TL;DR
- Get a key at dashboard.exa.ai and send it as
x-api-key. Every account gets $10 of credit a month, no card. - Search: lite $4, auto $7, deep $12 per 1,000. Contents (text, highlights or summary): $1 per 1,000 pages each.
- Bills grow through add-ons: results above 10, AI summaries, and each content type, all at $1 per 1,000.
- Same jobs for less: Keirolabs lite is $0.03–0.10 per 1,000, search with page markdown is $1.33–4.00, and leaving Exa earns two months free on a yearly plan.
Exa is the search API with the most interesting index: instead of matching keywords, it uses embeddings, so it’s very good at “find pages like this” and fuzzy topic searches. It’s also priced in more pieces than most APIs, which is how people end up surprised by their bill.
How to get an Exa API key
- Sign up at dashboard.exa.ai. No payment method needed.
- Open API Keys and copy the default key, or create a new one.
- Finish the onboarding in the dashboard. Exa gives your first team a one-time $10 bonus for it.
- Send the key in the
x-api-keyheader:
curl -X POST https://api.exa.ai/search \
-H "x-api-key: $EXA_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"query": "startups building search APIs for agents", "type": "auto", "contents": {"text": true}}'Exa pricing, endpoint by endpoint
From exa.ai/pricing, November 5, 2026. Prices per 1,000 requests, covering up to 10 results each.
| Endpoint | Mode | Per 1,000 |
|---|---|---|
| Search | lite (and legacy instant) | $4 |
| Search | auto (and legacy fast) | $7 |
| Deep search | deep-lite, deep | $12 |
| Deep search | deep-reasoning (legacy) | $15 |
| Contents | text, highlights or summary | $1 per 1,000 pages, per type |
| Answer | /answer | $5 |
| Monitors | /monitors | $2 |
| Agent | minimal / low / medium / high / xhigh | $0.012 / $0.025 / $0.10 / $0.50 / $1.00 per request |
The add-ons
| Add-on | Price |
|---|---|
| Results above 10 | $1 per 1,000 results |
| AI page summaries (on instant, auto, fast, monitors) | $1 per 1,000 pages |
| Agent metered modes | $0.10 per compute unit, $0.005 per search tool call |
A “normal” Exa call adds up fast: auto search ($7) + text for 10 results ($10 per 1,000 calls, at $1 per 1,000 pages) = $17 per 1,000 calls. Add highlights too and it’s $27. Ask for 25 results and add another $15. Always price the full call, not the search line.
Free credit and enterprise
- Free: $10 of credit, reset on the 1st of every month (up to 2,500 lite searches), plus the $10 onboarding bonus.
- Enterprise (self-serve annual): $12,000 up front for $12,000 of credit, zero data retention and 25 QPS.
- Enterprise (custom): volume discounts, custom QPS, up to 1,000 results per search, SLAs.
Is Exa worth it?
For semantic discovery, yes. Its neural index finds things keyword engines miss, and it scored 95.40% on SimpleQA in You.com’s public benchmark. Where it gets expensive is high-volume agent loops, where you pay per search and per page.
Cheaper ways to do what you use Exa for
| Job | Exa | Keirolabs |
|---|---|---|
| Plain search | $4 (lite) | $0.03–0.10 (lite) |
| Richer search | $7 (auto) | $0.44–1.33 (fast) |
| Search + page text (10 results) | $7 + $10 = $17 | $1.33–4.00 (search/content) |
| Read one URL | $1 per page | $1.78–5.33 per 1,000 (extract) |
| Cited answer | $5 | $0.89–2.67 |
| Deep search | $12 | $1.78–5.33 (96.5% SimpleQA, public) |
Keirolabs also has a Google SERP endpoint, batch search, JS-rendering extract and an MCP server on the same key.
If Exa’s bill is growing, this is the cheapest experiment you can run: replay a day of your queries on Keirolabs and compare. Keirolabs gives two months free on any yearly plan to teams leaving Exa (send your invoice to team@keirolabs.cloud), and KEIRO20 takes 20% off through Black Friday. See pricing.
The full head-to-head with Exa’s closest rival: Exa vs Tavily.
FAQ
Is the Exa API free?
There’s $10 of free credit every month, enough for up to 2,500 lite searches, with no card.
Where do I find my Exa API key?
In the Exa dashboard under API Keys, at dashboard.exa.ai.
What’s the difference between Exa’s lite and auto?
Lite ($4) is the fastest, cheapest search with no AI summaries. Auto ($7) picks the best search method per query and supports summaries.
How is Exa’s deep search different?
Deep search runs several searches and reasoning steps to find better sources, for $12 per 1,000. It’s slower and meant for hard questions.