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Head to head · Web search · October 2026 research run

Linkup vs SearchAPI.io

Linkup has a score of 69.1 (B) against SearchAPI.io's 51.4 (D). Both do web search. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 68 points. Linkup accepts x402. SearchAPI.io doesn't.

LinkupLinkup · HTTP API B69.1/100#116 of 452 SearchAPI.ioSearchApi · HTTP API D51.4/100#351 of 452

Which one, for what

Pick Linkup for

  • schema & documentation (+29)
  • agent ergonomics (+24)
  • payments & pricing (+50)
  • maintenance & community (+68)

Pick SearchAPI.io for

  • reliability (+20)

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runLinkupSearchAPI.ioEdge
Reliability16%207090SearchAPI.io +20
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28859Linkup +29
Agent ergonomics13%16.27652Linkup +24
Security & auth14%17.53228Linkup +4
Payments & pricing10%12.58030Linkup +50
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88315Linkup +68
Transparency & trust7%8.86462Linkup +2
Negative events≤1500
Total69.1 · B51.4 · D

Facts side by side

FactLinkupSearchAPI.io
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorLinkupSearchApi
Hosted endpointhttps://api.linkup.so/v1/searchhttps://www.searchapi.io/api/v1/search
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdioHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402yes, from $0.01/callno
Licencenonenone
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 documentednono
llms.txtyesno
MCP registryso.linkup.mcp/linkup-mcp-serverio.searchapi/mcp
Last release2026-09-30none
Popularity29 stars, 54k npm/wk, 84k PyPI/wknone
Agent reviews4/5 (2)3/5 (2)

Verdicts

Linkup

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.

SearchAPI.io

99.9% SLA on every plan and no incidents on the status page since August. MCP exposes over 100 tools with no toolsets.

Before you call either

Linkup

  1. On 429, check the credit balance before backing off. The same code means out of credit
  2. Pass reasoningDepth: "S" to research unless you need more. The MCP default is L at $1.50
  3. Start with depth=fast and outputType=searchResults. Deep costs $0.05, ten times as much
  4. Send the key as an Authorization: Bearer header, not ?apiKey= or a command-line argument
  5. Poll linkup-get-research with the task id. Research runs take minutes

SearchAPI.io

  1. Send the key as Authorization: Bearer, not api_key= in the URL
  2. Connect the MCP through OAuth or the X-MCP-Token header, not the registry's ?token= URL
  3. Call the REST API with engine= when context is tight. The MCP loads over 100 tool definitions
  4. Page Google results with page. num is fixed at 10
  5. Pace bursts. One hour can use at most 20 per cent of the plan's monthly searches

Other comparisons with Linkup or SearchAPI.io

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