Kagi Search API pricing
$12 per 1,000 searches, and $1 on SpecStream.
Kagi's Search API costs $12 per 1,000 requests and its Extract API $4 per 1,000 pages. Kagi invoices every 30 days or as soon as usage reaches $100. The $25 per 1,000 on older price pages is the deprecated v0 rate.
SpecStream is the live web data engine for teams and agents. It answers Kagi's own search call at $1 per 1,000 searches, returns the answer with its page at $5, and reads pages at $0.80 per 1,000. New accounts get $10 of credit.
New accounts get $10 of credit, no card. It covers 10,000 searches.
Every Kagi API price, and what SpecStream charges for the same job
| SpecStream | Kagi | |
|---|---|---|
| Web search, per 1,000 calls | $1 per 1,000 searches of up to 10 results on Kagi's own call, https://api.specstream.ai/kagi/api/v1/search. $5 per 1,000 on /v1/web-search with the answer | $12 per 1,000 requests on the Search API (v1). The v0 Search API, now deprecated, was $25 per 1,000 queries |
| Page text | extract on Kagi's call returns page text inside the $0.001 search. The Extract API reads up to 20 URLs a call at $0.80 per 1,000 pages, and a page with no text is not charged | Extract API $4 per 1,000 pages, up to 10 URLs a request, as Markdown or JSON |
| A cited answer | $5 per 1,000 searches. The reply carries answer with its page and read time when the results agree on one value, rows with the facts asked for, and the results read | FastGPT $15 per 1,000 queries with web search. Its web_search switch is out of service, so every call is billed at that rate |
| Searches that return nothing | Cost nothing. A busy call answers 429 with Retry-After and is not charged | The Enrichment API ($2 per 1,000 searches on Kagi's small web and news indexes) bills only when results come back. Cached responses are free |
| Free use | $10 of credit on a new account, no card: 10,000 searches through a drop-in address, 2,000 with the answer, or 12,500 pages | Kagi search subscribers got $5 of API credit when the public preview opened on May 21, 2026. Beyond that you pay for what you use, with a Kagi account and a payment method, billed separately from a Kagi subscription |
| How you pay | Prepaid credit, with a spending limit on each API key: a total, a limit per run, a monthly limit and the operations it allows | Billed after use: an invoice every 30 days or as soon as usage reaches $100, with an optional spending cap in USD |
| What a search covers | The whole live web, read at the moment of the call. News and image searches cost the same $0.001 | Web, images, news, videos and podcasts, with lenses, country and language filters |
| Summaries | The answer search at $5 per 1,000 returns the value with the page it was read on. The Extract API returns the full text of a page at $0.80 per 1,000 | Universal Summarizer: $0.030 per 1,000 tokens on the consumer models, or $1 per summary on Muriel |
| MCP | https://api.specstream.ai/mcp: search_web, read_pages and Deep Search on one key, at the API's prices | An MCP server for the Search and Extract APIs |
| Volume | The same rate from the first search, with no plan to buy | Enterprise volume discounts by quote |
What the Kagi price list means for your bill
Why price sites show $2.50, $15 and $25
Price comparison sites list the Kagi Search API from $2.50 per 1,000 queries, or at $15 to $25. Kagi's own pages give the rates behind those ranges. $25 per 1,000 was the v0 Search API, now deprecated. $15 per 1,000 is FastGPT, the answer API. The lowest Kagi rate, $2 per 1,000, is the Enrichment API, which searches only Kagi's small web and news indexes.
The Search API that new code calls, POST https://kagi.com/api/v1/search, costs $12 per 1,000 requests on Kagi's pricing page today.
What 100,000 searches a month cost
At 100,000 searches a month, the Kagi Search API costs $1,200. The same calls cost $100 on SpecStream through Kagi's own call shape, or $500 with the answer written for you.
Read 10 full pages for each search and Kagi's Extract API adds $0.04 a call, $4,000 a month. The SpecStream Extract API reads the same pages for $0.008 a call, $800 a month, and extract on Kagi's call shape returns page text inside the $0.001 search.
Invoiced after use, or prepaid with a limit
Kagi bills the API after use: you add a payment method, and Kagi invoices every 30 days or as soon as usage reaches $100. The API bill is separate from any Kagi search subscription.
SpecStream runs on prepaid credit, and each key carries its own spending limit. A search that returns no results costs nothing, an Idempotency-Key header makes a retried call charge once, and GET https://api.specstream.ai/v1/account/requests lists every call with its price_usd.
The most accurate web search API in the world
On its own test of 7 search APIs on 6,789 questions, Kagi reports that it returned the correct source page for 41% of them, the first of the 7. The SpecStream Search API scores 97.9 F-score on all 1,000 official SimpleQA Verified questions, 978 of them correct, and 64.0 item F1 and 43.4 row F1 on all 200 official WideSearch tasks. Every score and its method are on the benchmarks page.
Data priced per row
When the job is a list, every company or filing that meets a set of conditions, Deep Search returns one row per match with a source on each value, at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a delivered row. The most a run can cost is quoted before it starts, nothing runs until you approve it, and a run that finds nothing costs nothing.
Other search API prices next to Kagi
SpecStream
The live web data engine for teams and agents. The Search API costs $1 per 1,000 searches of up to 10 results on the fast tier and every drop-in address, and $5 with the answer. The Extract API reads pages at $0.80 per 1,000, and Deep Search delivers full datasets at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a row. New accounts get $10 of credit, no card.
Brave Search API
A search API on Brave's own index at $5 per 1,000 requests, with $5 in free credits every month. A SpecStream search costs $0.001 on Brave's call, and $0.005 with the answer and its page.
You.com
Web Search at $5 per 1,000 calls and Contents at $1 per 1,000 pages. SpecStream answers You.com's /v1/search at https://api.specstream.ai/you at $1 per 1,000 searches. The full list is on the You.com API pricing page.
Exa
Search costs $4 (lite) or $7 (auto, fast) per 1,000 requests of up to 10 results. SpecStream answers Exa's POST /search at https://api.specstream.ai/exa at $1 per 1,000 searches.
Tavily
Search in credits at $0.008 a credit pay as you go, 1 credit for a basic search and 2 for an advanced one, with 1,000 free credits every month. SpecStream answers Tavily's POST /search at https://api.specstream.ai/tavily at $0.001 a search.
How SpecStream scores
The same numbers as the benchmarks page, from the official tasks and scorers.
| SpecStream |  Parallel |  Exa |  Tavily |  Perplexity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Web researchWideSearch, GPT-5.6 Luna | 60.9 | 45.5 | 53.0 | 47.9 | 47.0 |
| Factual accuracySimpleQA Verified, GPT-5.6 Luna | 96 | 94 | 91 | 94 | 94 |
| Factual accuracySimpleQA Verified, GPT-5.6 Sol | 99 | 97 | 91 | 92 | 95 |
How to move your Kagi calls to SpecStream
Change one line. https://api.specstream.ai/kagi/api/v1/search answers the call your code sends to https://kagi.com/api/v1/search today, in the same JSON, so your parser stays as it is. Send a SpecStream key as a Bearer token. Each call of up to 10 results costs $0.001.
# Before
curl https://kagi.com/api/v1/search -H "Authorization: Bearer $VENDOR_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"query": "'"$QUERY"'"}'
# After
curl https://api.specstream.ai/kagi/api/v1/search -H "Authorization: Bearer $SPECSTREAM_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"query": "'"$QUERY"'"}'In Python:
import requests
BASE = "https://api.specstream.ai/kagi/api/v1" # was https://kagi.com/api/v1
reply = requests.post(
f"{BASE}/search",
headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {SPECSTREAM_KEY}"},
json={"query": "Who founded Mistral AI and when?", "limit": 10},
timeout=30,
)
reply.raise_for_status()
for result in reply.json()["data"]["search"]:
print(result["title"], result["url"], result["snippet"])query, lens, filters, page, limit and extract.count work as before, and the reply keeps data.search[] with url, title, snippet and time. Code still on v0, GET https://kagi.com/api/v0/search?q= with Authorization: Bot <key>, moves to https://api.specstream.ai/kagi/api/v0/search. Every parameter is in the Kagi migration guide.
For the answer in place of FastGPT, call SpecStream's own Search API at $5 per 1,000: GET https://api.specstream.ai/v1/web-search with Authorization: Bearer <key> and the question in q in everyday words.
curl -G https://api.specstream.ai/v1/web-search \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $SPECSTREAM_API_KEY" \
--data-urlencode "q=Who leads engineering at Mistral AI, and when did they join?" \
--data-urlencode "passages=true"On MCP, your agent calls search_web with {"q": ...} and read_pages with {"urls": [...]} at https://api.specstream.ai/mcp.
Frequently asked questions
Something we didn't answer? Talk to a human
How much does the Kagi Search API cost?
Why do some sites list Kagi at $25 or $2.50 per 1,000?
Is the Kagi Search API free?
Is the Kagi API included in a Kagi subscription?
How much does Kagi FastGPT cost?
Is there a cheaper alternative to the Kagi Search API?
POST /api/v1/search at $1 per 1,000 searches of up to 10 results, a twelfth of Kagi's $12, in the same JSON. The change is one address and one key.Does SpecStream have an API and an MCP server?
GET https://api.specstream.ai/v1/web-search at $5 per 1,000 searches, or $1 with speed=fast, and the MCP server is at https://api.specstream.ai/mcp over Streamable HTTP, with OAuth or an API key.Sources
SpecStream wrote this page. Each Kagi price comes from Kagi's own pricing page and API docs, read on Nov 12, 2026.
- Kagi API pricingkagi.com/api/pricing, read Nov 12, 2026
- Kagi API product pagekagi.com/products/api, read Nov 12, 2026
- Kagi API portalhelp.kagi.com/kagi/api/overview.html, read Nov 12, 2026
- Kagi API quick starthelp.kagi.com/kagi/api/quick-start.html, read Nov 12, 2026
- Kagi Search API (Legacy)help.kagi.com/kagi/api/search-legacy.html, read Nov 12, 2026
- Kagi FastGPThelp.kagi.com/kagi/api/fastgpt.html, read Nov 12, 2026
- Kagi Enrichment APIhelp.kagi.com/kagi/api/enrich.html, read Nov 12, 2026
- Kagi Universal Summarizerhelp.kagi.com/kagi/api/summarizer.html, read Nov 12, 2026
- Kagi Search API public previewkagifeedback.org/d/10622-may-21st-2026-search-api-preview-opens-to-all-users, read Nov 12, 2026
- CostBench, Kagi Search APIcostbench.com/software/ai-search-apis/kagi-search-api/, read Nov 12, 2026
- Brave Search APIbrave.com/search/api/, read Nov 12, 2026
- You.com pricingyou.com/pricing, read Nov 12, 2026
- Exa pricingexa.ai/docs/admin/pricing.md, read Nov 12, 2026
- Tavily API creditsdocs.tavily.com/documentation/api-credits.md, read Nov 12, 2026
- SpecStream pricingspecstream.ai/pricing, read Nov 12, 2026
- SpecStream for agentsspecstream.ai/agents.md, read Nov 12, 2026
- SpecStream benchmarksspecstream.ai/benchmarks, read Nov 12, 2026