# You.com API pricing: $5 per 1,000 searches, and $1 on SpecStream Compared on Nov 12, 2026. The page: https://specstream.ai/you-com-api-pricing You.com charges $5 per 1,000 Web Search calls and $1 per 1,000 pages on its Contents API. The Answer API costs $5 per 1,000 calls, and the Research API costs $12 to $1,200 per 1,000 calls by effort tier. SpecStream is the live web data engine for teams and agents. It answers You.com'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. [Get an API key](https://specstream.ai/signup?src=alternatives-you-com-api-pricing&utm_source=alternatives-md&utm_campaign=you-com-api-pricing&returnTo=%2Fworkspace%2Fsearch%3Froute%3Dyou) New accounts get $10 of credit, no card. It covers 10,000 searches. ## Every You.com API price, and what SpecStream charges for the same job | | SpecStream | You.com | |---|---|---| | Web search, per 1,000 calls | $1 per 1,000 searches of up to 10 results on You.com's own call, `https://api.specstream.ai/you/v1/search`. $5 per 1,000 on `/v1/web-search` with the answer | $5 per 1,000 calls on Web Search Standard, p50 about 0.4 seconds | | Results in one call | Up to 100. Up to 10 cost $0.001, and each started block of 10 more adds $0.0012, so 100 results cost $0.0118 | Up to 100 for the same $0.005. A call that returns 1 result and one that returns 100 cost the same. With highlights, `count` stops at 50 | | Page text | `passages=true` adds the text of the top pages to the same $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 | Contents API $1 per 1,000 pages. Full pages on a search add $1 per 1,000 pages crawled live, so a call for 10 results costs up to $0.015 | | 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 | Answer API $5 per 1,000 calls, with inline numbered citations, p50 about 2.7 seconds | | Research | Deep Search: one structured row per match, with facts from many sites joined, at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a delivered row. The most a run can cost is quoted before it starts | Research API per 1,000 calls: Lite $12, Standard $50, Deep $100, Exhaustive $450, Frontier $1,200 in background mode only. Finance Research $110 (Deep) or $500 (Exhaustive) | | 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 | 100 Web Search queries a day through the MCP server with no key. $10 of API credit at sign up and $90 more on verifying the account, valid for 60 days | | A call that returns nothing | Costs nothing. A busy call answers `429` with `Retry-After` and is not charged | One request to an endpoint is one billable call, whatever it returns | | Spending limits | Each API key carries its own limits: a total, a limit per run, a monthly limit and the operations it allows | A spending cap per API key, and Auto Top-Up when the balance falls below a threshold | | MCP | `https://api.specstream.ai/mcp`: `search_web`, `read_pages` and Deep Search on one key, at the API's prices | The MCP server uses the same keys and credits, billed at the same rate as direct API calls | | Volume | The same rate from the first search, with no plan to buy | Custom pricing by contact above 1M calls a month | ## What the You.com price list means for your bill ### What 100,000 searches a month cost At 100,000 searches of up to 10 results a month, You.com's Web Search API costs $500. The same calls cost $100 on SpecStream through You.com's own call shape, or $500 with the answer written for you. Add the full text of all 10 pages to every call and You.com's ceiling is $0.015 a call, $1,500 a month. On SpecStream the search plus 10 pages through the Extract API is $0.009 a call, $900 a month. `passages=true` returns the text of the top pages inside the $0.001 search, $100 a month. ### The answer at the same $5, from the most accurate web search API You.com's Answer API and SpecStream's default search both cost $5 per 1,000. A SpecStream reply carries `answer` with the `page` it was read from and its read time in `seen_at`, `rows` with the facts the request asks for, and `sources`, the results read in rank order. When the results disagree, `answer` is `null` and every value found stays in `rows` with its page. 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](https://specstream.ai/benchmarks?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=you-com-api-pricing) page. ### Research priced per call, or data priced per row You.com's Research API bills each call by effort: $12 per 1,000 on Lite, $100 on Deep, $1,200 on Frontier, which runs only in background mode. A call returns one cited answer and is billed whatever it returns. When the job is a list, every company or filing that meets a set of conditions, [Deep Search](https://specstream.ai/deep-search?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=you-com-api-pricing) 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. ### Costs that are not on the price list You.com's free sign up credits last 60 days. Every request is one billable call whatever it returns, and full page content is billed on top of the search for each page crawled live. A Finance Research Exhaustive call takes up to 5 minutes, and Frontier runs only in background mode, so your client needs a long timeout or a second call to collect the result. On SpecStream a search that returns no results costs nothing, a busy call is not charged, and an `Idempotency-Key` header makes a retried call charge once. The reply's `price_usd` says what each call cost. ## Other search API prices next to You.com ### 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, sold as prepaid credits. The Search plan costs $5 per 1,000 requests with $5 in free credits every month, and the Answers plan costs $4 per 1,000 requests plus $5 per million input and output tokens. A SpecStream search costs $0.001 on Brave's call, and $0.005 with the answer and its page. ### Exa Search costs $4 (lite) or $7 (auto, fast) per 1,000 requests of up to 10 results, more results cost $1 per 1,000, and page contents cost $1 per 1,000 pages. The free tier is $10 in credits every month, plus a $10 bonus at sign up. SpecStream reads pages at $0.80 per 1,000 through the Extract API. ### Kagi Search API Search results from Kagi at $12 per 1,000 requests, invoiced when usage reaches $100. SpecStream costs $1 per 1,000 searches through a drop-in address, a twelfth of the rate. ### SerpApi A search results API sold on monthly plans: Starter is $25 a month for 1,000 searches and Developer is $75 a month for 5,000. SpecStream costs $1 per 1,000 searches with no monthly plan to buy. ## How to move your You.com calls to SpecStream Change one line. `https://api.specstream.ai/you/v1/search` answers the call your code sends to `https://ydc-index.io/v1/search` today, in the same JSON, so your parser stays as it is. Send a SpecStream key in the `X-API-Key` header. Each call of up to 10 results costs $0.001. ``` # Before curl -s -G https://ydc-index.io/v1/search -H "X-API-Key: $VENDOR_API_KEY" --data-urlencode "query=$QUERY" # After curl -s -G https://api.specstream.ai/you/v1/search -H "X-API-Key: $SPECSTREAM_API_KEY" --data-urlencode "query=$QUERY" ``` `query`, `count`, `offset`, `freshness`, `include_domains`, `exclude_domains` and `extraction` work as before, and the reply keeps `results.web[]` with `url`, `title`, `description` and `snippets`. Every parameter and reply field is in the [You.com migration guide](https://specstream.ai/migrate/you?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=you-com-api-pricing). For the answer in place of the Answer API, call SpecStream's own Search API at $5 per 1,000: `GET https://api.specstream.ai/v1/web-search` with `Authorization: Bearer `, 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`. The SDKs call it `web_search(q=...)` in Python and `webSearch({ q })` in TypeScript. ## Frequently asked questions ### How much does the You.com API cost? The Web Search API costs $5 per 1,000 calls, the Contents API $1 per 1,000 pages and the Answer API $5 per 1,000 calls. The Research API costs $12 (Lite), $50 (Standard), $100 (Deep), $450 (Exhaustive) or $1,200 (Frontier) per 1,000 calls, and Finance Research $110 or $500. There are no seats and no platform fee. ### Is the You.com Search API free? Up to 100 Web Search queries a day are free through You.com's MCP server, with no key. A new API account gets $10 of credit at sign up and $90 more on verifying the account, and those free credits last 60 days. After that a call costs $0.005. ### How much does You.com charge for full page content? $1 per 1,000 pages crawled live, on top of the $5 per 1,000 search calls, so a call for 10 results with every page costs up to $0.015. Pages served from cache are free. On SpecStream the Extract API costs $0.80 per 1,000 pages, and `passages=true` returns the text of the top pages inside a $0.001 search. ### How much does the You.com Research API cost per call? From $0.012 a call on Lite to $1.20 a call on Frontier, which runs only in background mode. Standard, the default tier, costs $0.05 a call. Each request is billed whatever it returns. ### Is there a cheaper alternative to the You.com Search API? Yes. SpecStream answers You.com's own `/v1/search` call at $1 per 1,000 searches of up to 10 results, a fifth of You.com's $5, in the same JSON. The change is one address and one key, and new accounts get $10 of credit with no card. ### Does the You.com MCP server cost extra? No. You.com bills calls through its MCP server at the same rate as direct API calls. SpecStream's MCP server at `https://api.specstream.ai/mcp` also bills at its API prices: $1 or $5 per 1,000 searches and $0.80 per 1,000 pages. ### Does SpecStream have an API and an MCP server? Yes. The Search API is `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 You.com price comes from You.com's own pricing page and billing docs, read on Nov 12, 2026. - [SpecStream pricing](https://specstream.ai/pricing), read Nov 12, 2026 - [SpecStream for agents](https://specstream.ai/agents.md), read Nov 12, 2026 - [SpecStream benchmarks](https://specstream.ai/benchmarks), read Nov 12, 2026 - [You.com pricing](https://you.com/pricing), read Nov 12, 2026 - [You.com billing](https://you.com/docs/administration/billing.md), read Nov 12, 2026 - [You.com Web Search API spec](https://you.com/docs/openapi/web-search.json), read Nov 12, 2026 - [Brave Search API pricing](https://brave.com/search/api/), read Nov 12, 2026 - [Exa pricing](https://exa.ai/pricing), read Nov 12, 2026 - [Kagi API pricing](https://kagi.com/api/pricing), read Nov 12, 2026 - [Kagi API overview](https://help.kagi.com/kagi/api/overview.html), read Nov 12, 2026 - [SerpApi pricing](https://serpapi.com/pricing), read Nov 12, 2026