# Exa vs Tavily: what an AI agent can replace Exa vs Tavily, checked 2026-11-03: free credits, price per search, page contents, answers and research, with sources. Where each fits an agent, and how to call both per request. ## Exa vs Tavily, the short answer Pick Exa if your agent searches by meaning, needs similar pages or people and company indexes, and you want a price per request for each endpoint. Pick Tavily if you want one simple credit for search, extract, crawl and map, with a free monthly allowance and a flat plan. ## Exa vs Tavily: plans, free tier and API - Free tier or trial: Exa $10 in credits each month plus a $10 onboarding bonus (https://exa.ai/pricing); Tavily 1,000 API credits each month, no credit card (https://www.tavily.com/pricing). Checked 2026-11-03. - Pay as you go: Exa Per request: search from $4 per 1,000 (Lite), $7 (Auto), $12 (Deep), up to 10 results (https://exa.ai/pricing); Tavily $0.008 per credit; a basic search is 1 credit, an advanced search 2 (https://docs.tavily.com/documentation/api-credits). Checked 2026-11-03. - Plans: Exa Developer pay as you go and Enterprise at a custom price (https://exa.ai/pricing); Tavily Project from $30 a month for 4,000 credits, Enterprise at a custom price (https://www.tavily.com/pricing). Checked 2026-11-03. - API access: Exa Search, Contents, Answer, Monitors and Agent endpoints (https://exa.ai/pricing); Tavily Search, Extract, Crawl, Map and Research endpoints (https://www.tavily.com/pricing). Checked 2026-11-03. - Page contents: Exa Contents at $1 per 1,000 pages per content type (https://exa.ai/pricing); Tavily Extract, priced in credits by successful URLs and extraction depth (https://docs.tavily.com/documentation/api-credits). Checked 2026-11-03. - Answers and research: Exa Answer at $5 per 1,000 requests; Agent runs from $0.012 each at minimal effort, more at higher effort levels and on usage-based runs (https://exa.ai/pricing); Tavily Research endpoint, an agent for in-depth web research (https://www.tavily.com/pricing). Checked 2026-11-03. - When credits run out: Exa Developer plan: pay as you go, usage-based billing (https://exa.ai/pricing); Tavily Requests stop until credits reset or you upgrade (https://www.tavily.com/pricing). Checked 2026-11-03. ## Where Exa wins Search by meaning and extra indexes. Exa runs its own neural index, offers find similar for a URL, and lists people, company and scholarly indexes next to the web. Each endpoint has its own price per request, so a lite search and a deep search cost what they do. ## Where Tavily wins One credit for every job and an easy start. Tavily's free plan holds 1,000 credits each month, search, extract, crawl and map all draw on them, and a flat Project plan suits steady volume. ## Where looot fits An agent does not have to choose before it tests. With one looot key it calls Exa search and Tavily search on the same query, plus Linkup and Parallel, and pays per call. The live price of each is listed below. Exa's find similar and answer, and Tavily's extract and map, are in the catalog too. Exa Websets and Monitors, which refresh on a schedule, need scheduled runs, not available yet. ## Endpoints priced live on the page - Neural web search (Exa): exa-search - Web search (Tavily): tavily-search - Page contents for URLs (Exa): exa-contents - Page content for URLs (Tavily): tavily-extract - Answer a question from the web (Exa): exa-answer - Web search (Linkup): linkup-search - Web search (Parallel): parallel-search - Live prices: https://looot.ai/compare/exa-vs-tavily ## The honest note looot is not Exa and not Tavily. Each product does things looot does not, and the lists below name them. Use this page to decide which jobs an agent can take over, not which tool to choose. ## Verdicts - Exa (/can-i-replace/exa): kinda. - Tavily (/can-i-replace/tavily): yes. ## Job by job - Research and scrape the web: Exa Search the web by meaning (covered), Websets that refresh (not covered); Tavily Search the web for an agent (covered). - Content tools: Exa Get full page contents (covered); Tavily no matching job. - Find pages similar to a URL: Exa Find pages similar to a URL (covered); Tavily no matching job. - Answer with citations: Exa Answer with citations (covered); Tavily no matching job. - Search and enrich people: Exa Find people and companies (partly covered); Tavily no matching job. - Read pages as text: Exa no matching job; Tavily Read pages as text (covered). - Answer a question with sources: Exa no matching job; Tavily Answer a question with sources (covered). - Map a site's URLs: Exa no matching job; Tavily Map a site's URLs (covered). - Company data: Exa no matching job; Tavily Search news (covered). - Deep research on a topic: Exa no matching job; Tavily Deep research on a topic (partly covered). ## Jobs both do that an agent can take over - Research and scrape the web. Providers: exa, tavily, linkup, parallel, jina, brave-search. ## What you keep Exa for - Find people and companies: partly covered. 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. ## What you keep Tavily for - Deep research on a topic: partly covered. Research runs differ by provider in depth, time and output shape. ## Agent prompt for Exa jobs 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. ## Agent prompt for Tavily jobs Use looot to search the web for the question I give you, read the five best sources, and write a short answer with a link for each claim. 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 vs Tavily: which one should I pick? Exa if your agent searches by description, needs similar pages or people and company search, and you want each endpoint priced per request. Tavily if you want one credit for search, extract, crawl and map and a free monthly allowance to start. Test both on your own queries first. ## How much do Exa and Tavily cost? On their own pricing pages, checked 2026-11-03: Exa search starts at $4 per 1,000 requests for Lite, $7 for Auto and $12 for Deep, with $10 of free credit each month. Tavily gives 1,000 free credits each month, then $0.008 per credit, where a basic search is 1 credit and an advanced one 2. ## Which is more accurate, Exa or Tavily? It depends on the query. Exa's index is built for search by meaning, and Tavily tunes its results for agents reading pages. Neither publishes a benchmark you can rerun on your data, so send 20 of your real queries to both and count how often the agent uses the sources. ## Do Exa and Tavily have an API for page contents? Yes. Checked 2026-11-03: Exa Contents costs $1 per 1,000 pages per content type, and Tavily Extract is priced in credits by successful URLs and extraction depth. Both return page text ready for a model. ## Is there a free alternative to Exa and Tavily? Both have a free monthly allowance: Exa in credit, Tavily in 1,000 API credits. For an agent past that, looot has no plan: you top up a balance and pay per search, and the price shows before the run. ## Can one agent use both Exa and Tavily? Yes. With one looot key an agent calls Exa search and Tavily search side by side, along with Linkup and Parallel, and keeps whichever returns the sources it needs. There is no Exa or Tavily account to open. ## More - /can-i-replace/exa - /can-i-replace/tavily - /alternatives/exa - /alternatives/tavily - /best/web-search-api - /compare ## Agent skill for this page https://looot.ai/compare/exa-vs-tavily/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 vs Tavily jobs - https://looot.ai/compare/exa-vs-tavily/skill.md ```