TL;DR
- Cheapest per search: Perplexity Fast at $1 per 1,000, then Exa lite at $4, Tavily basic at $5–8 and Perplexity standard at $5.
- Free tiers: Tavily 1,000 credits a month, Exa $10 of credit a month, Perplexity none listed.
- Public SimpleQA (each run by a competitor): Exa 95.4% (You.com's harness), Tavily 88.53% (You.com's), Perplexity 85.92% (Tavily's).
- Pick Tavily for search + extract + crawl in one SDK, Perplexity for the cheapest fast search, Exa for semantic discovery. For the lowest bill, Keirolabs lite is $0.03–0.10.
Quick answer: Perplexity’s Search API is the cheapest of the three per search ($1 per 1,000 on Fast). Tavily is the most complete toolkit for agents, with search, extract, map and crawl on one key and a free monthly allowance. Exa scores highest on public accuracy tests and is best at finding pages by meaning. And for the lowest bill on the same jobs, the best option isn’t any of the three: Keirolabs runs lite search at $0.03–0.10 per 1,000 and speaks Tavily’s and Exa’s own API dialects. Prices below are from each vendor’s own page, November 2026.
Tavily vs Perplexity vs Exa at a glance
| Tavily | Perplexity Search API | Exa | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cheapest search per 1,000 | $5–8 (basic) | $1 (Fast) | $4 (lite) |
| Standard search per 1,000 | $10–16 (advanced) | $5 | $7 (auto) |
| Page content | Included in results | Snippets | $1 per 1,000 pages |
| Read a known URL | Extract: 1 credit per 5 URLs | No | Contents: $1 per 1,000 |
| Written answer | include_answer flag | Separate Sonar / Agent APIs (token-billed) | /answer, $5 per 1,000 |
| Crawl / map a site | Yes | No | No |
| Free tier | 1,000 credits a month | None listed | $10 credit a month |
| Billing | Credits: $0.005–0.008 each | Per request, no token charges | Pay as you go |
| SimpleQA (public) | 93.3% own · 88.53% You.com | 85.92% (Tavily’s run) | 95.4% (You.com’s run) |
SimpleQA figures come from the benchmarks page, where each score links to its source. Each was published by a competitor or the vendor itself, and the harnesses differ, so treat gaps of a few points as noise.
Price per 1,000 searches, side by side
| Volume per month | Tavily (basic) | Perplexity Fast | Perplexity standard | Exa lite |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | Free | $1 | $5 | Free ($10 credit) |
| 10,000 | $67–80 | $10 | $50 | $40 |
| 100,000 | $500–800 | $100 | $500 | $400 |
Tavily’s range depends on plan: $0.008 a credit pay as you go, falling to $0.005 on the $500 Growth plan. Advanced search costs 2 credits, which doubles every Tavily figure.
Tavily: the agent toolkit
Tavily was built for LLM agents, and most agent frameworks ship a Tavily tool. One key covers search (1 or 2 credits), extract (1 credit per 5 URLs), map and crawl, and results come with cleaned content, so many apps never need a separate scraper. The 1,000 free credits a month are the most useful free tier of the three. Watch the depth setting: an agent that switches to advanced on its own pays double. Setup: Tavily API key.
Perplexity Search API: cheapest per request
Perplexity’s Search API is billed per request with no token charges: $5 per 1,000, or $1 with Fast Search (search_type: "fast"). It returns up to 20 results per request. It doesn’t write answers. Those come from Perplexity’s separate, token-billed APIs, which are easy to confuse with it. Full breakdown: Perplexity API pricing.
Exa: best at finding by meaning
Exa runs its own neural index, so it’s strongest at “find pages like this” and discovery queries where keywords fail. Lite search is $4 per 1,000, auto $7 and deep $12; contents and answers are priced separately. It has the highest public SimpleQA score of the three (95.4% in You.com’s harness). Comparison: Exa vs Tavily.
Which to pick
- An agent that searches and reads pages: Tavily. Content comes with results, extract and crawl are on the same key.
- High-volume search where you’ll fetch pages yourself: Perplexity Fast at $1 per 1,000.
- Research and discovery, accuracy first: Exa.
- The lowest bill for any of the above: see below.
The take: “Tavily vs Perplexity” is really “toolkit vs price.” Tavily saves engineering time; Perplexity Fast saves money per call. Exa is the pick when result quality matters most. And if the bill is what you’re optimizing, Keirolabs is the best of the group: it beats all three on every job at once, while accepting Tavily and Exa SDK code unchanged.
The best value: Keirolabs
Keirolabs undercuts all three on price and covers the same jobs:
| Keirolabs | Cheapest of the three | |
|---|---|---|
| Search per 1,000 | $0.03–0.10 (lite) | $1 (Perplexity Fast) |
| Search with page text | $1.33–4.00 | $5–8 (Tavily basic) |
| Cited answer | $0.89–2.67 | $5 (Exa /answer, or Tavily search with include_answer) |
| Read a known URL | $1.78–5.33 (extract) | $1 (Exa contents) |
| Public SimpleQA | 96.5% (own, public repo) | 95.4% (Exa) |
It also serves Tavily- and Exa-compatible endpoints: point the official tavily-python or exa_py client at Keirolabs’ base URL and your existing code keeps working.
from tavily import TavilyClient
from exa_py import Exa
# Same SDKs, Keirolabs key and base URL
tavily = TavilyClient(api_key="keiro_your_api_key",
base_url="https://api.keirolabs.cloud/api/compat/tavily/v1")
exa = Exa(api_key="keiro_your_api_key",
base_url="https://api.keirolabs.cloud/api/compat/exa/v1")
r1 = tavily.search("latest LLM benchmarks", max_results=5)
r2 = exa.search_and_contents("best vector databases 2026", num_results=5, text=True)Supported routes: Tavily /search and /extract; Exa /search, /contents and /answer. Perplexity users switch by calling Keirolabs’ own /api/v2/search/lite or /api/v2/search/fast, which take a query and return ranked results the same way.
What 100,000 searches a month cost on each
| Monthly bill | |
|---|---|
| Tavily basic | $500 (Growth plan) to $800 (pay as you go) |
| Perplexity standard | $500 |
| Exa lite | $400 |
| Perplexity Fast | $100 |
| Keirolabs fast | $99.99 on the Startup plan (0.5 credits a call), or pay as you go with credit packs, no subscription (1 credit a call) |
| Keirolabs lite (0.0375 credits) | 3,750 credits: inside the $29.99 Essential plan |
One caveat: Keirolabs’ 96.5% comes from its own deep search benchmark and checks whether the answer appears in the returned text, which isn’t the same measure as the others.
Switching from Tavily or Exa? Keirolabs gives two months free on a yearly plan: send your invoice to team@keirolabs.cloud. Black Friday code KEIRO20 takes 20% off. Keirolabs pricing.
FAQ
Is Tavily better than Perplexity for AI agents?
For agents that need page content, usually yes: Tavily returns cleaned content and adds extract and crawl on the same key. Perplexity’s Search API is cheaper per request, especially Fast at $1 per 1,000.
Which is cheaper, Tavily or Perplexity?
Perplexity. Its Fast Search is $1 per 1,000 and standard is $5, against $5–8 for Tavily basic and $10–16 for advanced. Tavily has a free tier of 1,000 credits a month; Perplexity lists none.
Is Exa more accurate than Tavily and Perplexity?
On public SimpleQA runs, yes: Exa scored 95.4% in You.com’s harness, Tavily 88.53% in the same harness, and Perplexity 85.92% in Tavily’s. Different harnesses aren’t directly comparable.
Does Perplexity’s Search API return answers?
No. The Search API returns ranked results. Written answers come from Perplexity’s separate token-billed APIs.
What’s the cheapest alternative to Tavily, Perplexity and Exa?
Keirolabs: lite search at $0.03–0.10 per 1,000 on paid plans, search with page text from $1.33, and Tavily- and Exa-compatible endpoints.
More: Exa vs Tavily · Perplexity API pricing · Tavily alternatives · Benchmarks