Brave Search API alternatives for AI agents
Neutral guide to Brave Search API alternatives, covering Exa, Parallel, Keenable, DeepSeek, Tavily, Serper and SerpApi, with prices per 1,000 requests and when to stay on Brave.
By Tim Tully ·
On this page
The main Brave Search API alternatives for agent builders are Exa, Parallel, Keenable and DeepSeek, which are search APIs built for LLM consumption with per-request pricing from $0.75 to $12 per 1,000; Tavily, which bundles search with extract and crawl; and Serper or SerpApi, which return Google results as JSON. Brave's own Search plan is $5 per 1,000 requests with a 20-result cap and no page text, so the reasons to look elsewhere are usually a lower price at volume, more results per call, full page content, or a semantic index. Mux routes to the first four behind one key, which makes them easy to try side by side.
Brave is a good product and a reasonable default. This page is for the cases where one of its constraints is the thing standing in your way.
What Brave Search API offers#
Brave runs an independent web index, which is its main selling point: results that do not come from Google or Bing. As of October 2026 its API page lists a Search plan at $5 per 1,000 requests with $5 in free credit applied each month and a 50 queries per second limit, covering web, news, images and videos with extra snippets, Goggles for custom reranking, and schema-enriched results. An Answers plan at $4 per 1,000 requests plus $5 per million tokens returns a grounded, cited answer through an OpenAI-compatible interface at 2 queries per second. Enterprise terms are custom. A card is requested on signup, and billing is prepaid credit rather than a subscription.
Per the query reference, a web search returns at most 20 results per page with up to 9 further pages by offset, supports freshness filters for the last day, week, month, year or a custom date range, takes a country and language, and offers up to 5 extra snippets per result. Site restrictions go in the query as site: operators rather than a parameter. There is no full page text option on the web search endpoint; Brave points machine consumers to a separate LLM Context endpoint, whose price is not listed on the API page.
Staying on Brave makes sense when:
- You specifically want an independent index that is neither Google-derived nor neural.
- 20 results per call and snippets are enough, and $5 per 1,000 fits your budget.
- You use Goggles, the Answers plan, or Brave's image, video or news verticals.
- You want a vendor with a 50 queries per second ceiling on the standard plan.
The alternatives#
Parallel#
Parallel is the price leader. Through Mux, parallel/fast and parallel/turbo are $1 per 1,000 requests, one fifth of Brave's Search plan, with turbo typically answering in about 200 ms. The basic and advanced tiers at $5 match Brave's price and return higher-quality excerpts chosen for an LLM. Results max out at 50, extra results beyond 10 cost $1 per 1,000, and published_before is not applied. Direct access and a generous free credit are at parallel.ai/pricing; the tier breakdown is in Parallel search API pricing.
Exa#
Exa is a neural search engine and the choice when semantic queries or whole pages matter. exa/instant is $4 per 1,000, exa/auto $7 and exa/deep $12, each with up to 100 results and full page text inline with content: "full". Against Brave that is five times the result cap and page text without a second call, at a price from slightly below to above Brave's. Exa also sells a contents endpoint directly at exa.ai.
Keenable#
Keenable runs its own crawler and index, so like Brave it is an independent source. Through Mux, keenable/pro and keenable/realtime are a flat $4 per 1,000 requests with no charge for results beyond 10, up to 50. That makes a 50-result Keenable call cost $0.004, which is the cheapest way to get a wide result set from any provider here. It returns snippets only, no page text, which puts it closest to Brave in output shape. See the Keenable search API guide.
DeepSeek#
DeepSeek's search API is the cheapest option in this list at $0.75 per 1,000 requests through Mux as deepseek/search, flat for up to 50 results, with empty answers not billed. Each result carries a long summary written for a model, and content: "full" returns page text. The hard constraint is a 128-character query limit, including operators, so it suits short keyword-style queries rather than long natural-language ones. Direct docs are at api-docs.deepseek.com.
Tavily#
Tavily is search plus extract, map and crawl, aimed at agent frameworks. As of October 2026 its pricing page lists 1,000 free credits a month, pay-as-you-go at $0.008 per credit, and a $30 Project plan with 4,000 credits; a basic search is 1 credit and an advanced search 2, so $8 or $16 per 1,000 at the pay-as-you-go rate. It caps results at 20, like Brave, but can return raw page content on the search call. Pick Tavily over Brave when you want crawl and extract from the same vendor. The wider field is covered in Tavily alternatives.
Serper and SerpApi#
If what you actually want is Google's results, these two return them as JSON. Serper's site advertises 2,500 free queries with no card and results in 1 to 2 seconds across search, news, images, places, scholar and more; its public pricing page was not available when we checked in October 2026, so confirm per-query rates in your account. SerpApi's pricing page lists monthly plans from $25 for 1,000 searches to $2,750 for 500,000, which is $25 down to $5.50 per 1,000, plus a 250-search free plan. Both are a different category from Brave: Google-derived rather than independent, and priced for SERP features rather than agent retrieval. The SerpApi alternatives page goes deeper on that category.
Comparison at a glance#
| Provider | Index | Price per 1k (cheapest) | Max results | Page text | Via Mux |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brave Search | own, independent | $5 | 20 per page | no | no |
| Parallel | own | $1 | 50 | excerpts | yes |
| Exa | own, neural | $4 | 100 | full, inline | yes |
| Keenable | own | $4 flat | 50 | no | yes |
| DeepSeek | own | $0.75 flat | 50 | full, inline | yes |
| Tavily | own | $8 pay-as-you-go | 20 | raw content or extract | no |
| Serper | see account | see docs | no | no | |
| SerpApi | Google and others | $5.50 to $25 by plan | per engine | no | no |
Prices are list prices as of October 2026; Mux passes them through with no per-request markup and charges a 5.5% fee (minimum $0.80) when you buy credits.
| Included results | Extra result | Latency | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 exa/instant Exa instant, lowest-latency neural search | $4.00 | 10 | +$1.00 / 1k | ~300 ms |
exa/fast Exa fast | $7.00 | 10 | +$1.00 / 1k | ~500 ms |
exa/auto Exa auto (default, best general quality) | $7.00 | 10 | +$1.00 / 1k | ~1 s |
exa/deep Exa deep multi-query search | $12.00 | 10 | +$1.00 / 1k | ~5 s |
 parallel/turbo Parallel turbo, ~200ms | $1.00 | 10 | +$1.00 / 1k | ~200 ms |
parallel/fast Parallel fast, <1s | $1.00 | 10 | +$1.00 / 1k | ~800 ms |
parallel/basic Parallel basic | $5.00 | 10 | +$1.00 / 1k | ~1 s |
parallel/advanced Parallel advanced, highest quality excerpts | $5.00 | 10 | +$1.00 / 1k | ~3 s |
 keenable/pro Keenable pro index | $4.00 | 10 | none | ~700 ms |
keenable/realtime Keenable realtime index | $4.00 | 10 | none | ~700 ms |
 deepseek/search DeepSeek search, with a summary per result | $0.75 | 10 | none | ~800 ms |
How to compare them on your own queries#
The usual obstacle is that each vendor needs its own account, adapter and bill before you can see a single result. Through Mux, Parallel, Exa, Keenable and DeepSeek share one endpoint, so comparing them is a loop over model ids.
curl -X POST https://api.getmux.io/v1/search \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $MUX_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"query": "independent web index search api", "model": "keenable/pro", "max_results": 20}'Once you have a favorite, keep the others behind it in a models list so a provider outage does not stop your agent. The mechanics are in search fallbacks for AI agents. If you are replacing Brave because of a rate ceiling, note that Mux allows 20 requests per second per key and 50 searches in flight per account, which is below Brave's 50 queries per second on paper; spread load over several keys or talk to the vendor directly for more.
When Mux is the wrong choice#
Mux does not route to Brave, Tavily, Serper or SerpApi, so if one of those is the right fit, go direct. It also does not expose Brave's Answers plan, LLM Context endpoint or Goggles, or any vendor's crawl or extract product. And at very high sustained volume on one provider, a negotiated contract may beat list price; with BYOK you can keep your own vendor key and still use the fallback chain.
FAQ#
What is the cheapest Brave Search API alternative?#
By list price as of October 2026, deepseek/search at $0.75 per 1,000 requests through Mux, with a 128-character query limit, then parallel/fast and parallel/turbo at $1. Brave's Search plan is $5 per 1,000.
Which alternatives have their own index like Brave?#
Keenable, Exa, Parallel, DeepSeek and Tavily all operate their own indexes. Serper and SerpApi return Google's results. If independence from Google is the requirement, Keenable is closest in shape to Brave: own index, snippets only, flat price.
Which alternatives return more than 20 results?#
Exa returns up to 100 per request. Parallel, Keenable and DeepSeek return up to 50. Brave returns 20 per page and lets you page through up to 10 pages with the offset parameter, each page billed as a request.
Can I get full page text from any of these?#
Exa and DeepSeek return it inline through Mux with content: "full". Tavily returns raw content on the search call or through extract. Brave, Keenable, Serper and SerpApi return snippets and metadata only, though Brave offers up to 5 extra snippets per result.
To run the comparison loop above with one key, start at the quickstart.
Also available as markdown for your coding assistant. Spotted an out-of-date price? Email support@getmux.io.
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