Exa vs You.com
Cheapest paid tier each vendor publishes. Free plans are listed above; tiers priced on request are not plotted because there is no figure to plot.
Where they differ
From the pricing tiers and capability tags we track. A capability missing on one side means we have not recorded it there, not that the tool cannot do it.
At a glance
Exa and You.com both appear in this directory's search listings. Prices below were read from the vendors' own pages, most recently on October 19, 2026. Paid plans start at $0.01 usage-based on Exa and $1 usage-based on You.com. We track ai agents on Exa and answer engine on You.com; both cover ai search and developer api. No score and no winner: the facts do the picking.
Capability tags are factual labels we assign when a tool is added; they describe what a tool does, not how well it does it.
Checked against the vendors. Written from each vendor's own site and last re-checked there: Exa (under review since October 19, 2026) · You.com on October 5, 2026. Vendors change pricing and features without notice, so confirm anything that decides your purchase on the vendor's page.
Exa
Web search API built for AI agents
Exa is a web search and crawling API designed for AI agents and language models. It provides real-time web results, token-efficient text extracts, and structured outputs with web-grounded citations. New accounts receive $20 in initial credits upon signing up.
You.com
Web search APIs for AI agents and language models
You.com provides web search and research APIs that pull contextual snippets, full web pages, and cited answers into AI applications. The platform includes a free tier offering 100 calls per day and $100 in free starting credits. Developers can query Search, Contents, Research, and Finance Research API endpoints.
Also in search
A tool we have an affiliate relationship with. It is not part of the comparison above and we are not calling it the better pick.
- Finding and synthesizing peer-reviewed research papers
- Visualizing scientific agreement on specific research questions
- Connecting AI agents to verified scientific citations via MCP or REST API
Key features
Exa
- Configurable search latency from 180ms to 1s
- Token-efficient web text and highlight extraction
- Asynchronous deep research with structured JSON schema outputs
- Scheduled web monitors with webhook updates
You.com
- Web and news search API with language and country targeting filters
- Full page extraction delivering clean Markdown or raw HTML
- Multi-step research engine providing source-backed answers with citations
- Financial research API covering SEC filings, market data, and macro calculations
What each one does well
Exa
- ✓ Providing real-time documentation and repository context to coding agents
- ✓ Gathering structured research data with cited web sources
- ✓ Monitoring web updates and fresh events on a set schedule
You.com
- ✓ Grounding AI agents with real-time web search and news snippets
- ✓ Extracting clean Markdown page content for LLM ingestion
- ✓ Retrieving cited research answers for general and financial workflows
People also ask
Which is cheaper, Exa or You.com?
Exa is cheaper: paid plans start at $0.01 usage-based for Exa and $1 usage-based for You.com.
Does Exa or You.com have a free plan?
Both Exa and You.com publish a free plan.
What is the difference between Exa and You.com?
Exa and You.com are both tracked for ai-search, developer-api, citations, research. Of the capabilities they do not share, only Exa is tracked for ai-agents, codebase-context, and only You.com is tracked for answer-engine, summarization.
How much do Exa and You.com cost?
Exa: free plan, then $0.01 usage-based. You.com: free plan, then $1 usage-based.
Answers are generated from the tracked plans and capability tags shown above, so they move when the vendors' pages do.
Full fact sheets, FAQs, and discussion links: Exa · You.com · all search tools