# Web search APIs for AI agents

> 11 web search APIs ranked by the Anchor benchmark. Leader Tavily API + MCP (BB). Search engines, SERP APIs and research endpoints that give agents fresh knowledge of the web, plus the MCP servers that wrap them. Compared on price per 1,000 queries, freshness, whether results come back as snippets, full text or a written answer, and what the terms let you keep.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/categories/search
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/categories/search.md (~3,500 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/categories/search.min.md (~580 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/categories/search.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-04

Search engines, SERP APIs and research endpoints that give agents fresh knowledge of the web, plus the MCP servers that wrap them. Compared on price per 1,000 queries, freshness, whether results come back as snippets, full text or a written answer, and what the terms let you keep.

- Tools ranked: 11 · agent-ready (BB or better): 3 · accept x402: 6 · hosted endpoints: 10 · desk reviews by the panel: 40
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools.json (list) · https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/rankings.json (ranked) · https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/x402.json (payable) · https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/capabilities.json (by capability)
- Grades run AA, A, BB, B, C, D, E, F · methodology: https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/

- Capabilities in this category: web.search, web.fetch, search.serp, search.answer, search.research
- https://letme.dev/web.search picks the top-graded tool in this list and says how to call it direct; calling through letme comes later (https://www.anchorterminal.com/letme/index.md)

## Ranking

| # | Tool | Vendor | Kind | Category | Grade | Score | Confidence | x402 | Auth | Where | Reviews | Page |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 20 | Tavily API + MCP | Tavily | MCP server | Search | BB | 77.2 | medium | payer | OAuth or key | hosted + local | 3.6/5 (8) | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/tavily-mcp.md |
| 24 | You.com APIs | You.com | HTTP API | Search | BB | 76.9 | medium | payer | OAuth or key | hosted + local | 3.8/5 (8) | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/you-com-api.md |
| 51 | Parallel Search and Task APIs | Parallel Web Systems | HTTP API | Search | BB | 74.1 | medium | payer | OAuth or key | hosted | 3.6/5 (8) | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/parallel-search-api.md |
| 116 | Linkup | Linkup | HTTP API | Search | B | 69.1 | medium | yes ($0.01/call) | OAuth or key | hosted + local | 4/5 (2) | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/linkup.md |
| 132 | Brave Search API + MCP | Brave | HTTP API | Search | B | 68.1 | medium | payer | OAuth or key | hosted + local | 3.5/5 (2) | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/brave-search-mcp.md |
| 163 | Exa API + MCP | Exa | MCP server | Search | B | 66.1 | medium | yes ($0.007/call) | OAuth or key | hosted + local | 4.5/5 (2) | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/exa-mcp.md |
| 179 | Valyu | Valyu | HTTP API | Search | B | 64.6 | medium | no | OAuth or key | hosted | 4.5/5 (2) | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/valyu.md |
| 216 | SerpApi | SerpApi | HTTP API | Search | B | 62.6 | medium | no | API key | hosted + local | 3.5/5 (2) | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/serpapi.md |
| 290 | Fetch (MCP reference server) | MCP project (reference servers) | MCP server | Search | C | 57.6 | medium | no | None | local | 4/5 (2) | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/fetch-reference-server.md |
| 351 | SearchAPI.io | SearchApi | HTTP API | Search | D | 51.4 | medium | no | OAuth or key | hosted | 3/5 (2) | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/searchapi-io.md |
| 446 | Serper | Serper | HTTP API | Search | F | 24.3 | medium | no | API key | hosted | 2.5/5 (2) | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/serper.md |

Scores are from public evidence against the published checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/), with Performance and Task success pending. p95 latency and context cost come from our probes, which haven't run yet.

## Summaries

### 20. Tavily API + MCP, BB (77.2)

Tavily's REST API for web search, URL extraction, site mapping, crawling and cited research reports, with the official MCP server hosted at mcp.tavily.com or run locally from npm. Keyless search and extract, plus a free 1,000 credits a month with no card. x402 covers advanced search only, not extract, map, crawl or research.

- Page: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/tavily-mcp · Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/tavily-mcp.md · JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/tavily-mcp.json
- Capabilities: web.search, web.extract, web.crawl, web.fetch, search.answer, search.research, search.news, search.images · endpoint: `https://mcp.tavily.com/mcp/?tavilyApiKey=<key>`

### 24. You.com APIs, BB (76.9)

Web Search, Contents, Answer, Research and Finance Research APIs, plus a hosted MCP server with six tools. x402 and MPP on Web Search and Finance Research, with no account needed. Two API hosts. Answer and Research return 'Missing Authentication Token' on ydc-index.io.

- Page: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/you-com-api · Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/you-com-api.md · JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/you-com-api.json
- Capabilities: web.search, web.fetch, web.extract, search.answer, search.research, search.news · endpoint: `https://api.you.com/v1/search`

### 51. Parallel Search and Task APIs, BB (74.1)

Parallel's web APIs for agents. Fast-mode search at $1 per 1,000 with 10 excerpted results, and Extract at $1 per 1,000 URLs. Search defaults to advanced mode at $5 per 1,000 when `mode` is left out.

- Page: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/parallel-search-api · Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/parallel-search-api.md · JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/parallel-search-api.json
- Capabilities: web.search, web.fetch, web.extract, search.answer, search.research · endpoint: `https://api.parallel.ai/v1/search`

### 116. Linkup, B (69.1)

Web search API for agents with four depths (flash, fast, standard, deep) and three output types (ranked sources, a cited answer, or JSON matching your schema). Per-call prices from $0.005, and no credit taken for errors, missing parameters or empty results. 429 covers both exhausted credit and rate limiting, with no `Retry-After`.

- Page: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/linkup · Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/linkup.md · JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/linkup.json
- Capabilities: web.search, web.fetch, search.answer, search.research, web.extract, search.images · endpoint: `https://api.linkup.so/v1/search`

### 132. Brave Search API + MCP, B (68.1)

REST API over Brave's independent index with web, news, image, video and local search, an LLM Context endpoint with pre-extracted page content and an Answers endpoint with citations. x402 proxy sells web, LLM Context, news, video, image and local search at $0.005 a call, and a failed search isn't charged. The status page marks the Search API "not monitored" and shows no incident history.

- Page: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/brave-search-mcp · Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/brave-search-mcp.md · JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/brave-search-mcp.json
- Capabilities: web.search, web.extract, search.answer, search.news, search.images · endpoint: `https://api.search.brave.com/res/v1/web/search`

### 163. Exa API + MCP, B (66.1)

Exa's REST API over its own web index, with the official MCP server in front of it. x402 on /search and /contents in USDC on Base or Solana, so an agent can pay per call with no account. The hosted MCP leaked API keys to a third-party analytics endpoint from November 2025 to 15 April 2026, per Exa's own commits.

- Page: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/exa-mcp · Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/exa-mcp.md · JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/exa-mcp.json
- Capabilities: web.search, web.fetch, web.extract, search.answer, search.research, search.news · endpoint: `https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp`

### 179. Valyu, B (64.6)

Search API that covers the web plus specialised sources (arXiv, PubMed, SEC filings, market data, patents, clinical trials, genomics). Web plus academic, financial, patent and life-science sources behind one search call. No published rate limits and no Retry-After or backoff guidance.

- Page: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/valyu · Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/valyu.md · JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/valyu.json
- Capabilities: web.search, web.fetch, web.extract, search.answer, search.research, search.news · endpoint: `https://api.valyu.ai/v1/search`

### 216. SerpApi, B (62.6)

Scrapes live results pages from Google, Bing, Baidu, DuckDuckGo, Yandex, Amazon, YouTube and about 20 other engines and returns them as parsed JSON or markdown. Over 100 engines behind one GET URL, with `json_restrictor` field selection and `output=md`. 25 incidents on the status feed from July to 1 October 2026, including an outage across all APIs on 10 September.

- Page: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/serpapi · Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/serpapi.md · JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/serpapi.json
- Capabilities: web.search, search.serp, search.news, search.images · endpoint: `https://serpapi.com/search`

### 290. Fetch (MCP reference server), C (57.6)

Python reference server with a single 'fetch' tool that retrieves a URL and converts HTML to markdown, with pagination (start_index/max_length) and raw mode. One tool of about 300 tokens, with `max_length` and `start_index` paging and a hint giving the next offset. Reaches private and loopback addresses and follows redirects, with no allow list.

- Page: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/fetch-reference-server · Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/fetch-reference-server.md · JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/fetch-reference-server.json
- Capabilities: web.fetch

### 351. SearchAPI.io, D (51.4)

SERP scraping API returning parsed JSON from Google and its verticals, Bing, Baidu, Yandex, DuckDuckGo, YouTube, Amazon, TikTok, ad libraries and travel sites, over 150 engine endpoints behind one GET URL. 99.9% SLA on every plan and no incidents on the status page since August. MCP exposes over 100 tools with no toolsets.

- Page: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/searchapi-io · Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/searchapi-io.md · JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/searchapi-io.json
- Capabilities: web.search, search.serp, search.news, search.images · endpoint: `https://www.searchapi.io/api/v1/search`

### 446. Serper, F (24.3)

API for retrieving Google search results. $0.30 to $1.00 per 1,000 queries on prepaid packs, with no subscription. No status page, SLA or incident history.

- Page: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/serper · Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/serper.md · JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/serper.json
- Capabilities: web.search, search.serp, search.news, search.images · endpoint: `https://google.serper.dev/search`

## Indexed, not reviewed (12)

Sorted into this category from public catalogues, with facts and our own checks but no score, grade or rank (https://www.anchorterminal.com/indexed/index.md).

| Listing | Kind | What it does | Why it's here |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [GoAnyAPI MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/goanyapi-mcp.md) | MCP server | GoAnyAPI SEO MCP: traffic, DR, backlinks, keywords, Google/Bing SERP/autocomplete, Ads Transparency. | vendor's own |
| [MotiBlog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/motiblog-mcp.md) | MCP server | Agent-first SEO research and publishing: competitors, SERPs, internal links, and Search Console. | vendor's own |
| [Nimrod](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/orchis-nimrod.md) | MCP server | Web search with quality scores; web pages are read on your computer by the local server. | vendor's own |
| [Perplexity API Platform](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/perplexity-mcp-server.md) | MCP server | Real-time web search, reasoning, and research through Perplexity's API | vendor's own, widely used |
| [SERP Agent SEO](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/serp-agent-seo.md) | MCP server | Full-cycle SEO automation for AI agents: technical audits, SEO articles, machine-readable pricing. | vendor's own |
| [SERPdive Web Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/serpdive-mcp.md) | MCP server | AI-agent web search, answer-ready content. Beats Tavily: 60.7% of quality duels, 20.2% fewer tokens. | vendor's own |
| [serpjet-mcp](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/serpjet-mcp.md) | MCP server | Google SERP API for AI agents. 10 result types incl. shopping. 1,000 free searches/month. | vendor's own |
| [siGit](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/sigit.md) | MCP server | MCP server for siGit (sigit.si): browse repos, search code, manage PRs/issues, web search. | vendor's own |
| [Social Media Search API — Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, TikTok (XPOZ)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/xpoz-social-insights.md) | MCP server | Twitter/X, Instagram, Reddit & TikTok data for AI agents. Billions of posts. No API keys. | vendor's own |
| [Trawlia](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/trawlia-mcp.md) | MCP server | Web search and page extraction for agents, returned as readable text rather than raw JSON. | vendor's own |
| [web-search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/groundroute-web-search.md) | MCP server | Web search for AI agents — one tool across 6 engines, routed to the cheapest + cached. | vendor's own |
| [web-search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/keenable-web-search.md) | MCP server | Live web search and clean-markdown page fetch over the Keenable web index. | vendor's own |