# Perplexity Search API vs You.com APIs

> You.com scores 76.1 (BB) to Perplexity Search's 70.2 (BB) for web search. Perplexity Search is cheaper for web search, $1 against $5 per 1,000 requests. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/perplexity-search-api-vs-you-com-api
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/perplexity-search-api-vs-you-com-api.md (~3,850 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-07

You.com APIs scores 76.1 (BB) on agent readiness against Perplexity Search API's 70.2 (BB), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Both do web search. Perplexity Search API is cheaper for web search, $1 against $5 per 1,000 requests.

- Perplexity Search API: grade BB, 70.2/100, rank #210 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/perplexity-search-api.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/perplexity-search-api.json
- You.com APIs: grade BB, 76.1/100, rank #48 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/you-com-api.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/you-com-api.json
- Best web search APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/search/index.md
- All 308 search comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/search/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Perplexity Search API (BB)

Good for: Agents on any model that need raw ranked sources with extracted text at a low per-request price, and teams that want cited answers from the same key through the Agent API.

Also in its favour:
- Cheaper for web search, $1 against $5 per 1,000 requests
- No incidents deducted, where You.com APIs loses 3 points for them

Watch for: The FAQ says uptime and recovery time are not guaranteed, and the terms carry no SLA

### You.com APIs (BB)

Good for: An unattended agent that needs search, page text and cited answers and wants to pay per call without an account.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 88 against 25

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: Two API hosts. Answer and Research return 'Missing Authentication Token' on ydc-index.io


## Why the edge

### Payments & pricing: You.com APIs +63

- Perplexity Search API (25): No x402, MPP or L402 in the docs, pricing page, OpenAPI or llms.txt (0). $5 per 1,000 successful requests, $1 with Fast Search, published without a login, with failed and rate-limited requests not billed (20). Usage is prepaid with a card on the billing page, and no free allowance was found. The console playground needs no key but is a page for a person, not an API allowance (0). A person signs up in the console. The Stripe Projects route provisions a project, key and credits from a terminal, but needs a person's Stripe account with a payment method and a $10 minimum purchase (5 of 20, as on the Decisions API listing). 0 + 20 + 0 + 5 = 25.
- You.com APIs (88): x402 (USDC on Base or Solana) and MPP (USDC on Tempo) on GET /v1/search, /v1/agents/search and POST /v1/finance_research. On 1 November an unpaid GET https://api.you.com/v1/search returned 402 with an x402 v2 `PAYMENT-REQUIRED` challenge for 5,000 base units of USDC on Base and on Solana and an MPP `WWW-Authenticate: Payment` challenge on Tempo, and an unpaid POST /v1/finance_research returned the same pair, with x402 at 110,000 base units. Contents, Answer and Research still need a key (28). Per-call and per-page prices published without a login (20). The pricing FAQ now says $10 of API credit on sign-up and $90 more on verifying the account, no card, with sign-up credits valid 60 days. The Web Search card on the same page says '$10 free credit' (20). The MCP free profile needs no key (100 queries a day), and x402 or MPP needs no account (20).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Perplexity Search API | You.com APIs | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 80 | 80 | even |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 89 | 92 | You.com APIs +3 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 83 | Perplexity Search API +2 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 56 | 59 | You.com APIs +3 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 25 | 88 | You.com APIs +63 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 82 | 85 | You.com APIs +3 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 66 | 67 | You.com APIs +1 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **70.2 · BB** | **76.1 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Perplexity Search API | You.com APIs |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Perplexity | You.com |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.perplexity.ai/mcp` | `https://api.you.com/v1/search` |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| Price for web search | $1 per 1,000 requests | $5 per 1,000 requests |
| x402 | no | payer tooling only |
| Licence | Proprietary service under the Perplexity API Terms of Service. The MCP server is MIT and the official SDKs Apache-2.0 | none |
| Tools exposed | 4 | 6 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `ai.perplexity/mcp-server` | `io.github.youdotcom-oss/mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-10-23 | 2026-10-28 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | 2024-08-27 |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-09-22 |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read | yes |
| Popularity | none | 4.4k npm/wk, 92k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.8/5 (8) |

## How the scores have moved

### Perplexity Search API

No score change since it was listed.

### You.com APIs

- +0.2 on 1 November 2026: new evidence, negative event
- +0.2 on 27 October 2026: checklist
- -0.8 on 17 October 2026: reliability, new evidence

## Verdicts

**Perplexity Search API.** Raw ranked results with token-capped page text from Perplexity's own index, $5 per 1,000 requests or $1 with Fast Search, an OpenAPI description and a hosted MCP server with read-only annotations. Uptime is not guaranteed, there is no free allowance, keys carry no scopes, and no guidance on untrusted page text was found.

**You.com APIs.** x402 and MPP on Web Search and Finance Research, with no account needed, and keys can carry a spending cap. Two API hosts, so Answer and Research return 'Missing Authentication Token' on ydc-index.io, and Python SDK 3.6.0 changed the default search response in a minor release.

## Before you call either

### Perplexity Search API

1. Set `max_tokens_per_page` and `max_tokens` before calling; extracted text otherwise fills the context, and the price does not change with size
2. Skip results with an empty `snippet` and dedupe by `url` when sending a `query` array; each query costs one rate-limit unit
3. Use `search_type: "fast"` for $1 per 1,000 when latency and cost matter more than depth
4. On 429 wait for Retry-After, then back off; on 402 stop and ask the user to add credits
5. Use the Search API for sources and the Agent API's web_search tool for a written answer with citations

### You.com APIs

1. For unattended runs call GET https://api.you.com/v1/search, handle the 402 and pay with x402. It's half the MPP price for search
2. Use `https://api.you.com/mcp?profile=free` to try search with no key (100 queries a day)
3. Send Answer, Research and Finance Research to api.you.com. On ydc-index.io they fail with 'Missing Authentication Token'
4. With Python SDK 3.6.0 or later, pass `knowledge=None, extraction=None` on search unless you want highlights and knowledge cards, which are on by default and may cost more
5. Treat a 429 with `spend_cap_exceeded` as a budget stop, not a rate limit. Retrying won't clear it until the cap is raised

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Perplexity Search API or You.com APIs?

You.com APIs scores 76.1 (BB) on agent readiness against Perplexity Search API's 70.2 (BB), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories.

### Which is cheaper for web search, Perplexity Search API or You.com APIs?

Perplexity Search API, at $1 per 1,000 requests against $5 per 1,000 requests for You.com APIs. These are the vendors' published prices for the job.

### Do Perplexity Search API and You.com APIs need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Perplexity Search API and You.com APIs without installing anything?

Yes. Perplexity Search API has a hosted endpoint at https://api.perplexity.ai/mcp and You.com APIs at https://api.you.com/v1/search.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/perplexity-search-api-vs-you-com-api.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/perplexity-search-api-vs-you-com-api.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "perplexity-search-api", "b": "you-com-api"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare perplexity-search-api you-com-api`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/perplexity-search-api.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/you-com-api.json

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