Most search API price comparisons look at monthly plans, but agents are billed per call. This post compares how web search and extraction APIs used with AI agents are priced, by pricing model, and what that works out to per call.
How we did this. We read the public pricing pages of several search and extraction APIs on October 2, 2026 and grouped them by pricing model instead of naming individual vendors. The ranges below are the stated prices we saw, or our arithmetic from published plans where no per-call price is stated. We don't compare result quality, latency or uptime. Prices change often, so check any provider's current pricing page before you decide.
Disclosure: AgentSearch publishes this blog.
The short answer
- Per-request search APIs with an API key: typically about $0.004 to $0.007 per request, often with up to 10 results per request and a monthly free credit allowance.
- Bulk page-content APIs with an API key: can be as low as about $0.001 per page at volume.
- AgentSearch Web Search: $0.005 per request, with no API key, no signup, and no subscription or minimums. You pay per call through the Pocket Agentic Portal. Search also has a free tier: up to 25 searches/day per IP, no key needed.
- The only option here with no account, no API key and no prepaid credits: AgentSearch, which you pay per call in USDC over x402 or MPP.
On sticker price, some providers charge less per call than AgentSearch, and we're not going to claim otherwise. What AgentSearch offers is a simple way to get started and pay as you go: no signup, no API key, no plan, no card, no balance to top up. An agent with a wallet can pay $0.005 for one call through the Pocket Agentic Portal and stop there.
Search APIs: pricing by category
| Category | How it is billed | Typical per-call price | Account / key required |
|---|---|---|---|
| Per-request search APIs | Price per 1,000 requests, often with monthly free credits | ≈$0.004–$0.007 | Yes (account and API key) |
| Subscription search APIs | Monthly plan with a fixed search quota | ≈$0.025 on an entry plan if you use the whole quota; more if you don't | Yes (account, API key, card) |
| Credit-based scraping APIs (search endpoint) | Monthly credit bundle; a search uses one or more credits | ≈$0.008 on an entry plan if you use all the credits | Yes (account and API key) |
| AgentSearch | Pay per call (agentsearch-web-search-v1, up to 5 results) |
$0.005 (free tier: up to 25 searches/day per IP) | No account, no API key (USDC via x402 or MPP) |
Watch for what a call includes
- Per-request search APIs often price a request with up to 10 results. More results, AI summaries or page contents are often billed extra; read the pricing page.
- AgentSearch Web Search returns up to 5 results per call (
max_results1–5), each with title, URL, snippet, score, domain and date. The fields are in the search spec.
Extraction APIs: pricing by category
| Category | How it is billed | Typical per-page price |
|---|---|---|
| Bulk page-content APIs | Price per 1,000 pages, with an API key | ≈$0.001 |
| Credit-based scraping APIs | Monthly credit bundle; one page uses one or more credits | ≈$0.004 on an entry plan if you use all the credits |
| Token-billed reader APIs | Billed by tokens processed, not by request | Varies with page size; no stated per-request price |
| AgentSearch | Web Extract (agentsearch-web-extract-v1), pay per call |
$0.005 |
On per-page price alone, AgentSearch Extract costs more than bulk page-content APIs. What you get for $0.005 is one URL turned into markdown or text, with the title, links and fetch metadata, and no account or prepaid balance. If you extract millions of pages a month, a bulk plan will cost you less.
Pages that need JavaScript: AgentSearch Web Render
Extraction from HTML works when the content is in the HTML the server sends. Single-page apps and client-side hydrated pages don't work that way: a plain fetch comes back empty or returns a JavaScript shell. For those pages, AgentSearch runs Web Render. It loads the page in a real browser, lets the scripts run, then returns the rendered content. Render costs $0.005 per call on the Pocket Agentic Portal (agentsearch-web-render-v1), paid in USDC with no account or API key (price checked October 5, 2026). It isn't in the tables above, which compare search and extraction APIs. In practice, an agent extracts first and falls back to Render only when Extract comes back empty or returns a shell, so you only render the pages that need it. That keeps search, extract and render with one provider. For more, see Extract vs headless render.
Plans and credits: what "per call" really means
Subscription and credit-based APIs don't publish a single per-call price. The effective prices above are our arithmetic from published plans, and they assume you use the whole monthly quota:
- Subscription search APIs: an entry plan in the range of about $25 a month for about 1,000 searches works out to about $0.025 per search if you use all of them, and more per search if you don't. Some include a small free monthly allowance.
- Credit-based scraping APIs: an entry plan in the range of about $19 a month for a few thousand credits works out to roughly $0.004 per scraped page or $0.008 per search, depending on how many credits each operation uses.
- Token-billed reader APIs: billed by tokens, not requests, so the cost per call depends on page size and can't be compared directly.
For a side-by-side of the two billing models, with a break-even calculator, see pay-per-call vs subscription search APIs.
The real cost for an agent: a worked example
Take a research agent that runs one search and reads the top 2 pages on each task, 1,000 times a month. Using the typical prices above:
| Approach | Calls per task | Cost per 1,000 tasks |
|---|---|---|
| AgentSearch search + 2 extracts | 3 calls | $15.00 |
| Low-end per-request search API + 2 bulk content pages | 1 search + 2 pages | about $4.00 + $2.00 = $6.00 |
Many keyed APIs also include free monthly credits, which can bring a small workload down to $0. At small scale, free tiers can matter more than the per-call price; at any scale, AgentSearch needs no signup, plan or prepaid balance, and its search has a free tier of up to 25 searches/day per IP with no key.
Which web search API fits your agent?
It depends on what you're optimizing for:
- If you run high search volumes: a per-request search API with an API key can cost less per request, from about $0.004.
- If you extract pages in bulk: bulk page-content APIs can go as low as about $0.001 per page.
- If you want to start with no commitment: AgentSearch costs $0.005 per search or extract call, with no API key, no signup, and no subscription or minimums. You pay per call in USDC through the Pocket Agentic Portal, over x402 on Base or MPP on Tempo. For an autonomous agent that holds its own wallet, that means there's no human signup step. See pricing.
Try AgentSearch
In an MCP client, add npx -y @agentsearchhq/agentsearch-mcp: search works free with no key, and a wallet key unlocks paid search, extract and render with a built-in spending cap. The MCP setup page walks through it. From code, any standard x402 v2 client works:
import { wrapFetchWithPaymentFromConfig } from "@x402/fetch";
import { ExactEvmScheme } from "@x402/evm";
import { privateKeyToAccount } from "viem/accounts";
const account = privateKeyToAccount(process.env.AGENT_WALLET_KEY as `0x${string}`);
const pay = wrapFetchWithPaymentFromConfig(fetch, {
schemes: [{ network: "eip155:8453", client: new ExactEvmScheme(account) }],
});
const res = await pay(
"https://agent.pocket.network/v1/agentsearch-web-search-v1/v1/search",
{
method: "POST",
headers: { "content-type": "application/json" },
body: JSON.stringify({ query: "x402 v2 PAYMENT-SIGNATURE header", max_results: 5 }),
},
);
const { portal, data } = await res.json();
console.log(portal.serviceId, data.results?.map((r: any) => r.url));
If delivery fails, the portal settles nothing, so you aren't charged for it.
The full walkthrough is in How to give your AI agent web search with MCP. Extraction is covered in Turn any URL into clean markdown for RAG. Service details: search, extract and, for JavaScript-heavy pages, render.
Sources
- AgentSearch Web Search: https://agent.pocket.network/services/agentsearch-web-search-v1
- AgentSearch Web Extract: https://agent.pocket.network/services/agentsearch-web-extract-v1
- Third-party ranges: public pricing pages of several search, scraping and reader APIs, checked 2026-10-02. Check each provider's current pricing page before you decide.
Spotted a range that has changed? Tell us and we'll update it and the "checked" date.
More from the blog
- Add Web Search to Your AI Agent with MCP (2026 Guide)
- Turn Any URL into Clean Markdown for RAG (API Guide)
Service pages: Web Search API · Web Extract API · Web Render API
Originally published at agentsearchhq.com.
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