconds | Multi-step search and stronger synthesis |
| deep-reasoning | 12–40 seconds | Harder research tasks |
These latency figures are approximate and describe the search itself with cached content; requesting a structured output schema adds a synthesis step, and a low content-age limit adds a fresh page fetch.
Contents works on URLs you already have and returns clean page content, handling JavaScript-rendered pages, PDFs and complex layouts automatically. It can also follow links from each starting URL to crawl subpages.
Exa Agent is an asynchronous, usage-based endpoint for high-compute work such as list building, enrichment and deep research. A run can return a natural-language answer, schema-validated JSON, field-level grounding, metadata and a cost breakdown.
Websets builds verified, enriched lists from a natural-language query and a target item count. Exa now points new list-building and enrichment workflows to Exa Agent; the Websets API requires a paid Websets plan, and its credits are separate from Search API credits.
A first integration follows a short path from key to production call:
Exa fits teams that call a managed search layer from their own software.
It is a weaker fit for people who want a finished consumer search app, for teams that need more than 100 results per call without negotiating Enterprise limits, and for anyone whose traffic originates in the regions Exa blocks.
Exa pricing is pay-as-you-go: there is no subscription and no minimum spend, you load prepaid credits, and each request is charged at the published rate.
| Endpoint | Base price (up to 10 results) | Each result above 10 | AI page summaries |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search, instant | $4 per 1k requests | $1 per 1k results | $1 per 1k pages |
| Search, fast or auto | $7 per 1k requests | $1 per 1k results | $1 per 1k pages |
| Deep Search, deep-lite or deep | $12 per 1k requests | $1 per 1k results | $1 per 1k pages |
| Deep Search, deep-reasoning | $15 per 1k requests | $1 per 1k results | $1 per 1k pages |
| Answer | $5 per 1k requests | — | — |
| Monitors | $15 per 1k requests | $1 per 1k results | $1 per 1k pages |
| Contents | $1 per 1k pages, per content type | — | $1 per 1k pages |
The base price covers the first 10 results of a request, and every result above 10 adds $1 per 1k results. Contents bills each content view separately, so one page returned with both text and highlights counts as two.
| Agent effort | Price |
|---|---|
| minimal | $0.012 per request |
| low | $0.025 per request |
| medium | $0.10 per request |
| high | $0.50 per request |
| xhigh | $1.00 per request |
| auto (default) | metered, default cap $5 per run |
| ultra | metered, default cap $20 per run |
Metered runs bill actual usage up to their per-run cap. The usage components are Agent Compute Units at $0.10 per ACU, search tool calls at $0.005 each, email contact enrichment at $0.02 per email and phone enrichment at $0.07 per number. Exa Connect pulls live data from third-party providers through the same integration and is billed on top of Agent usage.
Tech press coverage has placed Exa in a wave of startups vying to transform search alongside Tavily, TinyFish and Parallel Web Systems. The table compares published entry pricing, but each service meters differently.
| Service | Free allowance | Published search pricing | Metering model |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exa | $10 in credits every month | $4 per 1k instant, $7 per 1k auto | Per request, prepaid credits |
| Tavily | 1,000 API credits every month | $0.008 per credit on pay-as-you-go | Credits per request depth |
| Parallel Search API | — | $1 per 1K requests (Turbo) to $5 per 1K (Advanced) | Per request by mode |
| Brave Search API | $5 in credits every month | $5 per 1,000 requests | Per request |
Beyond basic search, Exa's own price list adds Deep Search modes, the asynchronous Agent and separately billed Contents, which the table does not capture.
Exa's privacy policy says Query Data is used to improve its products and technology, including by training and fine-tuning the models that power its services. The same policy states it does not apply to information Exa processes on behalf of business customers as a processor or service provider, which is governed by the customer agreements instead.
Yes. New accounts get $10 in free credits that reset monthly, plus a one-time $10 onboarding bonus, with no payment method. The hosted MCP server also works without a key at free rate limits.
Its privacy policy says Query Data is used for training and fine-tuning its models, while processing for business customers falls under their agreements. Zero Data Retention is Enterprise-only.
Requests return a 402 Payment Required error until credits are added; auto recharge can top up the balance automatically.
No. Exa blocks API access from sanctioned or restricted locations, including Crimea, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, Ukraine and Venezuela.
