Seltz alternatives in 2026

Live web search from $1 per 1,000

Seltz charges $3 per 1,000 searches on Base and $5 on Pro, and Pro is what a call gets when it names no tier. A SpecStream search with speed=fast costs $1 per 1,000 for up to 10 results: a million searches cost $1,000, against $3,000 on Seltz Base and $5,000 on Pro.

curl -G https://api.specstream.ai/v1/web-search \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SPECSTREAM_API_KEY" \
  --data-urlencode "q=Who is the CEO of Mistral AI" \
  -d num=10 -d speed=fast -d passages=true

Seltz keeps one price however many documents a search returns. SpecStream charges each started block of 10 results above the first 10, so 100 results cost $0.0118 on the fast search. For the usual call of 10 results, SpecStream costs a third of Seltz Base and a fifth of Seltz Pro.

The live web, read when your call arrives

Seltz serves results from its own index, and its docs say the corpus refreshes on its own cadence, so a window of an hour or two can return nothing. SpecStream searches the whole live web at the moment of the call and reads the pages then. after: and before: in q hold on every result, and site: keeps the results to the domains you name.

Pages at $0.80 per 1,000, where Fetch costs $5 to $10

Seltz Fetch costs $5 per 1,000 URLs on Base and $10 on Pro. The SpecStream Extract API reads up to 20 URLs a call at $0.80 per 1,000 pages, PDF, Word and Excel files included, and a page with no text is not charged. A page that refuses a plain read is tried again as a browser would ask for it, then in a real browser, then from the site's own feed, then from its newest public archive capture. 100,000 pages cost $80 on SpecStream, against $500 on Fetch Base and $1,000 on Fetch Pro.

The answer with its page, at $5 per 1,000

Seltz sells a cited answer through a second endpoint, Answer, at $6 to $7 per 1,000. A SpecStream default search returns the answer in the same call, at $5 per 1,000: the value as the page prints it, the page it was read on, the time it was read and every source that prints it, then the ranked sources and a row for each result.

The most accurate web search API in the world

The SpecStream Search API scores a 97.9 F-score on all 1,000 official SimpleQA Verified questions, with 978 correct. On WideSearch it scores 64.0 item F1 and 43.4 row F1 on all 200 official tasks. The Extract API scores 0.908 F1 on WCXB. The scores and the method are at specstream.ai/benchmarks.

Fast at 1 search a second and at 20

The fast search was measured on production on November 9, 2026: a median of 0.82 s at 1 search a second and 1.07 s at 20 a second, with the 95th percentile between 1.09 and 1.73 s. It answered 718 of 720 calls. Every reply carries took_ms, so your code sees the time of each call.

One request returns the whole dataset

A Seltz Agent run costs $0.25 to $2.00 and returns research for one question. On SpecStream you write the request once, for companies, places, filings, tenders or products, and Deep Search reads it back as the conditions every row must meet and the facts to bring back. It searches the live web, reads each page and joins what it finds into one record per match. A row with up to 5 facts costs 5¢, so 10,000 rows cost $500, the searches and pages behind them are not billed, and the most a run can cost is approved before it starts.

Keys with their own limits and zero retention

Each API key carries its own limits: total, per run and monthly, and the operations it allows. Set zero_retention on a key and a search made with it keeps no request text and no answer after the reply. Every other charged search stays in the account's history at GET /v1/web-search/answers, with its answer and the pages it came from.

SpecStream

The live web data engine for teams and agents. Its Search API costs $1 per 1,000 searches with speed=fast, returns the answer with its page for $5 per 1,000 and scores 97.9 F-score on all 1,000 official SimpleQA Verified questions. The Extract API costs $0.80 per 1,000 pages. Deep Search returns every match as structured rows at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a row.

Exa

A search API with its own index. Search costs $4 per 1,000 requests on lite and $7 on auto, and the base price covers the first 10 results. Contents costs $1 per 1,000 pages per content type. SpecStream answers Exa's call too, at https://api.specstream.ai/exa/search, for $1 per 1,000 searches. Exa alternatives.

Tavily

A search API for agents, billed in credits at $0.008 each pay as you go, with 1,000 free credits a month. A basic search costs 1 credit and an advanced search 2. SpecStream answers Tavily's call too, at https://api.specstream.ai/tavily/search, for $0.001 a search. Tavily alternatives.

Brave Search API

A search API on Brave's own index. Search costs $5 per 1,000 requests at up to 50 queries per second, with $5 in free credits every month. SpecStream answers Brave's call too, at https://api.specstream.ai/res/v1/web/search, in Brave's JSON, for $1 per 1,000 searches. Brave Search API alternatives.

Linkup

A search API billed per call: $0.005 for a fast or standard search that returns results, and $0.05 for a deep one. A sign up with a work email gets $20 of credit. SpecStream answers Linkup's call too, at https://api.specstream.ai/linkup/v1/search, for $1 per 1,000 searches. Linkup alternatives.