Brave image search API compatible

The call, before and after

# Before
curl -G "https://api.search.brave.com/res/v1/images/search" \
  -H "X-Subscription-Token: $BRAVE_API_KEY" \
  --data-urlencode "q=desert dunes" -d count=10

# After
curl -G "https://api.specstream.ai/res/v1/images/search" \
  -H "X-Subscription-Token: $SPECSTREAM_API_KEY" \
  --data-urlencode "q=desert dunes" -d count=10

The same path also answers POST with the parameters in a JSON body, for a client that builds its requests that way. The web search at /res/v1/web/search answers at the same host with the same key.

What the route reads, and what it refuses

Read and applied: q, country, search_lang, safesearch and count. A call that sends no count gets 10 results at the base price, where Brave's default is 50; send count to ask for more, up to 100 in one call.

Refused, in Brave's ErrorResponse form: a call with no X-Subscription-Token gets 401, and a count outside 1 to 100 gets 400 naming the range, so a client that sends Brave's maximum of 200 sets count=100.

Every field that comes back

The reply has type set to images, query with original and the country you sent, and results[]. Each result has type set to image_result, title, url for the page the image is on, source, properties with url for the image itself, and meta_url with scheme, netloc, hostname and path.

thumbnail with src, width and height, the image's properties.width and properties.height, and properties.format such as jpeg or png are there when the search engines give them, and absent otherwise; the route never fills them in. One field is added, specstream, with the call's price.

Left out of each result: page_fetched, properties.placeholder, meta_url.favicon and confidence.

The same price, no cap a second

Brave's Search plan prices a request at $5 per 1,000 and caps a key at 50 queries per second. On SpecStream an image search of up to 10 results is $0.005, the same as a web search with no daily limit. count asks for up to 100, and each started block of 10 more adds $0.006, so count=100 costs $0.059. Credit you buy never expires. A busy call gets 429 in Brave's form with Retry-After and charges nothing.

What is kept, set on the key

A key made with zero_retention keeps no request text and no answer once the reply is sent, on image searches as on every other call. spend_cap_cents sets the most that key can spend, so a loop in a Brave client cannot run past it.

curl -X POST https://api.specstream.ai/v1/account/keys \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SPECSTREAM_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"name": "production", "scopes": ["account:read", "finds:spend"], "spend_cap_cents": 500000, "zero_retention": true}'

Images, web, news and pages on one key

The results come from the image search of several engines at once, one result for each image address. The same key answers Brave's web search at the same host (the Brave migration has every web field), and SerpApi's, Serper's and Google Custom Search's image calls too (see the SerpApi Google Images and Google image search migrations).

The Extract API reads the page behind each url, up to 20 pages a call at $0.80 per 1,000 pages, and a page with no text is not charged. Deep Search returns every match for a request in plain words as structured rows, at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a row, with a source URL on every value.

On SimpleQA Verified the SpecStream Search API scores 97.9 F-score on all 1,000 official questions, 978 of them correct, and on WideSearch 64.0 item F1 and 43.4 row F1 on all 200 official tasks. The Extract API scores 0.908 F1 on WCXB. Each score and its method is on the benchmarks page.

Serper

Google results sold in credit packs from $1.00 per 1,000 for 50,000 credits, valid for 6 months, with 2,500 free queries. SpecStream credit never expires, and the same key answers Serper's /images call (Serper images migration).

SerpApi

A plan per month: Starter is $25 for 1,000 searches, 200 an hour, and the free plan has 250 searches a month. SpecStream answers SerpApi's engine=google_images call at $0.005 with no plan (SerpApi Google Images migration).

SearchApi

Developer is $40 a month for 10,000 searches, $4 per 1,000, after 100 free requests. SpecStream answers SearchApi's engine=google_images call with no plan to renew (SearchApi Google Images migration).