- Verified by BizGlocal
Pay-Per-Call Search And Research APIs With A Free Tier
- 300+
- 2020
- Palo Alto, CA
- 6+
About You.com
Industry leader in connected fleet operations
Market Position
A leading search API provider for AI agents, with customers including DuckDuckGo, Windsurf and Harvey.
Innovation Focus
Research API effort tiers up to Frontier, finance-specific research, an Inference Router for open-weight models and MCP access.
Core Strengths
Low per-call pricing, a free tier, fast search latency and strong research benchmark results.
Use Cases
Grounding AI agents in live web data, answer engines, deep research features, financial research and content extraction.
Core Products & Solutions
Web Search API
Real-time web search for AI agents, with p50 latency of about 0.4 seconds.
Contents API
Extracts full page content for AI processing at $1 per 1,000 pages.
Answer API
Returns cited answers to questions at $5 per 1,000 calls.
Research API
Deep research in effort tiers from Lite to Frontier, able to run more than 1,000 reasoning turns on long tasks.
Finance Research API
Research tuned for financial questions, in Deep and Exhaustive tiers.
Inference Router And MCP
One OpenAI-compatible API for open-weight models with a 99.9% uptime SLA, plus an MCP server and agent skills.
Pricing Overview
Free
Developers testing search in AI agents
$0
- Up to 100 Web Search API queries a day through MCP
- No API key, account or credit card needed
- MCP access for agents
- $10 free credit for about 2,000 searches when you sign up for the API
- Same fast search index as paid plans
- Easy upgrade to pay-as-you-go
Pay As You Go
Teams building search and research into products
Per call, from
$1per 1
Per call, from $1 per 1,000 pages
- Web Search at $5 per 1,000 calls
- Answer API at $5 per 1,000 calls
- Research API from $12 (Lite) to $450 (Exhaustive) per 1,000 calls
- Finance Research from $110 per 1,000 calls
- No minimums, seats or platform fees
- Auto top-up so jobs do not stall
Enterprise
Organizations needing security, capacity and support
Custom
Pricing
Custom pricing, contact sales
- Zero data retention
- SOC 2, DPA-ready and CCPA compliance
- Custom QPS limits and dedicated capacity
- SLA-backed support
- Direct access to the engineering team
- Volume pricing
Who Is You.com Best For?
Small Businesses
1-25 EmployeesThe strongest fit for small product teams: free MCP search and per-call pricing let startups add search without fixed costs.
Mid-Market Companies
26-100 EmployeesA good fit for software companies adding answers or research to their products and paying only for actual usage.
Enterprise Companies
100+ EmployeesEnterprise adds zero data retention, custom capacity and SLA-backed support, as used by DuckDuckGo, Windsurf and Harvey.
AI Agent Developers
Any SizeTeams building agents get fast search, content extraction and deep research through one API and MCP server.
Measurable Impact & Benefits
1B+
API Queries Per Month
Processed through You.com’s APIs, per its September 2025 announcement.
#1
On DeepSearchQA
The Research API scored 83.67% accuracy, the highest publicly reported figure, per You.com.
93.16%
F1 Score
Research API F1 score on DeepSearchQA, from You.com’s own runs.
Under 1 Second
Search Latency At Factory
Factory cut p50 web search latency from more than five seconds to under one second.
0.4 Seconds
p50 Search Latency
Typical Web Search API response time.
76%
Win Rate For ARI
ARI’s win rate over OpenAI Deep Research, as judged by OpenAI’s o3-mini in You.com’s benchmark.
100
Free Queries A Day
Free Web Search through MCP with no account needed.
$1.5B
Valuation
Reached with a $100 million Series C in September 2025.
You.com Real reviews
Our Rating:
4.0
- Verified Users
- Verified Users
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You.com’s Pros & Cons
Balanced evaluation to help you make an informed decision
Strengths
- 100 free Web Search queries a day through MCP with no account
- Web Search at $5 per 1,000 calls
- No minimums, seats or platform fees
- Research tiers priced from $12 per 1,000 calls
- Top DeepSearchQA accuracy, per You.com
- Fast search with about 0.4-second p50 latency
- Zero data retention and SOC 2 on Enterprise
Limitations
- Built for developers, with no current business research app
- Deep research tiers cost up to $1,200 per 1,000 calls
- Few independent reviews of its API products
- Trustpilot reviewers report billing and support issues from its consumer era
- SLA-backed support reserved for Enterprise
- Benchmark results are mostly self-reported
Our Verdict
You.com earns its Best in Pricing placement for AI search and research because it offers the lowest-commitment way to add search and research to any product. Developers get 100 free Web Search queries a day through MCP, a $10 sign-up credit and pay-per-call rates from $1 per 1,000 pages and $5 per 1,000 searches, with no minimums, seats or platform fees. Research tiers let teams pay for exactly the depth each query needs. The placement comes with caveats. You.com is now an API platform for developers, not a ready-made research app for business users. Its deepest research tiers cost up to $1,200 per 1,000 calls, and most of its benchmark results are self-reported. Trustpilot reviews mostly reflect its earlier consumer product. For teams building AI products that need live web data, You.com is strong value. Business users wanting a research app should look at Perplexity.
Resources
Resources & Documentation
Detailed materials for deeper evaluation
You.com Pricing Page
Free tier, per-call API rates and Enterprise options.
Research API Launch
Effort tiers, benchmarks and long-horizon research details.
Series C Announcement
Funding, valuation, query volume and named customers.
ARI Benchmark Report
You.com’s comparison of ARI and OpenAI Deep Research.
API Documentation
Endpoints, SDKs and integration guides.
MCP Server Guide
Free search access for AI agents through MCP.
Inference Router Overview
Open-weight model access with a 99.9% uptime SLA.
Startup Grant Program
You.com’s credits program for early-stage companies.
What to Know
What to Know Before Buying
-
Free MCP search needs no API key, account or card -
SDKs and MCP are available on all paid usage
-
Research tier choice drives both cost and latency
-
You.com works through REST APIs, SDKs, an MCP server and an OpenAI-compatible Inference Router.
-
Pay-as-you-go scales with usage and auto top-up, while Enterprise adds custom QPS limits and dedicated capacity.
-
Deep, Exhaustive and Frontier research tiers, finance research calls and inference routing by model can raise costs well above basic search.
-
Teams switching from other search APIs need to remap endpoints and response formats, though the Inference Router is OpenAI-compatible.
-
Pay-as-you-go has no commitment, and Enterprise terms include custom pricing, a DPA and SLA-backed support.
Alternatives
Compare Alternatives
See how You.com stacks up against competitors
Perplexity offers a full research app with enterprise customer success support, while You.com offers lower-cost, pay-per-call APIs for teams building their own tools.
Detailed feature comparison, pricing analysis, and user reviews
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FAQ’s
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about You.com
Web Search is free for up to 100 queries a day through MCP, then $5 per 1,000 calls. Research runs from $12 to $1,200 per 1,000 calls depending on depth, and Enterprise is custom priced.
Yes. Developers get 100 free Web Search queries a day through MCP with no account, plus a $10 credit worth about 2,000 searches.
The Research API runs multi-step web research in effort tiers from Lite to Frontier, and You.com reports it ranks first on DeepSearchQA.
You.com has shifted its focus to APIs and enterprise AI infrastructure for developers and businesses building their own tools.
Enterprise includes SLA-backed support and direct access to the engineering team. Lower tiers rely on documentation and self-serve resources.
Enterprise plans include zero data retention, SOC 2, DPA readiness and CCPA compliance.
A developer-only focus, high costs for the deepest research tiers, few independent reviews and mostly self-reported benchmarks.
Common alternatives include Perplexity, Elicit, Exa, Tavily and Brave Search API, which differ in audience, depth and pricing.