What counts as a billable call?

One request to an endpoint is one billable call, whatever it returns. A Web Search call returning 1 result and one returning 100 cost the same. Contents API is billed per page returned.

Do I need a credit card to start?

No. You get $100 in API credit when you sign up, no credit card required. You only need to add a payment method when you are ready to upgrade to a paid plan or your free credits run out. (The pricing card also shows '$10 FREE CREDIT = 2,000 SEARCHES'.)

Free signup credits are valid for 60 days. Credits purchased on a paid plan do not expire as long as your account is active.

What happens if I run out of credits mid-run?

Calls return a 402 Payment Required response. You can add credits from your dashboard at any time. Enterprise plans can set up auto-recharge to avoid interruptions.

Are there rate limits?

Yes. Free tier includes 100 queries per day with a default rate limit. Paid plans offer higher QPS limits, and Enterprise plans support custom QPS limits tailored to your workload.

How do the Research effort tiers differ, and which should I use?

Lite is single-pass factual lookups (under 2s). Standard balances depth and speed (10–30s). Deep cross-references several sources (under 2 min). Exhaustive verifies claims across dozens of sources (under 5 min). Frontier runs in background mode only for jobs too long to finish in one request (~5 min). The pricing page recommends starting with Lite and scaling up.

Is the MCP server billed separately?

No. The MCP server uses the same API keys and credits as the REST API and is billed at the same rate as direct API calls.

Do you offer volume or annual discounts?

For usage above 1M calls per month, contact sales for custom pricing. Enterprise plans include negotiated rates, custom QPS limits, and dedicated support.

Can I get a DPA? Is there zero data retention?

Zero Data Retention (ZDR) is available on Enterprise plans. All queries and responses are automatically purged and never stored. Contact sales to enable ZDR.

Is there anything for startups?

Yes. Extended free credits are offered to eligible early-stage startups — contact sales with company details to apply.

You.com Pricing in 2026: Plans, Limits and Real Costs

You.com sells AI web APIs on a pay-per-call basis rather than monthly subscriptions. Most solo builders should start with the Free Web Search MCP access and move to Pay as you go at $5 per 1K calls once production traffic arrives.

Verified 2026-10-21 · official pricing page · You.com in the directory

Quick pricing verdict

Starting price: $5 / 1K calls for Web Search API Standard (the first paid endpoint listed)
Free plan: Yes — Free tier Web Search API via the MCP server, 100 queries/day, no API key or credit card required
Best plan for most people: Pay as you go — Web Search API Standard at $5 / 1K calls, no minimums, no seats, no platform fee
Plan to avoid first: Research Frontier at $1,200 / 1K calls — it's priced for background jobs that take ~5 minutes, not everyday queries
Biggest hidden cost: Research API tier jump — going from Research Lite ($12 / 1K calls) up to Exhaustive ($450) or Frontier ($1,200) escalates cost per call roughly 10x to 100x
Pricing checked: 2026-10-21, against the official page

You.com sells web search, content extraction, and research APIs to AI builders. There is no traditional monthly subscription — pricing is per call, per endpoint, with three top-level tiers: a Free tier, Pay as you go, and Enterprise (custom).

New accounts get $100 in API credit at signup with no credit card required, valid for 60 days. Paid-plan credits do not expire while the account stays active. If a job runs out of credits mid-run, calls return a 402 Payment Required response unless the account has auto-recharge enabled.

Plans compared

Plan	Price	Best for	Key limits
Free	$0 — Web Search API via MCP	Prototyping and dropping live search into an agent before committing to an API key	100 Web Search API queries/day via MCP server, no API key, no account, no credit card
Pay as you go	$5 / 1K calls for Web Search API Standard	Production workloads at scale — all endpoints, SDKs, and MCP with auto top-up	No minimums, no seats, no platform fee; rate limits apply; custom QPS only on Enterprise
Enterprise	Custom — Talk to sales	Teams that need Zero Data Retention, SOC 2 reporting, DPA, dedicated capacity, or SLA-backed support	Custom QPS, zero data retention, auto-recharge, negotiated rates above 1M calls/month

Source: You.com pricing page, checked 2026-10-21. See the archived page we read.

What each plan includes

Free

Includes: Web Search API via the MCP server, live web and news results, no API key needed
Missing: No access to Contents API, Answer API, Research API, or Finance Research API; no SDK or production endpoint; no credit-card billing
Avoid if: You need more than 100 Web Search queries a day or any endpoint beyond Web Search
Verdict: Fine for prototyping agents through MCP, but you will outgrow it the moment you hit production traffic.

Pay as you go

Includes: All endpoints (Web Search API Standard, Contents API, Answer API, Research API, Finance Research API), SDKs, MCP, auto top-up
Missing: No Zero Data Retention, no SOC 2 paperwork, no DPA, no SLA, no custom QPS
Avoid if: You handle regulated data, need contractual data-residency guarantees, or run above 1M calls/month
Verdict: The default for production: per-call pricing means you only pay for what you use, and research tier choice lets you dial cost vs depth.

Enterprise

Includes: Zero Data Retention, SOC 2, DPA-ready, custom QPS, dedicated capacity, SLA-backed support, direct engineering contact, negotiated volume rates
Missing: Public pricing — must contact sales
Avoid if: You are a solo founder or small team; the sales conversation is only worth it once usage, compliance, or rate-limit needs justify it
Verdict: Only justified once you need ZDR, custom QPS, or are above the 1M calls/month threshold for negotiated rates.

Add-ons, overages, and surprise costs

Cost item	Trigger	Published amount	Billing behaviour
Research tier escalation	Picking a deeper Research API tier for a job that a cheaper tier could handle	$12 / 1K calls (Lite) up to $1,200 / 1K calls (Frontier)	Same Research API, five effort levels — depth, latency, and price scale together
Free signup credit expiry	Waiting to use the $100 signup credit	Free signup credits valid for 60 days	Unused free credits lapse; credits bought on a paid plan do not expire while the account stays active
Out-of-credit job failure	Pay-as-you-go account hits zero credits during a run	Calls return a 402 Payment Required response	Job halts until you add credits from the dashboard; Enterprise can set up auto-recharge to avoid this
Contents API page billing	Extracting many pages in one request	$1 / 1K pages	Billed per page returned, separate from per-call pricing of other endpoints

Source: Platform pricing docs, checked 2026-10-21. See the archived page we read.

Which plan should you choose?

Solo founder prototyping an AI agent that needs live web search: Free tier (MCP) — 100 queries/day with no signup friction is enough to validate the idea before spending anything.
Builder shipping a production feature that needs live web results: Pay as you go — Web Search API Standard — $5 / 1K calls, auto top-up, all endpoints available; the simplest path from prototype to traffic.
Team above 1M calls/month, in regulated data, or hitting rate limits: Enterprise — Negotiated volume rates, custom QPS, Zero Data Retention, and DPA-ready terms unlock only on this tier.

Frequently asked questions

What counts as a billable call?: One request to an endpoint is one billable call, whatever it returns. A Web Search call returning 1 result and one returning 100 cost the same. Contents API is billed per page returned.
Do I need a credit card to start?: No. You get $100 in API credit when you sign up, no credit card required. You only need to add a payment method when you are ready to upgrade to a paid plan or your free credits run out. (The pricing card also shows '$10 FREE CREDIT = 2,000 SEARCHES'.)
Do credits expire?: Free signup credits are valid for 60 days. Credits purchased on a paid plan do not expire as long as your account is active.
What happens if I run out of credits mid-run?: Calls return a 402 Payment Required response. You can add credits from your dashboard at any time. Enterprise plans can set up auto-recharge to avoid interruptions.
Are there rate limits?: Yes. Free tier includes 100 queries per day with a default rate limit. Paid plans offer higher QPS limits, and Enterprise plans support custom QPS limits tailored to your workload.
How do the Research effort tiers differ, and which should I use?: Lite is single-pass factual lookups (under 2s). Standard balances depth and speed (10–30s). Deep cross-references several sources (under 2 min). Exhaustive verifies claims across dozens of sources (under 5 min). Frontier runs in background mode only for jobs too long to finish in one request (~5 min). The pricing page recommends starting with Lite and scaling up.
Is the MCP server billed separately?: No. The MCP server uses the same API keys and credits as the REST API and is billed at the same rate as direct API calls.
Do you offer volume or annual discounts?: For usage above 1M calls per month, contact sales for custom pricing. Enterprise plans include negotiated rates, custom QPS limits, and dedicated support.
Can I get a DPA? Is there zero data retention?: Zero Data Retention (ZDR) is available on Enterprise plans. All queries and responses are automatically purged and never stored. Contact sales to enable ZDR.
Is there anything for startups?: Yes. Extended free credits are offered to eligible early-stage startups — contact sales with company details to apply.

What we read

Every figure on this page was extracted from the vendor's own pricing page at the moment below. The text is reproduced so you can check our reading against what they publish today.

Source captured 2026-10-21 09:57 UTC

This website utilizes technologies such as cookies to enable essential site functionality, as well as for analytics and personalization. Privacy Policy Terms and Conditions Accept Deny Non-Essential Skip to main content NEW Knowledge for Web Search: live stock prices, crypto, weather, and prediction markets. Same $5/1K calls. Learn More → APIs Docs Pricing Benchmarks Company Blog Contact Sales C Sign in Web Search APIs, priced per call Choose the level of intelligence your workload needs. How to buy What to buy Use cases For Enterprise FAQs START BUILDING NOW Free View MCP config docs No API key, no account, no credit card 100 Web Search API queries/day via MCP Sign up only when you need more PRODUCTION WORKLOADS Pay as you go Compare pricing No minimums, no seats, no platform fee All endpoints, SDKs and MCP Auto top-up so jobs never stall ENTERPRISE TEAMS Custom Talk to our humans Zero Data Retention, SOC 2, DPA-ready Custom QPS and dedicated capacity SLA-backed support POWERING WEB SEARCH FOR LEADING ENTERPRISES APIs and features All built on the same real-time index. Pick based on how much you want to build yourself. Get an API key WEB SEARCH Web Search API Contents API AGENTIC RESEARCH Answer API Research API Finance Research API Web Search You get the sources and do the reasoning. ENDPOINT LATENCY PRICE Web Search API Free tier Real-time web and news results, optimized for programmatic access in AI applications. Web Search API Free Live search through the MCP server, no API key—up to 100 queries a day. Prototype or drop live search into an agent before committing. p50 ~0.4s Free Web Search API Standard Full endpoint access: Highlights, Knowledge, extraction, and domain filters. Built for production traffic at scale. p50 ~0.4s $5 /1K CALLS Contents API Give it URLs you already have, get back clean Markdown or HTML per page. Use it when you know which pages you want and just need them parsed, not searched. 1-10s per page $1 /1K PAGES Agentic Research We do the reasoning and hand back the answer. ENDPOINT LATENCY PRICE Answer API One call turns a question into a cited answer with the sources it used. Choose this over Web Search when you want the answer written for you, not a list of links to synthesize yourself. p50 ~2.7s $5 /1K CALLS Research API Multi-step research on the open web. It plans, searches repeatedly, reads full pages, and cross-references before answering. One research_effort parameter tunes cost and depth across five levels: Research Lite Simple factual lookups in a single pass. No structured output. Under 2s $12 /1K CALLS Research Standard Balanced depth for most production research 10-30s $50 /1K CALLS Research Deep Complex questions that span several sources and need cross-referencing. Under 2min $100 /1K CALLS Research Exhaustive High-stakes questions where claims get verified across dozens of sources. Under 5min $450 /1K CALLS Research Frontier Research too long to finish inside a request. Background mode only. ~5min $1,200 /1K CALLS Finance Research API The Research engine tuned for financial questions, at the same price and latency. Use it for company, market, and competitive analysis that needs grounded numbers. Finance Research Deep Earnings summaries, competitive benchmarking, and multi-quarter trends. Under 2 min $110 /1K CALLS Finance Research Exhaustive Full 10-K analysis, due diligence, and cross-market research. Under 5 min $500 /1K CALLS Decide what to build, then find API. Pick what you're building. We'll point you to the endpoint that fits, what it costs, and when to reach for something else. Feed LLM live web content Extract content from URLs Answer a question in one call Produce a research report Analyze financial or market data WEB SEARCH Web Search API $5 /1K CALLS Ranked web and news results your model reads and reasons over. You keep full control of synthesis — ideal for RAG. $10 FREE CREDIT = 2,000 SEARCHES View docs Get an API key Enterprise-ready Get custom pricing, higher rate limit

Pricing change log

What moved since we started tracking this page, newest first. A price that changes silently is the failure mode of every other pricing guide.

2026-10-21First published, extracted from https://you.com/pricing; archive snapshot 2026-10-09.