Tavily
Web search API designed for AI agents — 1,000 free credits/mo, $0.008/credit PAYG
Overall score
About
Tavily is a web search API built specifically for LLM agents — returns clean, citation-friendly content optimized for grounding rather than the chunked snippet output Bing/Google APIs return. Default search backend in many coding agents (Cursor, Claude Code) and RAG pipelines. Pricing is credit-based with a generous free tier for solo builders.
Best for: Anyone building an agent or RAG pipeline that needs to ground answers in current web information. Free tier (1,000 credits/mo) covers most solo builds; pay-as-you-go at $0.008/credit means a 100K-search month is $800 if you grow there.
Pricing
Researcher
- Monthly
- Free
- Annual /mo
- Free
- Billing
- flat
- Notes
- 1,000 API credits/mo;Email support;No credit card required · Free forever. Genuinely usable for solo builders and POCs.
Pay-as-you-go
- Monthly
- n/a
- Annual /mo
- n/a
- Billing
- usage
- Notes
- $0.008/credit;Flexible usage model;Email support · No monthly minimum. Best when usage is variable.
Project
- Monthly
- n/a
- Annual /mo
- n/a
- Billing
- flat
- Notes
- 4,000 API credits/mo;Higher rate limits;Email support · Monthly subscription. Pricing displayed dynamically on Tavily's site.
Enterprise
- Monthly
- n/a
- Annual /mo
- n/a
- Billing
- flat
- Notes
- Custom API calls;Custom rate limits;Enterprise-grade support and SLAs · Contact sales for custom pricing.
| Tier | Monthly | Annual /mo | Billing | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Researcher | Free | Free | flat | 1,000 API credits/mo;Email support;No credit card required · Free forever. Genuinely usable for solo builders and POCs. |
| Pay-as-you-go | n/a | n/a | usage | $0.008/credit;Flexible usage model;Email support · No monthly minimum. Best when usage is variable. |
| Project | n/a | n/a | flat | 4,000 API credits/mo;Higher rate limits;Email support · Monthly subscription. Pricing displayed dynamically on Tavily's site. |
| Enterprise | n/a | n/a | flat | Custom API calls;Custom rate limits;Enterprise-grade support and SLAs · Contact sales for custom pricing. |
Key features
- Search API designed for LLM grounding (clean text, citations)
- 1,000 free credits/mo on Researcher tier
- $0.008/credit pay-as-you-go
- Project tier with 4,000 credits/mo and higher rate limits
- Free student tier
- Native LangChain, LlamaIndex, Vercel AI SDK integrations
- Used as default search in many coding agents
Integrations
Trust & compliance
- Stage range
- Solopreneur → MVP
- Founded
- 2023
- Status
- active
- SOC 2
- unknown
- GDPR
- unknown
- Data residency
- unknown
- External rating
- n/a
- Last verified
- Jun 2026
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