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# Valyu alternatives in 2026: the answer and rows at $5 per 1,000

Compared on Nov 10, 2026. The page: https://specstream.ai/alternatives/valyu

Valyu bills search per result in credits, 160 for $1 pay as you go. A 10-result web search costs 1 credit, about $6.25 per 1,000 searches, and SEC filings cost 1.92 credits a result. Plans run from $29 to $499 a month.

SpecStream is the live web data engine for teams and agents. One call returns the answer with the page it was read on and the ranked sources. It scores 97.9 on SimpleQA Verified, at $5 per 1,000 searches.

[Get an API key](https://specstream.ai/signup?src=alternatives-valyu&utm_source=alternatives-md&utm_campaign=valyu&returnTo=%2Fworkspace%2Fagents%3Ftab%3Dkeys) New accounts get $10 of credit, no card. It covers 2,000 searches.

## SpecStream and Valyu side by side

| | SpecStream | Valyu |
|---|---|---|
| What you send | A question in everyday words, in any language, up to 2,000 characters: `GET https://api.specstream.ai/v1/web-search?q=<the question>` with your key as a Bearer token | `POST https://api.valyu.ai/v1/search` with the key in the `X-API-Key` header, and `max_price` to cap what the request can cost |
| What comes back | `answer` with the value, the page it was read on and the time it was read. `rows` with each result and the facts the request asks for. `sources` in rank order, each with its `url`, `title`, `snippet` and `published` date | `results` ordered by relevance, each with `title`, `url`, `content`, `source`, `price` and `relevance_score`, then `results_by_source` and `total_deduction_dollars` |
| Price of a web search | $5 per 1,000 searches of up to 10 results, the same rate on every plan. `num=100` costs $0.059 a call | Credits per result by source: 0.1 for web and news, so a 10-result web search costs 1 credit. Pay as you go gives 160 credits per $1, about $6.25 per 1,000 searches |
| Plans | No plan needed. One balance, the same rate for 1 search or 1 million | Pay as you go from a $10 top-up for 1,600 credits. $29 a month for 5,000 credits, $99 for 18,000 and $499 for 100,000. Each plan adds sources |
| Results in one call | 1 to 100 results in one search, set with `num`, and `page` (1 to 10) continues the same ranked list. Up to 10 results cost $0.005, and each started block of 10 more adds $0.006 | Up to 20 results, and up to 100 with approved access |
| Search accuracy | 97.9 F-score on all 1,000 official SimpleQA Verified questions (978 correct). 64.0 item F1 and 43.4 row F1 on all 200 official WideSearch tasks. Scores and method on the [benchmarks](https://specstream.ai/benchmarks?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=valyu) page | Valyu's own page: 94% on SimpleQA and 79% on FreshQA |
| Free to start | $10 of credit, no card. That is 2,000 searches, or up to 200 rows at 5¢ | 2,000 credits a month with a work email, 1,000 with a personal one, no card. Unused free credits do not roll over |
| How long the balance lasts | A top-up never expires. A call stopped by a `503` charges nothing, and an `Idempotency-Key` makes a retry safe: a call is charged once per key | Top-ups last 12 months. When the balance runs out, requests return `402` until you top up |
| Data already held | Public databases read every morning at [specstream.ai/data](https://specstream.ai/data?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=valyu): 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](https://specstream.ai/signals?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=valyu) | Search priced by source: arXiv and PubMed at 0.05 credits a result, clinical trials 0.8, patents 1.28, SEC filings 1.92 and Wiley journals 4.8 |
| Every match as structured rows | Deep Search: a request in plain words returns every match on the live web as rows that meet each condition you wrote, at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a row, plus 5¢ for an email and 15¢ for a phone. The most a run can cost is quoted before it starts, and nothing runs until you approve it | Results ordered by relevance, with the text of each source |
| Other search APIs on the same key | Calls written for Tavily, Exa, Serper, Brave, Bing v7, Google Custom Search, Firecrawl and SearXNG are answered in their own JSON at `api.specstream.ai`. Change the base address and the key | Search, Contents and DeepResearch on Valyu's own API |
| 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¢ | Each request is a new search, billed per result again |
| Where the data goes | Google Sheets, Excel, Airtable, Notion, monday.com, HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Attio, Slack, Teams, Zapier, Make, n8n and signed webhooks. Agents use the MCP server, the REST API, the Python and TypeScript SDKs, a CLI and A2A | A JSON response to the code that called the API |

## Why teams move from Valyu to SpecStream

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

A Valyu search returns results ordered by relevance, and your model reads them to find the fact. A SpecStream search returns the value with the page it was read on and the time it was read, then every source in rank order, for $0.005 where a 10-result Valyu web search costs 1 credit, about $0.00625 pay as you go.

```
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 passages=true
```

With `passages=true`, each of the first `num` sources carries an excerpt of its page, up to about 3,500 characters. Every key can ask for up to 100 results in one search, for $0.059.

### One rate, and a top-up that does not expire

Valyu prices each result by its source and adds sources plan by plan, from $29 to $499 a month. Its top-ups last 12 months, and an empty balance returns `402`. SpecStream charges $5 per 1,000 searches on every account, with no plan to choose, and a top-up never expires.

### Filings and records already held

SpecStream reads public databases every morning and keeps them at [specstream.ai/data](https://specstream.ai/data?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=valyu): 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, and open federal contracts and grants. A Deep Search request reads the live web and returns the records as rows that meet each condition you wrote, at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a row.

### 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, 100 in English and 100 in Chinese, in our run of November 8, 2026. The scores and the method are at [specstream.ai/benchmarks](https://specstream.ai/benchmarks?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=valyu).

### Fast at 1 search a second and at 20

The fast search, which every drop-in route uses, 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. One account can send up to 8,800 fast searches a minute, and a call over that gets a `503` with `Retry-After` and is not charged.

### Your other search code keeps working

If your agent also calls another search API, point it at SpecStream by changing the base address and the key. The reply keeps that API's JSON, so the parser stays as it is.

```
https://api.tavily.com       ->  https://api.specstream.ai/tavily
https://api.exa.ai           ->  https://api.specstream.ai/exa
https://google.serper.dev    ->  https://api.specstream.ai/serper
https://api.search.brave.com ->  https://api.specstream.ai
https://api.firecrawl.dev    ->  https://api.specstream.ai/firecrawl
```

Each call is one web search at $0.005 for up to 10 results, on the same key, limits and history as `GET /v1/web-search`.

### One request returns the whole dataset

With a results API, a dataset is a loop your team writes: many queries, a read of every link, a check of every result and a join into one record. On SpecStream you write the request once, for companies, places, filings, tenders or products. SpecStream reads it back as 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 match. A row with up to 5 facts costs 5¢, so 10,000 rows cost $500, and the searches and pages behind them are not billed.

### 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, and reading the history costs nothing.

## Other Valyu alternatives

### SpecStream

The live web data engine for teams and agents. Its Search API returns the answer with its page for $5 per 1,000 searches 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.

### 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 $0.005 a search.

### 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. The free tier gives $10 in credits a month. SpecStream answers Exa's call too, at `https://api.specstream.ai/exa/search`, for $5 per 1,000 searches.

### Brave Search API

A search API on Brave's own index, paid with prepaid credits. The Search plan costs $5 per 1,000 requests at up to 50 queries per second, and the Answers plan $4 per 1,000 requests plus $5 per million input and output tokens. SpecStream answers Brave's call too, at `https://api.specstream.ai/res/v1/web/search`, in Brave's JSON.

### SerpApi

A results page API for Google and other search engines, sold month to month. The Starter plan costs $25 a month for 1,000 searches and the Developer plan $75 a month for 5,000. Cached, errored and failed searches are not counted. SpecStream returns the answer and the pages it came from in one call, at $5 per 1,000 searches on every plan.

## How to switch from Valyu

1. Create a key under Agents & API in the workspace. A new account gets $10 of credit, no card, which covers 2,000 searches. Give the key a spending limit, and set `zero_retention` on it if your product must keep no query text.

2. Replace `POST https://api.valyu.ai/v1/search` with `GET https://api.specstream.ai/v1/web-search`, the question in `q`, `num` for how many results, and the key as a Bearer token in place of `X-API-Key`.

```
import requests

reply = requests.get(
    "https://api.specstream.ai/v1/web-search",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {SPECSTREAM_KEY}"},
    params={"q": "Who is the CEO of Mistral AI", "num": 10, "passages": "true"},
).json()["data"]

print(reply["answer"])  # value, page and seen_at, or None
for source in reply["sources"]:
    print(source["url"], source["title"], source.get("excerpt") or source["snippet"])
```

3. Read `data.answer` for the value and the page it came from, and `data.sources` for the pages in rank order. In JavaScript the same call is one `fetch`.

```
const params = new URLSearchParams({ q: "Who is the CEO of Mistral AI", num: "10", passages: "true" });
const { data } = await fetch(`https://api.specstream.ai/v1/web-search?${params}`, {
  headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.SPECSTREAM_API_KEY}` },
}).then((r) => r.json());

console.log(data.answer, data.sources.map((s) => s.url));
```

4. Connect an agent through the MCP server at `https://api.specstream.ai/mcp`. Its `search_web` tool runs the same search for $0.005, from the same balance and inside the limits of its key.

## Frequently asked questions

### How much does Valyu cost?

Pay as you go gives 160 credits per $1, from a $10 top-up, and a 10-result web search costs 1 credit, about $6.25 per 1,000 searches. Plans cost $29, $99 and $499 a month for 5,000, 18,000 and 100,000 credits. SpecStream costs $5 per 1,000 searches on every account.

### What is the best Valyu alternative?

SpecStream, at $5 per 1,000 searches. One call returns the answer with the page it was read on and the ranked sources, and the Search API scores 97.9 F-score on all 1,000 SimpleQA Verified questions. New accounts get $10 of credit, no card.

### Do Valyu credits expire?

Top-ups last 12 months, and the monthly free credits do not roll over. A SpecStream top-up never expires.

### How accurate is the SpecStream Search API?

It scores a 97.9 F-score on all 1,000 official SimpleQA Verified questions, with 978 correct, and 64.0 item F1 on all 200 official WideSearch tasks. The scores and the method are on the [benchmarks](https://specstream.ai/benchmarks?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=valyu) page.

### Does SpecStream have an API?

Yes, three. The Search API is `GET /v1/web-search` at $5 per 1,000 searches of up to 10 results. The Extract API is `POST /v1/extract` at $0.80 per 1,000 pages. Deep Search takes a request in plain words and returns structured rows. Python and TypeScript SDKs, a CLI and A2A cover the same calls.

### Does SpecStream have an MCP server?

Yes, at `https://api.specstream.ai/mcp` over Streamable HTTP, with OAuth or an API key. The `search_web` tool runs a search for $0.005, and connecting an agent is free on every plan. The agent 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 pricing](https://specstream.ai/pricing), read Nov 10, 2026
- [SpecStream for agents](https://specstream.ai/agents.md), read Nov 10, 2026
- [SpecStream benchmarks](https://specstream.ai/benchmarks), read Nov 10, 2026
- [SpecStream data](https://specstream.ai/data), read Nov 10, 2026
- [SpecStream signals](https://specstream.ai/signals), read Nov 10, 2026
- [Valyu pricing](https://www.valyu.ai/pricing.md), read Nov 9, 2026
- [Valyu docs: pricing](https://docs.valyu.ai/pricing.md), read Nov 9, 2026
- [Valyu search API reference](https://docs.valyu.ai/api-reference/endpoint/search.md), read Nov 9, 2026
- [Valyu search quickstart](https://docs.valyu.ai/search/quickstart.md), read Nov 9, 2026
- [Valyu benchmarks](https://www.valyu.ai/benchmarks), read Nov 9, 2026
- [Tavily credits and pricing](https://docs.tavily.com/documentation/api-credits.md), read Nov 9, 2026
- [Exa pricing](https://exa.ai/docs/admin/pricing.md), read Nov 9, 2026
- [Brave Search API pricing](https://brave.com/search/api/), read Nov 9, 2026
- [SerpApi pricing](https://serpapi.com/pricing), read Nov 9, 2026