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Tavily Research alternative in 2026

One price per report, from $0.10.

Tavily Research bills credits per request inside a range: 4 to 110 credits on mini and 15 to 250 on pro. At $0.008 a credit pay as you go, one pro report costs anything from $0.12 to $2.00, and you learn which after the run.

SpecStream is the live web data engine for teams and agents. POST /v1/research returns a written report with the page, the read time and the passage behind each cited sentence, at one flat price per depth: $0.10 quick, $0.30 standard or $1.00 deep. The reply to the POST shows the price before any charge.

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New accounts get $10 of credit, no card. It covers 100 quick reports, 33 standard reports or 10 deep reports.

SpecStream research reports and Tavily Research side by side

SpecStreamTavily Research
Price of one report$0.10 quick, $0.30 standard, $1.00 deep. One flat price per depth4 to 110 credits on mini, 15 to 250 credits on pro. At $0.008 a credit: $0.032 to $0.88 on mini, $0.12 to $2.00 on pro
When you know the priceBefore the run. The reply to the POST shows price_usdAfter the run. The credits depend on the work the request took, between the minimum and the maximum of its model
1,000 reports$100 quick, $300 standard, $1,000 deep$120 to $2,000 on pro at $0.008 a credit
Depthsquick, standard (the default) and deep. About one minute, four minutes and five minutesmini, pro and auto. auto is the default and picks the model for you
What comes backreport.content with [1] markers, report.citations with the page, the read time and the passage of each cited sentence, and report.sources with every page readA report with citations in numbered, mla, apa or chicago format
JSON in place of text"output": {"type": "json", "schema": {...}} with your JSON Schemaoutput_schema with a JSON Schema object
How you get the resultPoll GET /v1/research/{id}, follow GET /v1/research/{id}/events as server-sent events, or name a webhook that is called when the report endsPoll GET /research/{request_id}, or send stream: true for server-sent events
When you payOnce, when the report is delivered. A cancelled report is not chargedCredits from a monthly plan, then $0.008 a credit pay as you go
Search and pages on the same keySearch API at $5 per 1,000 searches and $1 on the fast tier, Extract API at $0.80 per 1,000 pages, and a drop-in address for your Tavily search and extract codeSearch, Extract, Map and Crawl, each billed in credits
Starting credit$10 of credit on a new account, no card: 100 quick reports1,000 free API credits a month, no card: 4 to 66 pro reports

Why Tavily Research users move to SpecStream

A price you can put in a quote

Tavily's docs call Research pricing dynamic, with a minimum and a maximum per request. On pro that is 15 to 250 credits, so two calls to the same endpoint can cost $0.12 and $2.00. A product that resells reports, or a team with a budget per question, cannot plan on a range that wide.

A SpecStream report has one price per depth. A standard report costs $0.30 every time, and 1,000 of them cost $300. The reply to the POST shows price_usd before anything is charged, and the price is taken once, when the report is delivered.

Each cited sentence shows its page and when it was read

report.content holds the text with [1] markers. report.citations gives each cited sentence the URL of its page, the time SpecStream read it and the passage that supports it. report.sources lists every page read in the run. A reviewer opens the page and finds the passage in seconds.

Progress, a webhook and safe retries

GET /v1/research/{id}/events streams the progress as server-sent events, and Last-Event-ID resumes a dropped stream. A webhook is called when the report ends, so a worker does not poll. Send an Idempotency-Key header and a retry with the same body returns the same report, with no second charge.

Search, pages, rows and reports on one key

The same key runs the Search API, which scores 97.9 F-score on all 1,000 SimpleQA Verified questions, and the Extract API at $0.80 per 1,000 pages. Your Tavily search and extract code runs on SpecStream when you set the base address to https://api.specstream.ai/tavily. When the answer is a table, Deep Search returns every match as a row. See the benchmarks, research reports and pricing.

Other Tavily Research alternatives

Linkup Research

Linkup prices Research at $0.25 to $2.50 a request by reasoning depth, and its pricing page gives 1 to 10 minutes a request. A SpecStream quick report costs $0.10 and takes about a minute.

Parallel Task API

Parallel prices Task runs per 1,000 by processor. Deep research runs on pro at $100 per 1,000 runs, in 2 to 10 minutes, or on ultra at $300 per 1,000, in 5 to 25 minutes. SpecStream returns a cited report for $0.10 to $1.00 in about one to five minutes.

Perplexity Agent API

Perplexity bills Agent API runs in tokens plus each tool call, such as $2.50 per 1,000 web searches. On its own benchmark page the high effort level cost $0.1360 a request on BrowseComp. A SpecStream report has a fixed price per depth, shown before the run.

Exa Deep search and Exa Agent

Exa's deep search type costs $12 per 1,000 requests and returns in 4 to 15 seconds. For long-running research Exa points to Exa Agent, at $0.012 to $1.00 a request by effort. SpecStream returns a full written report with every cited sentence tied to its passage.

How SpecStream scores

The same numbers as the benchmarks page, from the official tasks and scorers.

SpecStreamParallelExaTavilyPerplexity
Web researchWideSearch, GPT-5.6 Luna60.945.553.047.947.0
Factual accuracySimpleQA Verified, GPT-5.6 Luna9694919494
Factual accuracySimpleQA Verified, GPT-5.6 Sol9997919295

How to move a Tavily Research call

1. Create a key under Agents & API in the workspace. A new account gets $10 of credit, no card.

2. Send the same input to POST /v1/research, and choose depth in place of model: quick where you used mini, standard or deep where you used pro. The call answers 202 at once with the report's id and price_usd.

curl -X POST https://api.specstream.ai/v1/research \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SPECSTREAM_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"input": "Compare the 2024 cloud revenue growth of Microsoft, Amazon and Google.", "depth": "standard"}'

# 202 at once, with the report's id and price_usd. Then read it:
curl https://api.specstream.ai/v1/research/<id> \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SPECSTREAM_API_KEY"

3. Poll GET /v1/research/{id} until status is completed, as you poll GET /research/{request_id} today. For stream: true, read GET /v1/research/{id}/events. The text is in report.content and the cited sentences are in report.citations.

4. Send your output_schema as "output": {"type": "json", "schema": {...}}. output_length becomes length, with the same values short, standard and long. include_domains and exclude_domains keep their names.

From an agent, connect the MCP server at https://api.specstream.ai/mcp: research_price shows the price of each depth, start_research starts the report, and get_research reads it. The research reports guide has every field. For search and extract calls, the Tavily migration guide keeps your code at $1 per 1,000 searches.

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Frequently asked questions

Something we didn't answer? Talk to a human

How much does Tavily Research cost?
Between 4 and 110 credits a request on mini and between 15 and 250 credits on pro. At the pay as you go rate of $0.008 a credit, that is $0.032 to $0.88 on mini and $0.12 to $2.00 on pro. The exact count is known after the request.
What is the best Tavily Research alternative?
SpecStream, at one flat price per report: $0.10 quick, $0.30 standard or $1.00 deep. Each cited sentence carries the URL of its page, the time it was read and the passage, and the same key runs search, page reads and Deep Search.
Why does a Tavily Research bill vary so much?
Tavily's docs describe Research pricing as dynamic, with a minimum and a maximum number of credits per request for each model. The work a question takes sets where the request lands in that range.
How long does a SpecStream research report take?
About one minute for a quick report, four minutes for a standard report and five minutes for a deep report. GET /v1/research/{id}/events shows the progress, and a webhook is called when the report ends.
What does a cancelled report cost on SpecStream?
$0. The price is taken once, when the report is delivered, and a cancelled report is not charged.
Can a SpecStream report return JSON?
Yes. Send "output": {"type": "json", "schema": {...}} with your JSON Schema, as you send output_schema to Tavily.
Does SpecStream answer Tavily's search call?
Yes, at $1 per 1,000 searches of up to 10 results. Set the base address to https://api.specstream.ai/tavily and keep your code, including client.extract(urls) in the official Python SDK.

Sources

SpecStream wrote this page. Each figure about another provider comes from that company's own page, read on the date shown.

  1. Tavily API creditsdocs.tavily.com/documentation/api-credits.md, read Nov 13, 2026
  2. Tavily pricingtavily.com/pricing, read Nov 13, 2026
  3. Tavily Research endpointdocs.tavily.com/documentation/api-reference/endpoint/research.md, read Nov 13, 2026
  4. Tavily Research statusdocs.tavily.com/documentation/api-reference/endpoint/research-get.md, read Nov 13, 2026
  5. Linkup pricinglinkup.so/pricing, read Nov 13, 2026
  6. Parallel pricingdocs.parallel.ai/getting-started/pricing.md, read Nov 13, 2026
  7. Perplexity pricingdocs.perplexity.ai/docs/getting-started/pricing, read Nov 13, 2026
  8. Perplexity Agent API vs Sonar benchmarksdocs.perplexity.ai/docs/agent-api/migrate-from-sonar/benchmarks.md, read Nov 13, 2026
  9. Exa pricingexa.ai/docs/admin/pricing.md, read Nov 13, 2026
  10. Exa changelogexa.ai/docs/changelog/pricing-update.md, read Nov 13, 2026
  11. SpecStream research reportsspecstream.ai/docs/research, read Nov 13, 2026
  12. SpecStream pricingspecstream.ai/pricing, read Nov 13, 2026
  13. SpecStream benchmarksspecstream.ai/benchmarks, read Nov 13, 2026