Bing Search API in Python

The call with requests

This is Microsoft's Python sample with two values changed: the address and the key. It treats a missing webPages as no results, which is how Bing answered a search that found nothing.

import os
import requests

SEARCH_URL = "https://api.specstream.ai/v7.0/search"  # was https://api.bing.microsoft.com/v7.0/search
headers = {"Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key": os.environ["SPECSTREAM_API_KEY"]}
params = {"q": "Who founded Mistral AI and when?", "count": 10, "textFormat": "Raw"}

response = requests.get(SEARCH_URL, headers=headers, params=params, timeout=30)
results = response.json()
if response.status_code != 200:
    raise RuntimeError(results["errors"][0]["message"])

for page in results.get("webPages", {}).get("value", []):
    print(page["name"], page["url"], page["snippet"], sep="\n  ")

An error comes back as Bing's ErrorResponse: {"_type": "ErrorResponse", "errors": [{"code", "subCode", "message"}]}, with Bing's codes such as InvalidAuthorization and InvalidRequest.

Paging with offset, and fresh results

offset counts results to skip, as on Bing. Add freshness for recent pages. Each call of up to 10 results is one search at $0.005.

import os
import requests

SEARCH_URL = "https://api.specstream.ai/v7.0/search"
headers = {"Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key": os.environ["SPECSTREAM_API_KEY"]}

def search(q, pages=3, count=10, freshness=None):
    found = []
    for n in range(pages):
        params = {"q": q, "count": count, "offset": n * count}
        if freshness:
            params["freshness"] = freshness  # Day, Week, Month or 2026-10-01..2026-11-01
        data = requests.get(SEARCH_URL, headers=headers, params=params, timeout=30).json()
        value = data.get("webPages", {}).get("value", [])
        if not value:
            break
        found += value
    return found

for page in search("vector database funding", freshness="Week"):
    print(page.get("datePublished", ""), page["url"])

The parameters your code already sends

q, count, offset and freshness work as on Bing, and textFormat=HTML escapes the text. mkt, setLang, cc, safeSearch, responseFilter, answerCount, promote and textDecorations are accepted and do not change the search, so a request your code sends today needs no edit. The key also works as a Bearer token or as subscription-key= in the address. dateLastCrawled is not returned.

$5 per 1,000 searches and the best scores published

A call of up to 10 results is $0.005, and each started block of 10 more adds $0.006, so count=50 is $0.029. Grounding with Bing Search costs $14 per 1,000 transactions. SpecStream scores 97.9 F-score on all 1,000 SimpleQA Verified questions (978 correct) and 64.0 item F1 and 43.4 row F1 on all 200 WideSearch tasks. On production on November 9, 2026, the median call took 0.82 s at 1 search a second and 1.07 s at 20 a second.

What is kept from a search

Only the charge, on a key with zero retention: no request text and no answer after the reply. Grounding with Bing Search sends your data outside the Azure compliance and Geo boundary, and Microsoft's Data Protection Addendum does not apply to it.

The same key reads pages and returns rows

The Extract API reads up to 20 pages or documents a call at $0.80 per 1,000 pages and scores 0.908 F1 on WCXB. Deep Search returns every match for a request in plain words as structured rows at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a row, and quotes the most a run can cost before it starts.

Grounding with Bing Search

Microsoft's named replacement, a tool inside Azure AI Agents at $14 per 1,000 transactions. Your Python code gets the model's response and citations, never the raw results. SpecStream returns webPages.value[] to your code at $0.005 a search.

Brave Search API

A search API on Brave's own index at $5 per 1,000 requests, with $5 in free credits every month and a capacity of 50 queries per second. Its reply has Brave's own shape, so the Python that reads Bing's is rewritten. On SpecStream it stays.

SerpApi

A search results API sold in monthly plans. The Starter plan is $25 a month for 1,000 searches. On SpecStream $25 pays for 5,000 searches, and credit you top up never expires.

Tavily

A search API for agents, billed in credits at $0.008 a credit on pay as you go. SpecStream answers Tavily's call too, at https://api.specstream.ai/tavily/search, and the Bing call on the same key, for $0.005 a search.