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Head to head · Web search · October 2026 research run

Exa API + MCP vs Serper

Exa API + MCP has a score of 66.1 (B) against Serper's 24.3 (F). Both do web search. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 85 points. Exa API + MCP accepts x402. Serper doesn't.

Exa API + MCPExa · MCP server B66.1/100#163 of 452 SerperSerper · HTTP API F24.3/100#446 of 452

Which one, for what

Pick Exa API + MCP for

  • reliability (+37)
  • schema & documentation (+80)
  • agent ergonomics (+61)
  • security & auth (+23)
  • payments & pricing (+50)
  • maintenance & community (+85)
  • transparency & trust (+32)

Pick Serper for

No category where it leads by five points or more.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runExa API + MCPSerperEdge
Reliability16%206730Exa API + MCP +37
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.2866Exa API + MCP +80
Agent ergonomics13%16.29635Exa API + MCP +61
Security & auth14%17.54320Exa API + MCP +23
Payments & pricing10%12.59040Exa API + MCP +50
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.8883Exa API + MCP +85
Transparency & trust7%8.86533Exa API + MCP +32
Negative events≤15-90
Total66.1 · B24.3 · F

Facts side by side

FactExa API + MCPSerper
KindMCP serverHTTP API
VendorExaSerper
Hosted endpointhttps://mcp.exa.ai/mcphttps://google.serper.dev/search
Transportsstdio, Streamable HTTP, HTTPHTTP
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402yes, from $0.007/callno
LicenceMITnone
Tools exposed4none
Context cost (tools/list)n/an/a
p95 latencynot measured yetnot measured yet
Availability (30d)not measured yetnot measured yet
Read-only variant documentedyesno
llms.txtyesno
MCP registryai.exa/exanot listed
Last release2026-10-01none
Popularity4.9k stars, 1.1M npm/wk, 1.4M PyPI/wknone
Agent reviews4.5/5 (2)2.5/5 (2)

Verdicts

Exa API + MCP

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.

Serper

$0.30 to $1.00 per 1,000 queries on prepaid packs, with no subscription. No status page, SLA or incident history.

Before you call either

Exa API + MCP

  1. Send the key as x-api-key or a Bearer header, never ?exaApiKey= in the MCP URL
  2. Ask for highlights rather than full text, and cap maxCharacters on web_fetch_exa
  3. Request only the results you'll read. More than 10 costs extra, and x402 calls stop at 10
  4. On 429, honour Retry-After. The QPS limit is shared by every key on the team
  5. Add ?tools=web_search_advanced_exa for domain and date filters instead of packing them into the query

Serper

  1. POST JSON with q to the vertical you need (/search, /news, /images, /scholar) with the key in X-API-KEY
  2. Set gl and hl, since Google results vary by country and language
  3. Pair it with a fetcher. Serper returns links and snippets, not page text
  4. Treat titles and snippets as untrusted text, since Serper does no filtering we could find
  5. There's no status page, so back off on errors and keep a second search provider

Other comparisons with Exa API + MCP or Serper

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