Exa alternatives: from search to finished rows in one request
SpecStream is the best alternative to Exa for teams that search for companies or people and then extract the facts they need. Exa sells search, contents and Agent runs by the request, and you get links with text or JSON back. SpecStream is the live web data engine for teams and agents: one request in plain words returns structured rows that meet every condition you wrote, with the facts from every site joined into one record. You see the most the whole job can cost before it runs, and you pay only for the rows delivered.
New accounts get $10 of work for their first 30 days, no card.
SpecStream and Exa side by side
| SpecStream | Exa | |
|---|---|---|
| What you send | The companies, people or other records you want in plain words, with the conditions every row must meet | A search query, with categories such as company and people. Agent takes a research, list or enrichment task with an output schema |
| What you get back | Structured rows, one record per company or person, with facts from many sites joined. Source URL and read time on every value | Links with text, highlights or summaries. Agent returns JSON that matches your schema, with sources when it emits them |
| Data already held | Public databases read every morning at specstream.ai/data: every company that filed a Form D since 2023 with its filing history, nearly 2 million US nonprofits, every US bank failure since 1934, federal rules, open federal contracts and grants, and local businesses. Signals such as funding rounds, new executives and layoffs at specstream.ai/signals. Ask for your own cut of any of them | Its own search index: over 2 trillion URLs tracked and 100 billion pages served as of October 2026, across news, code, companies and people, financial markets, research, and legal and public records. Read per request as links and text |
| A list you already have | Import a CSV, Excel file, Google Sheet or Airtable base of up to 20,000 rows. SpecStream fills in or checks each row and matches it to one identity, with any namesakes shown alongside their evidence. Import is free. A row that matches pays its rate, and a row that does not costs 5¢ | Websets imports a CSV of URLs (LinkedIn profiles for people, homepages for companies) and adds enrichment columns; without URLs it tries to infer them. Exa Agent also takes enrichment tasks |
| The unit you pay for | A delivered row: 5¢, 15¢ or $1 by how much the row needs, plus 5¢ for an email and 15¢ for a phone. The same rate on every plan | A request. Search costs $4 (lite) or $7 (auto) per 1,000, summaries $1 per 1,000, and Agent $0.012 to $1.00 a request at a fixed effort level |
| What failed or empty work costs | Nothing. A row left out, a retry and a run that finds nothing are not charged | Billed per request. What a failed or empty Agent or Websets run costs: not stated |
| The cost cap before a run | The most the whole job can cost, quoted before it starts. Nothing runs until you approve it, and there are no automatic overages | A price per request. Agent's metered levels stop at $5 (auto) or $20 (ultra) by default |
| Reruns and change labels | Hourly to yearly. Each row comes back labeled changed, unchanged or no longer matching. A changed or new row costs half its rate, an unchanged row 1¢ | Monitors rerun a search every hour or longer and send by webhook only the results earlier runs did not return, at $2 per 1,000 requests. Change labels: not stated |
| MCP and API | MCP server, REST API, Python and TypeScript SDKs, a CLI and A2A. An agent can buy one request with no account, by card or in USDC | Hosted MCP server and API. Search and Contents can be paid per request in USDC |
| Where the data goes | Google Sheets, Excel, Airtable, Notion, monday.com, HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Attio, Slack, Teams, Zapier, Make, n8n and signed webhooks | API responses, webhooks, Slack and n8n |
Why Exa buyers move to SpecStream
One request does the search, the reading and the record
On Exa, a search finds the links, and the facts still have to come out of the pages. On SpecStream you write the job once: "Series A fintech companies in Spain that sell to banks, with the CTO and a work email", or "people who maintain open-source Postgres extensions, with what they built". SpecStream reads the request back as parts you can edit, the conditions every row must meet and the facts to bring back, then searches the live web, reads each page and joins what it finds into one record per company or person.
Every row meets the conditions you wrote
A result that fails one of your conditions is not delivered and not billed. For any row, get_find_decisions returns each condition's answer with its reason, the value, the source and the time it was read. Source URL and read time on every value.
You pay for rows, and the searches behind them are free
Exa prices each search and each Agent request on its own. SpecStream bills the rows that meet your request: 5¢ for a row with up to 5 facts, 15¢ for up to 15 facts and one set of related records, and $1 for a deep row with no limit. At 5¢ a row, 200 companies cost $10, and the searches and pages behind them cost nothing. A run that finds nothing costs nothing.
The price covers the whole job
Exa prices each request. SpecStream quotes the most the whole dataset can cost, good for 30 minutes, and nothing runs until you approve it. The charge never goes past that amount, and whatever the run does not use goes back to your balance.
Reruns label every row and land in your tools
Save the request and it reruns hourly to yearly. Each row comes back labeled changed, unchanged or no longer matching, a changed or new row costs half its rate and an unchanged row costs 1¢. New matches and changes land in HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Attio, Sheets, Slack or Teams with no code, or in your agent through the MCP server. Rows you already own are never charged again.
Other Exa alternatives
Parallel
Separate Search, Extract, Task, FindAll and Monitor APIs. Every FindAll run has a fee, from $0.10 to $10.00, plus $0.00 to $1.00 per match, and a cancelled run is charged for the work done. Search costs $1 to $5 per 1,000 requests. On SpecStream one request covers the search, the reading and the record, and a run that finds nothing costs nothing.
Firecrawl
Search, Scrape, Crawl and Agent endpoints billed in credits: 1 a page, 4 more for JSON and 2 per 10 search results, on paid plans from $19 a month for 5,000 credits to $749 a month for 1,000,000. A 403 or 404 page costs 1 credit. On SpecStream the pages read to find a row are not billed.
Tavily
A search API for agents. Credits cost $0.008 each pay as you go. A basic search is 1 credit, and a Research run takes 4 to 110 credits on mini or 15 to 250 on pro. SpecStream names the most a run can cost before it starts, and the charge never goes past it.
How to switch from Exa
Write the companies or people you want in plain words, in place of the queries and schemas you send today. Sign up and you get $10 of work for your first 30 days, no card. At 5¢ a row, that is up to 200 rows.
Or send the request from code. This call spends nothing: the 402 reply shows how SpecStream read the request, the columns and the most it can cost.
curl -i https://api.specstream.ai/v1/agent/lists \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"request": "Series A fintech companies in Spain that sell to banks, with the CTO and a work email", "count": 25}'Approve that maximum by card through Stripe's Link agent wallet, or in USDC on Base, Arbitrum or Polygon, and you pay only for the rows found. On an account, your agent uses the MCP server at https://api.specstream.ai/mcp and your team uses the workspace, from the same balance.
Frequently asked questions
Something we didn't answer? Talk to a human
What is the best Exa alternative for company and people data?
What does SpecStream cover?
How is SpecStream different from Exa Agent?
Can SpecStream fill in a list I already have?
Does SpecStream have an MCP server?
https://api.specstream.ai/mcp over Streamable HTTP, with OAuth or an API key. Connecting an agent is free on every plan, and it spends from the same balance as your team, inside the limits you set on its key.Sources
SpecStream wrote this page. Each rival figure comes from that company's own page.
- SpecStream pricingspecstream.ai/pricing, read Nov 4, 2026
- SpecStream for agentsspecstream.ai/agents.md, read Nov 4, 2026
- Exa pricingexa.ai/docs/admin/pricing.md, read Nov 4, 2026
- Exa Agent quickstartexa.ai/docs/agent/quickstart.md, read Nov 4, 2026
- Exa changelogexa.ai/docs/changelog.md, read Nov 4, 2026
- Exa docs indexexa.ai/docs/llms.txt, read Nov 4, 2026
- Exa Websets quickstartexa.ai/docs/websets/quickstart.md, read Nov 4, 2026
- Exa MCPexa.ai/docs/get-started/exa-mcp.md, read Nov 4, 2026
- Parallel pricingdocs.parallel.ai/getting-started/pricing.md, read Nov 4, 2026
- Parallel FindAll pricingdocs.parallel.ai/findall-api/core-concepts/findall-generator-pricing.md, read Nov 4, 2026
- Parallel productsparallel.ai/pricing, read Nov 4, 2026
- Firecrawl pricingfirecrawl.dev/pricing, read Nov 4, 2026
- Tavily pricingtavily.com/pricing, read Nov 4, 2026
- Tavily API creditsdocs.tavily.com/documentation/api-credits.md, read Nov 4, 2026
- SpecStream dataspecstream.ai/data, read Nov 4, 2026
- SpecStream signalsspecstream.ai/signals, read Nov 4, 2026
- Exa data indexexa.ai/docs/search/data/overview.md, read Nov 4, 2026
- Exa FAQ, index sizeexa.ai/docs/admin/faqs.md, read Nov 4, 2026
- Exa Websets CSV importexa.ai/docs/websets/dashboard/import-from-csv.md, read Nov 4, 2026