# Can I replace Exa with an AI agent?

A neural web search API for AI apps, with page contents, similar pages, answers and research agents, paid per request. Partly. looot covers some of the jobs and not others.

## What Exa does and what looot covers

- 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: partial. 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.

## 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.

## Can an AI agent replace Exa?

Partly. An agent running looot can do some of what Exa does through catalog endpoints, and the page marks the jobs it cannot do.

## Is there a free Exa alternative?

looot has no monthly seat. You pay per call to the provider you pick, and the catalog shows each endpoint's price before you run it. Whether that comes out cheaper than Exa depends on your volume.

## What does Exa cost?

List prices change, so check Exa's own pricing page. This page does not repeat them. The looot side is read live from the catalog on the web version of this page.

## What is a good Exa alternative for an AI agent?

An agent with a looot connection can call the providers behind Exa's data jobs directly. The providers used here are exa, tavily, linkup, parallel, jina, diffbot, zyte-api, people-data-labs, ai-ark, lusha, prospeo.

## Which Exa features does looot not cover?

Not covered: websets that refresh. Keep Exa for those, or use another tool beside looot.

## How do I replace Exa with looot?

Paste the agent prompt on this page into your coding agent. It sets up looot, finds the endpoints for each job and runs them. You can edit the prompt to match your own inputs.

## Do I need a Exa account to use looot?

No. looot calls its own providers and does not connect to your Exa account. Your existing Exa data stays where it is.

## Can I still call Exa through looot?

Yes. Exa search, contents, find similar and answer are in the looot catalog, paid per call. Find similar has no second provider yet, so for that one job Exa is the only choice.

## Related apps

- /can-i-replace/tavily
- /can-i-replace/perplexity
- /can-i-replace/people-data-labs

## Last reviewed

2026-11-03. Live prices are on the web page, read from the catalog.

## Agent skill for this page

https://looot.ai/can-i-replace/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/can-i-replace/exa/skill.md
```