#1 Brave Search API Alternative
Search the web with up to 100 ranked results per call, the passages that answer your query read from every result page, and optional full-page Markdown, then scrape, crawl, and map on the same key. Ten results with passages cost $1.80 per 1,000 searches on Context.dev Pro; the Brave Search API charges $5.00 per 1,000 requests. On Openbenchmarks’ factual lookup board, Context.dev answered 98.0% of 300 questions and Brave’s LLM Context endpoint 94.0%.
1,000 agent searches, two ways
Context.dev Pro and the Brave Search plan, November 2026 list prices
Brave bills a flat $5 per 1,000 requests on its Search plan: up to 20 web results per Web Search call, or passages from up to 50 URLs per LLM Context call. At 50 results with passages, Brave ($5.00) costs less than Context.dev Pro ($9.00).
Powering agents and products with the world's data.
Why switch
The Brave Search API and Context.dev both give agents web search on one key. Brave returns snippets or extracted passages from its own index at a flat $5 per 1,000 requests; Context.dev bills by the results you ask for, can return every result page in full as Markdown, adds scrape, crawl, map, batches, and monitors, and lets you keep what you retrieve.
- Key difference
Ten results with passages for $1.80 per 1,000, not $5
Context.dev Web Search returns 1 to 100 ranked results per call for 1 credit per 10 results, and highlights add the passages that answer your query, read from every result page, for 1 credit per 10 more. Ten results with passages cost 2 credits, or $1.80 per 1,000 searches on Pro ($90/mo). Brave charges $5.00 per 1,000 requests whether you call Web Search (up to 20 results with extra snippets) or LLM Context (passages from up to 50 URLs). Its price is flat per call, so for large result sets Brave costs less: 50 results with passages are 10 credits on Context.dev ($9.00 per 1,000) against $5.00.
- Independent benchmark
98.0% accuracy on 300 factual lookups, against Brave’s 94.0%
On Openbenchmarks’ factual lookup board, which sends the same 300 questions through 13 web search APIs with one extraction model and one judge, Context.dev scored 98.0% accuracy in the October 21, 2026 measurement, with answer recall at five of 98.3%. Brave’s LLM Context endpoint scored 94.0% and its Web Search endpoint 93.3%, at $5.32 and $5.36 per 1,000 correct answers against $4.49. Brave answered much faster, at a median of 601 ms against 15.93 s for Context.dev with highlights. The board flags a timing bias in this task and is re-running every vendor. See the dated results on our benchmarks page.
- Page content
Full pages as Markdown, not snippets or capped chunks
Brave Web Search returns a title, a description, and up to five extra snippets per result. LLM Context returns extracted chunks from Brave’s index, capped at 8,192 tokens per URL and 32,768 per call. Context.dev can return every result page in full as Markdown for 1 credit per page (10 results in full cost 11 credits, $9.90 per 1,000 on Pro), parses PDF results, and takes maxAgeMs of 0 to force a fresh read. Brave has no endpoint that fetches a page by URL.
- Data rights
Keep, reuse, and train on what you retrieve
Brave’s Search API Terms of Use, last updated September 1, 2026, bar storing, caching, or building a database of search results beyond transient storage, and using them to train, fine-tune, evaluate, or benchmark AI models. Brave’s site says storing results or training on them needs a plan with storage rights, which its public Search and Answers plans do not list. Context.dev’s terms grant a perpetual, irrevocable license to use, copy, modify, and distribute output for any lawful purpose, including AI applications and model training. Rights in the third-party content itself stay with its owners.
- Beyond search
Scrape, crawl, map, and batch on the same key
Brave’s API covers search: web, LLM Context, news, images, videos, places, answers, spellcheck, and autosuggest. Context.dev adds Scrape at 1 credit per page with JavaScript rendering, managed proxies, and anti-bot handling always on, Crawl at 1 credit per page, Map at 1 credit per call, and Batches of up to 100,000 URLs with failed pages refunded. The same scrape returns rendered HTML, screenshots, and JSON against your schema for 5 credits.
- Free plan
A free plan with no card, instead of credit that needs one
On February 12, 2026, Brave replaced its free plan for new accounts with $5 of credit a month on each plan, or 1,000 Search requests. Brave’s quickstart asks for a credit card to activate a plan, and the credit requires attributing Brave on your website or about page; accounts already on the old free plan keep it. Context.dev Free includes 1,000 credits a month with no credit card: 1,000 searches of 10 results, or 500 with passages.
- Monitoring
New search results pushed to your webhook
Context.dev Monitors can run a search on a schedule and report only the results you have not seen before, for 2 credits per run, or re-check a page or sitemap for 1 credit, and post changes to your webhook. Failed and skipped runs are free. Brave’s API has no monitors or webhooks, so you poll and diff the results yourself.
What one request really costs
What 1,000 requests cost on Context.dev Pro and on Brave’s Search and Answers plans, by what you need back. Brave bills per request whatever the result count; Context.dev bills per 10 results.
| Request | Context.dev | Brave Search API | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search, 10 results with titles and snippetsBrave Web Search, extra snippets included | $0.90 (1 credit) | $5.00 | 5.6x more |
| Search, 20 results with titles and snippetsBrave’s maximum per Web Search call | $1.80 (2 credits) | $5.00 | 2.8x more |
| Search, 10 results with relevant passagesContext.dev highlights; Brave LLM Context | $1.80 (2 credits) | $5.00 | 2.8x more |
| Search, 50 results with relevant passagesBrave LLM Context takes up to 50 URLs a call | $9.00 (10 credits) | $5.00 | 1.8x less |
| Search, 100 resultsBrave returns 20 per call, so five paginated calls | $9.00 (10 credits) | $25.00 | 2.8x more |
| Search, 10 results as full-page MarkdownBrave returns snippets or passages, not full pages | $9.90 (11 credits) | Not offered | Not offered |
| News search, 10 articlesContext.dev News Search; Brave News Search | $0.90 (1 credit) | $5.00 | 5.6x more |
| Page by URL as Markdown, renderedBrave has no fetch or scrape endpoint | $0.90 (1 credit) | Not offered | Not offered |
| Sourced answer to a questionContext.dev Answers in fast mode; Brave Answers | $9.00 (10 credits) | $4.00 plus tokens | Depends on tokens |
Derived from Context.dev Pro ($90 for 100,000 credits) at monthly billing and Brave’s prepaid list prices, which are the same at any spend. Brave Answers adds $5.00 per million input tokens and $5.00 per million output tokens to its $4.00 per 1,000 queries. Brave rates are from brave.com/search/api and api-dashboard.search.brave.com/documentation/pricing.
Full comparison
| Feature | Context.dev | Brave Search API |
|---|---|---|
| Search | ||
| Web search with ranked results | Yes | Yes |
| Results per search call | Up to 100 | 20 web, 50 LLM Context |
| How search is billed | Per 10 results | Flat per request |
| 10 results with snippets | $0.90/1K on Pro | $5.00/1K |
| 10 results with relevant passages | $1.80/1K on Pro | $5.00/1K |
| 50 results with relevant passages | $9.00/1K on Pro | $5.00/1K |
| Full-page Markdown for each result | 1 credit per page | No |
| Force a fresh read of result pages | Yes | Index copy only |
| Freshness filter | Day, week, month, year | Plus custom date ranges |
| Domain include and exclude lists | Up to 100 each | Goggles and site: |
| Custom reranking rules | No | Goggles |
| News search | 1 credit per 10 results | $5.00/1K |
| Image and video search | No | Yes |
| Places and local results | Google Maps parser | Place Search |
| Spellcheck and autosuggest APIs | No | $5.00 per 10K |
| Sourced answers | $9.00/1K on Pro | $4.00/1K plus tokens |
| Scraping & Crawling | ||
| Scrape any URL to Markdown | Yes | No |
| JavaScript rendering and anti-bot handling | Always included | No |
| Screenshots and JSON extraction against your schema | Yes | No |
| Crawl and map a site | Yes | No |
| Async batch scraping | Up to 100,000 URLs | No |
| Search and page monitors with webhooks | Yes | No |
| Pricing & Billing | ||
| Billing model | Monthly credit plans | Prepaid credits |
| Free allowance | 1,000 credits/mo, no card | $5/mo per plan, card required |
| Rate limit | 10 to 500 concurrent | 50 requests/second |
| Self-serve yearly billing | 2 months free | Not published |
| Data Rights & Privacy | ||
| Store results and train models on them | Allowed by the terms | Storage-rights plan |
| Zero data retention | On request | Enterprise plan |
| Developer Experience | ||
| MCP server | Yes | Yes |
| Also Included: Brand & Company Data | ||
| Brand profile by domain, name, email, or ticker | Yes | No |
| Logo CDN for direct embedding (Logo Link) | Yes | No |
Cost per 1,000 searches
Public list prices on both sites, broken down to the cost of 1,000 searches of 10 results at each tier. Brave charges the same prepaid rate at any spend, so each row shows what the same spend buys there.
| Tier | Context.dev | Brave Search API |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free $0/mo 1,000 credits 2 concurrent requests $0 per 1K searches, 10 results | Monthly credit $0, card required $5 of credit a month 50 requests per second 1,000 searches a month, up to 20 results $5.00 per 1K searches past the credit |
| Entry | Developer $20/mo 5,000 credits 10 concurrent requests $3.33–$4.00 per 1K searches, 10 results | Search, prepaid $20 prepaid 4,000 requests 50 requests per second $5.00 per 1K searches, up to 20 results $5.00 per 1K LLM Context calls |
| Mid | Pro $90/mo 100,000 credits 100 concurrent requests $0.75–$0.90 per 1K searches, 10 results | Search, prepaid $90 prepaid 18,000 requests 50 requests per second $5.00 per 1K searches, up to 20 results $5.00 per 1K LLM Context calls |
| Growth | Growth $300/mo 500,000 credits 250 concurrent requests $0.50–$0.60 per 1K searches, 10 results | Search, prepaid $300 prepaid 60,000 requests 50 requests per second $5.00 per 1K searches, up to 20 results $5.00 per 1K LLM Context calls |
| High volume | Scale $500/mo 1,000,000 credits 500 concurrent requests $0.42–$0.50 per 1K searches, 10 results | Search, prepaid $500 prepaid 100,000 requests 50 requests per second $5.00 per 1K searches, up to 20 results $5.00 per 1K LLM Context calls |
- Cost per 1,000 searches compares 10 results with titles and snippets: 1 credit on Context.dev and one Web Search request on Brave. Brave’s $5.00 covers up to 20 results with up to five extra snippets each, schema-enriched results, and Goggles, but no page text beyond snippets. Context.dev ranges run from yearly to monthly billing.
- Brave’s LLM Context endpoint costs the same $5.00 per 1,000 requests and returns passages from up to 50 URLs, capped at 8,192 tokens per URL and 32,768 per call. Context.dev highlights add 1 credit per 10 results and full-page Markdown 1 credit per page, so Brave costs less for 30 or more results with passages per call.
- Brave prices are from brave.com/search/api and api-dashboard.search.brave.com/documentation/pricing: Search at $5 per 1,000 requests and 50 requests per second, Answers at $4 per 1,000 queries plus $5 per million input and output tokens and 2 requests per second, and Spellcheck and Autosuggest at $5 per 10,000 requests. Each plan includes $5 of credit a month, up to $20 across all four, if you attribute Brave on your site. Allowances above exclude that credit.
- Brave announced these plans on February 12, 2026 (brave.com/blog/most-powerful-search-api-for-ai), replacing the free plan for new accounts; a Brave engineer confirmed on GitHub (openclaw/openclaw#16629) that existing free plans continue. Storage and AI-training limits are from Brave’s Search API Terms of Use, last updated September 1, 2026 (api-dashboard.search.brave.com/terms-of-service).
Prices and plans checked on .
Which one fits
Both give agents live web search on one key. These are the cases where the choice is clear. For formats, pricing, and code, see the Context.dev web search API.
Choose Context.dev if
- Your agents read the pages behind the results: passages from every result page or each page in full as Markdown, plus scrape, crawl, map, and batches of up to 100,000 URLs on the same key.
- You search with about 10 to 20 results per call: 10 results with passages cost $1.80 per 1,000 on Pro against $5.00 on Brave, and 100 results come back in one call instead of five.
- You want to keep what you retrieve. Context.dev’s terms let you store, reuse, and train on output; Brave’s terms bar storage and AI training without a storage-rights plan.
- You want a free plan with no card, and accuracy first: 98.0% against Brave’s 94.0% on Openbenchmarks’ factual lookup board.
Choose Brave Search API if
- Latency is your constraint. On Openbenchmarks’ factual lookup board, Brave’s LLM Context endpoint answered in a median of 601 ms against 15.93 s for Context.dev with highlights.
- You want an independent index. Brave answers every query from its own crawler and index, with no fallback to Google or Bing.
- You pull many passages per query: a flat $5.00 per 1,000 LLM Context calls covers up to 50 URLs, against $9.00 for 50 results with passages on Context.dev Pro.
- You need image, video, or place search, spellcheck or autosuggest APIs, Goggles reranking, custom date ranges, or packaged answers at $4.00 per 1,000 plus tokens.
A few things to know.
More details in the API documentation.
What is the best Brave Search API alternative?
Context.dev is a Brave Search API alternative for teams whose agents search the web and then read the pages. Its Web Search returns up to 100 ranked results per call, with the passages that answer your query or each page as full Markdown, and the same key covers scrape, crawl, map, batches of up to 100,000 URLs, and page monitors. Ten results with passages cost $1.80 per 1,000 searches on Pro against $5.00 on Brave. If latency, an independent index, or image and video search matter most, Brave is the better fit.
How much does the Brave Search API cost?
As of November 8, 2026, the Brave Search API’s Search plan costs $5.00 per 1,000 requests, prepaid, for Web Search, LLM Context, news, images, videos, and places, at up to 50 requests per second. The Answers plan costs $4.00 per 1,000 queries plus $5.00 per million input and output tokens, at 2 requests per second. Spellcheck and Autosuggest cost $5.00 per 10,000 requests. Each plan includes $5 of credit a month. On Context.dev Pro ($90 for 100,000 credits), 10 search results cost $0.90 per 1,000 searches and 10 results with passages $1.80.
Is the Brave Search API free?
Not as a standalone plan for new accounts since February 12, 2026. Each Brave Search API plan includes $5 of credit a month, enough for 1,000 Search requests, but activating a plan needs a credit card and the credit requires attributing Brave on your website or about page. Usage past the credit is billed unless you set a $5 spending limit. Accounts that had Brave’s old free plan keep it. Context.dev Free includes 1,000 credits a month with no credit card, enough for 1,000 searches of 10 results.
How do Context.dev and the Brave Search API compare in independent benchmarks?
On Openbenchmarks’ factual lookup board, which sends the same 300 questions through 13 web search APIs with one extraction model and one judge, Context.dev scored 98.0% accuracy in the October 21, 2026 measurement. Brave’s LLM Context endpoint scored 94.0% and its Web Search endpoint 93.3%, at $5.32 and $5.36 per 1,000 correct answers against $4.49 on Context.dev. Brave was far faster, with a median latency of 601 ms against 15.93 s for Context.dev with highlights. The board notes a timing bias in this task and is re-running every vendor. See our benchmarks page.
How do I get a Brave Search API key?
Create an account on the Brave Search API dashboard (api-dashboard.search.brave.com), activate a plan on the Plans page with a credit card, then add a key under API Keys and send it in the X-Subscription-Token header. The Search plan covers both Web Search and LLM Context. A Context.dev key needs no card: sign up for the Free plan and send the key as a Bearer token to POST /web/search.
Does the Brave Search API return full page content?
No. Brave Web Search returns a title, a description, and up to five extra snippets per result, and its LLM Context endpoint returns extracted chunks from Brave’s index, capped at 8,192 tokens per URL and 32,768 per call. Brave has no endpoint that fetches a page by URL. Context.dev Web Search can return every result page as full Markdown for 1 credit per page, or only the relevant passages for 1 credit per 10 results, and Scrape reads any URL for 1 credit with JavaScript rendering and anti-bot handling included.
Can I store Brave Search API results or use them to train AI models?
Not on a standard plan. Brave’s Search API Terms of Use, last updated September 1, 2026, bar storing, caching, or building a database of search results beyond transient storage, and using them to train, fine-tune, evaluate, or benchmark AI models. Brave says storage and training need a plan that includes storage rights, which its public Search and Answers plans do not list. Context.dev’s terms grant a perpetual license to use, copy, modify, and distribute output for any lawful purpose, including model training.
How does the Brave Search API compare with Tavily?
On Openbenchmarks’ factual lookup board (October 21, 2026), Brave’s LLM Context endpoint scored 94.0% accuracy on 300 questions and Tavily 93.0% at advanced depth and 87.7% at basic. Context.dev scored 98.0% on the same questions. Brave answered fastest of the three, at a median of 601 ms. Tavily includes page content in a search and adds extraction, crawl, and map; see our Tavily comparison for its pricing.
Can I migrate from the Brave Search API to Context.dev?
Most calls map directly. Web Search and LLM Context both become POST /web/search: count becomes numResults (up to 100), freshness becomes last_24_hours, last_week, last_month, or last_year, and extra snippets or LLM Context passages become highlightsOptions, with markdownOptions for full pages. News search maps to POST /news/search and Brave Answers to POST /web/answers. Goggles, custom date ranges, image, video, and place search, spellcheck, and autosuggest have no Context.dev equivalent.
When is the Brave Search API the better choice?
Choose the Brave Search API when latency matters most: on Openbenchmarks’ factual lookup board its LLM Context endpoint answered in a median of 601 ms. Pick it too if you want an independent index with no Google or Bing fallback, many passages per call (a flat $5.00 per 1,000 for up to 50 URLs), image, video, or place search, spellcheck and autosuggest, Goggles reranking, or custom date ranges.
More comparisons
Other search APIs that teams compare with Context.dev, or see every comparison.
- Context.dev vs Linkup98.0% accuracy on Openbenchmarks’ factual lookups against Linkup’s 96.7%, and 38 of 40 agent scrape tasks finished on Scrapingbench against 34.
- Context.dev vs SerpApiTen search results for $0.90 per 1,000 searches instead of $15, with passages or full-page Markdown from every result in the same call.
- Context.dev vs Tavily98.0% accuracy on Openbenchmarks’ 300 factual lookups against Tavily’s 93.0%, with the relevant passages from every result for 2 credits.
Ready to switch from the Brave Search API?
Point your Web Search and LLM Context calls at POST /web/search, add passages or full-page Markdown per result, and start on the free plan with 1,000 credits a month and no card.