The best Tavily alternatives in 2026, priced per 1,000 searches

Your Tavily code runs with one changed address

SpecStream answers Tavily's own call. Point the base address at https://api.specstream.ai/tavily, send a SpecStream key where the Tavily key went, and the same body returns Tavily's JSON: results[] with title, url, content and score, plus answer and raw_content when you ask for them.

# Tavily: before
curl -X POST https://api.tavily.com/search \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TAVILY_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query": "Who founded Mistral AI and when?", "max_results": 5}'

# SpecStream: after
curl -X POST https://api.specstream.ai/tavily/search \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SPECSTREAM_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query": "Who founded Mistral AI and when?", "max_results": 5}'

In the official Python SDK it is one argument: TavilyClient(api_key=SPECSTREAM_API_KEY, api_base_url="https://api.specstream.ai/tavily"). Extract and map move the same way, on Tavily Extract and Tavily map.

Run the test yourself

Send the same questions to both and read the answers side by side. The script below uses the official tavily-python client for both calls, so the address and the key are what differ. Put your own questions in QUESTIONS, the ones your agent asks in production.

import os
from tavily import TavilyClient

QUESTIONS = [
    "Who founded Mistral AI and when?",
    "What is the population of Lyon in the latest census?",
    "Which company makes the Pixel 9 Pro?",
]

tavily = TavilyClient(api_key=os.environ["TAVILY_API_KEY"])
specstream = TavilyClient(
    api_key=os.environ["SPECSTREAM_API_KEY"],
    api_base_url="https://api.specstream.ai/tavily",
)

for q in QUESTIONS:
    for name, client in (("tavily", tavily), ("specstream", specstream)):
        r = client.search(q, max_results=5)
        top = r["results"][0] if r["results"] else {}
        print(name, "|", q, "|", top.get("url"), "|", (top.get("content") or "")[:160])

Three questions cost $0.003 on SpecStream, inside the $10 of credit a new account gets. For a scored run, the 1,000 SimpleQA Verified questions and the method behind our 97.9 F-score are on specstream.ai/benchmarks.

$1 per 1,000 searches, from credit that never expires

A Tavily search of up to 10 results on SpecStream costs $0.001, and 11 to 20 results cost $0.0022. A call with include_answer costs $0.005. There is no monthly plan and no reset: calls spend from your balance inside the spending limit you set on the account or the key, a 429 with Retry-After charges nothing, and an Idempotency-Key makes a retried call count once. At 100,000 searches a month that is $100, where Tavily's Growth plan is $500 for 100,000 credits.

Search, pages and rows from one key

The SpecStream Search API is the most accurate web search API in the world: 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. Each answer is read from the live web at the moment of the call. The same key reads pages with the Extract API at $0.80 per 1,000, 0.908 F1 on WCXB, and builds structured rows with Deep Search at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a row, plus 5¢ for an email and 15¢ for a phone. Source URL and read time on every value.

1. SpecStream

The live web data engine for teams and agents. Search costs $1 per 1,000 searches of up to 10 results on the Tavily route, the same POST /search and the same JSON, and the Search API scores a 97.9 F-score on all 1,000 SimpleQA Verified questions. MCP: https://api.specstream.ai/mcp. Pages at $0.80 per 1,000 and structured rows at 5¢ to $1 a row on the same key.

2. Parallel

Separate Search, Extract and Task APIs. Search starts at $1 per 1,000 requests with 10 results each, and new accounts get up to $80 at signup. Its benchmarks page prints 97 for Parallel Advanced on SimpleQA Verified. SpecStream scores 97.9 on all 1,000 questions and answers Parallel's call too, at https://api.specstream.ai/parallel.

3. Linkup

A search API at $0.005 to $0.006 a request, with 4,000 free queries, priced by depth and outputType. Its docs print a 94% F-score on SimpleQA Verified. SpecStream scores 97.9 at $1 per 1,000 searches, and answers Linkup's call at https://api.specstream.ai/linkup/v1.

4. Exa

A search API at $4 per 1,000 requests on lite and $7 on auto, with the first 10 results in the base price and up to 100 a call. Parallel's table scores Exa Auto at 91 on SimpleQA Verified. SpecStream answers Exa's call at https://api.specstream.ai/exa for $1 per 1,000 searches. Tavily vs Exa compares the two in detail.

5. Brave Search API

The Brave Search API costs $5 per 1,000 requests, with $5 in free credits every month and up to 20 results a call. Its page prints 85.3% accuracy on FreshQA. SpecStream answers Brave's /res/v1/web/search call on the same path at $1 per 1,000 searches of up to 10 results.

6. Perplexity Search API

Ranked web results as JSON at $5 per 1,000 requests, or $1 with Fast Search, 1 to 20 results a call. Parallel's table scores Perplexity at 95 on SimpleQA Verified. SpecStream answers Perplexity's call at https://api.specstream.ai/perplexity for $1 per 1,000 searches of up to 10 results.

7. Serper

Search results as JSON, sold in prepaid packs from $1.00 per 1,000 queries on 50k credits to $0.30 on 12.5M, with 2,500 free queries. SpecStream answers Serper's call at https://api.specstream.ai/serper, and a SpecStream top up never expires.

8. Firecrawl

Search, Scrape and Crawl billed in credits: the Hobby plan is $19 a month for 5,000 credits. SpecStream bills a search at $0.001 and a page read at $0.0008, a page with no text is not charged, and Firecrawl's v2 calls run at https://api.specstream.ai/firecrawl.