# Exa alternatives for AI agents Exa alternatives for an AI agent: 4 of 6 Exa jobs covered, 1 partly, each priced per call. See which jobs move to an agent and which stay. ## Live prices Prices read on 2026-11-04 from the live looot catalog. They change when a provider changes its price. | What Exa does | Cheapest provider on looot | Price | |---|---|---| | Search the web by meaning | Jina AI | $0.0025 per call | | Get full page contents | Exa | $0.0010 per call | | Find pages similar to a URL | Exa | $0.0070 per call | | Answer with citations | Exa | $0.0050 per call | | Find people and companies | Lusha | $0.0050 per call | | Websets that refresh | not on looot | no price | ## The honest answer A neural web search API for AI apps, with page contents, similar pages, answers and research agents, paid per request. For an AI agent running looot, the verdict on Exa is kinda. 4 of the 6 jobs we compared are covered and 1 more partly. Covered: search the web by meaning, get full page contents, find pages similar to a url and answer with citations. Partly covered: find people and companies. Not covered: websets that refresh. For these, keep Exa or use another tool beside looot. ## Other tools in the same job - Perplexity (/can-i-replace/perplexity): verdict kinda. - Tavily (/can-i-replace/tavily): verdict yes. - Google Alerts (/can-i-replace/google-alerts): verdict kinda. - SparkToro (/can-i-replace/sparktoro): verdict kinda. - Feedly (/can-i-replace/feedly): verdict kinda. - BuiltWith (/can-i-replace/builtwith): verdict kinda. ## Or let your agent do the Exa jobs - Search the web by meaning: covered. Providers: exa, tavily, linkup, parallel, jina. - Get full page contents: covered. Providers: exa, linkup, diffbot, zyte-api. - Find pages similar to a URL: covered. Providers: exa. - Answer with citations: covered. Providers: exa, linkup. - Find people and companies: partly covered. Providers: people-data-labs, ai-ark, lusha, prospeo. Exa searches people by description; looot's people search takes filters such as title and location. - Websets that refresh: not covered. Lists that refresh on their own need scheduled runs, not available yet. ## Exa alternative for search and page contents The two Exa calls agents make most are a search and a contents fetch. On looot the search job runs on Exa, Tavily, Linkup, Parallel and Jina, and the page contents job on Exa, Linkup, Diffbot and Zyte. Exa's Websets, lists that keep themselves fresh, have no match: refreshing a list needs scheduled runs, not available yet. ## Agent prompt to replace Exa Use looot to find web pages that match the description I give you, read each one, and return the title, URL and a two-line summary as a table. If you have not yet, set up https://looot.ai/skill.md first. Then search the looot catalog for each step, check the price of each endpoint before you call it, run the cheapest one that fits, and show me the results as a table. ## Exa versus an agent running looot - What it is: A neural web search API for AI apps, with page contents, similar pages, answers and research agents, paid per request. | Your own agent calling looot endpoints and writing the result where you ask. - Jobs compared: 6 jobs | 4 covered, 1 partly - Not covered: websets that refresh | 1 job the agent cannot do through looot - How you use it: The Exa app | A prompt to the agent you already use - Pick Exa if: You need websets that refresh, or you would rather click through its own app than prompt an agent. | You want an agent to run the job and pay per call, with no plan to manage. - How you pay: See Exa for its own terms | Pay per call, with the price shown before each run - Last reviewed: 2026-11-03 | Prices read live from the catalog ## Why do people look for an Exa alternative? Usually to compare results and cost per query. Exa prices each endpoint per 1,000 requests, with deep search and research agents priced higher than lite search, plus free credit each month to start (https://exa.ai/pricing, read 2026-11-03). Teams that run many searches test a second index on the same queries before they commit. ## Is there an Exa alternative for finding similar pages? Not on looot yet. Find similar runs only on Exa in the catalog, so for that job Exa stays the choice, called per request through looot. Search, page contents and cited answers each have a second provider. ## What are the best Exa alternatives? Tools in the same category include Perplexity, Tavily, Google Alerts, SparkToro, Feedly and BuiltWith. We do not rank them as best. Pick by the jobs you need done, and compare the jobs listed on this page. ## Is there a Exa alternative for AI agents? It depends on the job. An agent running looot gets a verdict of kinda for Exa: 4 of 6 jobs covered, 1 partly. ## Is there a free Exa alternative? looot is not free. It is pay per call, and each endpoint shows its price before the run, so you can see what a Exa job costs before you start. We do not state what Exa costs. ## Exa vs looot, which fits an agent? Exa is an app you open and use. looot is a catalog of endpoints your own agent calls. Exa vs looot comes down to whether you want an app or an agent doing the jobs, and whether the jobs you need are in the covered list. ## Which Exa jobs can an agent do with looot? search the web by meaning, get full page contents, find pages similar to a url, answer with citations and find people and companies. Coverage is checked against the live catalog, so a job drops to not covered when no priced endpoint exists. ## Which Exa jobs can an agent not do? websets that refresh. Keep Exa for these, or use another tool beside looot. ## How do I replace Exa with an agent? Set up looot from https://looot.ai/skill.md, then paste the prompt on this page into the agent you already use. Edit it to match your own inputs. ## How does looot price a Exa alternative? looot charges per call. The jobs above show the cheapest live price for each, read from the catalog. When no priced endpoint exists the page says price on request. ## More - /can-i-replace/exa - Category: Research - /alternatives ## Agent skill for this page https://looot.ai/alternatives/exa/skill.md sets an agent up for exactly the jobs on this page, with the live price of each, and offers the page's starter task once the user has picked a job and seen the price. The line to give an agent is under "Give this to your agent" below. ## For agents ### Give this to your agent ```text set up looot for Exa jobs - https://looot.ai/alternatives/exa/skill.md ```