#1 Exa Alternative
Search, scrape, and crawl the web through one API, with anti-bot handling in every 1-credit scrape. Exa’s Contents API bills text, highlights, and summaries at $1 per 1,000 pages each, and its crawler does not try to get past CAPTCHAs. Ten search results with relevant passages cost $1.80 per 1,000 searches on Context.dev Pro and $4 to $7 on Exa. On TRACE, the open-source daily scraping benchmark, Context.dev returned useful content on 87.0% of 2,527 fresh pages and Exa on 79.1%.
1,000 rendered pages and 1,000 searches
Context.dev Pro and Exa pay-as-you-go, October 2026 list prices
Exa bills text, highlights, and summaries at $1 per 1,000 pages each, and its $7 search includes full text for 10 results; 10 Markdown results on Context.dev cost $9.90. Exa’s $1 page rate beats Context.dev Developer ($2.00).
Powering agents and products with the world's data.
Why switch
Exa and Context.dev both search the web and return page content for agents. Exa bills each content view separately and does not try to get past CAPTCHAs; Context.dev returns Markdown, HTML, a screenshot, and images from one 1-credit scrape, with anti-bot handling always on.
- Key difference
One credit for Markdown, HTML, a screenshot, and images
Exa’s Contents API bills each view of a page separately: text, highlights, and summaries are $1 per 1,000 pages each, so all three cost $3. A Context.dev scrape returns Markdown, rendered HTML, a screenshot, and images for 1 credit, or $0.90 per 1,000 pages on Pro ($90/mo). Exa has no screenshot output, and its HTML option adds only lightweight tags to the text.
- Anti-bot
Bot-protected pages, included in the base price
Exa’s FAQ says its crawler does not attempt to bypass logins, paywalls, or CAPTCHAs. Context.dev renders JavaScript and runs managed proxies and anti-bot handling on every scrape at no extra cost. Every request can pick a proxy country, and paid plans add saved browser profiles for pages behind a sign-in.
- Benchmarks
87.0% of fresh pages returned with useful content, against Exa’s 79.1%
On TRACE, the open-source daily benchmark that sends about 2,500 fresh pages to four scraping APIs with caching off and judges them without seeing the provider name, Context.dev returned useful content on 87.0% of 2,527 pages in the November 6, 2026 sample and Exa on 79.1%, at $0.79 against $1.26 per 1,000 useful pages and a p95 of 8.9 s against 18.1 s. Context.dev has ranked first in every daily sample so far. On Openbenchmarks’ factual lookup board, Context.dev scored 98.0% accuracy on 300 questions at $4.49 per 1,000 correct answers, the lowest of the five most accurate endpoints; Exa’s endpoints work out to $7.05 and $7.17. See the dated results and source links on our benchmarks page.
- Search
Search with relevant passages for $1.80 per 1,000 calls
Context.dev Web Search returns up to 100 ranked results and can add the passages that answer your query, read from every result page. Ten results with passages cost 2 credits, or $1.80 per 1,000 searches on Pro. Exa charges $7 per 1,000 searches on auto and $4 on instant, with text and highlights for the first 10 results included. If you want every result page in full, Context.dev Markdown bills 1 credit per page (11 credits, $9.90 per 1,000 searches), which costs more than Exa.
- Crawl
Crawl, map, and batch whole sites
Exa follows up to 100 subpages per Contents request, has no map endpoint, and its Batch API is an Enterprise beta for search and agent runs only. Context.dev crawls at 1 credit per page, maps a site’s URLs for 1 credit, and runs batches of up to 100,000 URLs with every Scrape output, failed pages refunded, and results kept for 180 days.
- Throughput
100 concurrent requests on Pro, not 10 searches per second
Exa limits search to 10 queries per second by default and raises it to 25 for 90 days only after you buy $1,000 of credits within 30 days. Context.dev Pro allows 100 concurrent requests with no per-minute cap, and Scale allows 500. A request over the limit gets a 429 with Retry-After, and 429s are never billed.
- Interaction
Browser actions, page monitors, and parsers on the same key
Run up to five browser actions per scrape (a natural-language step, scroll, wait, or wait for a selector) for 2 credits on paid plans. Monitors watch a page or sitemap for changes for 1 credit per run and post them to your webhook; Exa’s monitors re-run a search for $15 per 1,000 runs. Prebuilt parsers return Google Maps listings, app store and G2 reviews, and Instagram profiles.
What one request really costs
What 1,000 requests cost on Context.dev Pro and at Exa’s pay-as-you-go rates, by what you need back. Exa bills each content view separately; a Context.dev page is 1 credit for Markdown, HTML, a screenshot, and images.
| Request | Context.dev | Exa | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rendered page as text or MarkdownOne content view on Exa’s Contents API | $0.90 | $1.00 | 1.1x more |
| The same page with relevant highlightsTwo views on Exa; 1 extra credit on Context.dev | $1.80 (2 credits) | $2.00 | 1.1x more |
| Page behind a CAPTCHA or bot wallExa’s crawler does not try to bypass CAPTCHAs | $0.90 | Not offered | Not offered |
| Search, 10 results with relevant passagesExa auto search; instant is $4.00 | $1.80 (2 credits) | $7.00 | 3.9x more |
| Search, 10 results with full-page textContext.dev bills 1 credit per Markdown page | $9.90 (11 credits) | $7.00 | 1.4x less |
| JSON extraction against your schemaExa returns it as a summary with a schema | $4.50 (5 credits) | $1.00 | 4.5x less |
| Sourced answer to a questionContext.dev Answers in fast mode; Exa /answer | $9.00 (10 credits) | $5.00 | 1.8x less |
Derived from Context.dev Pro ($90 for 100,000 credits) at monthly billing and Exa’s pay-as-you-go list prices, which are the same on every account. Exa rates are from exa.ai/pricing and exa.ai/docs/admin/pricing.
Full comparison
| Feature | Context.dev | Exa |
|---|---|---|
| Scraping & Crawling | ||
| Scrape to Markdown | Yes | Yes |
| Rendered HTML output | Yes | Light HTML tags only |
| JavaScript rendering | Always included | Included |
| Managed proxies and anti-bot handling | Always included | No CAPTCHA bypass |
| Screenshots | Yes | No |
| Several formats for one price | Yes | $1 per 1K per view |
| JSON extraction against your schema | $4.50/1K on Pro | $1/1K as a summary |
| Prebuilt parsers for maps, app stores, reviews | Yes | No |
| Crawl a site | 1 credit/page | Subpages, 100 a call |
| Map site URLs | Yes | No |
| Async batch scraping | Up to 100,000 URLs | Enterprise beta |
| Change monitoring with webhooks | Page and sitemap | New search results |
| Parse PDFs and office documents | Yes | PDFs |
| Country geotargeting | Yes | Search ranking only |
| Signed-in scraping with saved logins | Browser profiles | No |
| Interaction & Search | ||
| Browser actions before capture | Up to 5 actions | No |
| Web search with page content | Yes | Yes |
| 10 results with relevant passages | $1.80/1K on Pro | $4–$7 per 1K |
| 10 results with full-page text | $9.90/1K on Pro | $4–$7 per 1K |
| Neural retrieval on its own index | No | Yes |
| People and publication search categories | No | Yes |
| Exact publish-date range filter | No | Yes |
| Historical page snapshots | No | Yes |
| Sourced answers | $9.00/1K on Pro | $5 per 1K |
| Pricing & Billing | ||
| Billing model | Monthly credit plans | Prepaid balance |
| Failed requests free | Yes | Not stated for URLs |
| Free plan | 1,000 credits/mo | $10 of credits/mo |
| Throughput | 100 concurrent on Pro | 10 searches/second |
| Lowest self-serve price per 1K pages | $0.38 on Scale 2.5M | $1.00, one view |
| Deployment | ||
| Managed API | Yes | Yes |
| Zero data retention | On request | Enterprise only |
| Developer Experience | ||
| Public OpenAPI spec | Yes | Yes |
| TypeScript and Python SDKs | Yes | Yes |
| Go, PHP, and Ruby SDKs | Yes | No |
| CLI | Yes | No |
| 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 pages
Public list prices on both sites, broken down to the cost of 1,000 pages at each tier. Exa charges the same pay-as-you-go rates on every account, so each row shows what the same monthly spend buys there.
| Tier | Context.dev | Exa |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free $0/mo 1,000 credits 2 concurrent requests $0 per 1K pages, any page | Free $0/mo $10 of credits a month 10 QPS search, 100 QPS contents 10,000 page texts a month 2,500 instant searches a month |
| Entry | Developer $20/mo 10,000 credits 10 concurrent requests $1.67–$2.00 per 1K pages, any page | Pay as you go $20 prepaid $20 of credits 10 QPS search, 100 QPS contents $1.00 per 1K pages, one content view +$1.00 per 1K pages for each extra view |
| Mid | Pro $90/mo 100,000 credits 100 concurrent requests $0.75–$0.90 per 1K pages, any page | Pay as you go $90 prepaid $90 of credits 10 QPS search, 100 QPS contents $1.00 per 1K pages, one content view +$1.00 per 1K pages for each extra view |
| Growth | Growth $300/mo 500,000 credits 250 concurrent requests $0.50–$0.60 per 1K pages, any page | Pay as you go $300 prepaid $300 of credits 10 QPS search, 100 QPS contents $1.00 per 1K pages, one content view +$1.00 per 1K pages for each extra view |
| High volume | Scale $500/mo 1,000,000 credits 500 concurrent requests $0.42–$0.50 per 1K pages, any page | Pay as you go $500 prepaid $500 of credits 10 QPS search, 100 QPS contents $1.00 per 1K pages, one content view +$1.00 per 1K pages for each extra view |
- Cost per 1,000 pages assumes one content view of each page: 1 credit per page on Context.dev, where Markdown, rendered HTML, a screenshot, and images come from the same scrape, and $1 per 1,000 pages for one content type on Exa’s Contents API. Context.dev ranges run from yearly to monthly billing.
- Exa bills each extra view separately: text plus highlights is $2 per 1,000 pages, and adding a summary makes it $3. Context.dev highlights add 1 credit. Exa’s crawler does not attempt to bypass CAPTCHAs, so its figures assume pages without bot protection.
- Exa’s $1 Contents rate is below Context.dev Developer ($1.67–$2.00 per 1,000 pages), and its $10 monthly free grant covers more pages than 1,000 free credits. Context.dev costs less per page from Pro up.
- Exa rates are from exa.ai/pricing and exa.ai/docs/admin/pricing. Search is limited to 10 queries per second by default, or 25 for 90 days after $1,000 in purchases within 30 days (exa.ai/docs/admin/billing).
Prices and plans checked on .
Which one fits
Both search the web and return page content for agents. 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
- You fetch specific pages, including bot-protected ones, and want Markdown, rendered HTML, and a screenshot from one 1-credit call.
- You crawl, map, or batch whole sites, up to 100,000 URLs per batch with failed pages refunded and results kept for 180 days.
- You need browser actions, saved logins, or a proxy country before a page is captured.
- Your agents search at volume and passages are enough: 10 results with relevant passages cost $1.80 per 1,000 searches on Pro, with 100 concurrent requests.
Choose Exa if
- Search quality on Exa’s own index is your product: neural retrieval, people, company, and publication search, and instant results in under 200 ms.
- You build enriched lists or research runs: Websets, Agent runs that pull from data providers like Similarweb, and Deep search with field-level citations.
- You want full text with every search result or low-cost extras: $7 per 1,000 searches with text for 10 results, JSON from a summary schema at $1 per 1,000 pages, and /answer at $5 per 1,000.
- You filter by exact publish dates or domain lists of up to 1,200 entries, need historical page snapshots, or want prepaid billing with no subscription.
A few things to know.
More details in the API documentation.
What is the best Exa alternative?
Context.dev is an Exa alternative for teams that search the web and then need the pages themselves. It covers web search with page content, sourced answers, and page contents, and adds rendered HTML, screenshots, anti-bot handling, browser actions, crawl, map, page monitors, and batches of up to 100,000 URLs. If semantic search over Exa’s own index is the core of your product, Exa is the better fit.
How does Exa pricing compare to Context.dev?
Exa search costs $4 (instant) or $7 (auto) per 1,000 requests with text and highlights for the first 10 results included, and each result above 10 adds $1 per 1,000. On the Contents API, text, highlights, and summaries are each billed at $1 per 1,000 pages, so a page with all three costs $3 per 1,000. Context.dev bills 1 credit per scrape for Markdown, rendered HTML, a screenshot, and images ($0.90 per 1,000 pages on Pro) and 2 credits for 10 search results with passages ($1.80 per 1,000 searches).
How do Context.dev and Exa compare in public benchmarks?
On TRACE, the open-source daily benchmark that sends about 2,500 fresh pages to four scraping APIs with caching off and judges them without seeing the provider name, Context.dev returned useful content on 87.0% of 2,527 pages in the November 6, 2026 sample and Exa on 79.1%, at $0.79 against $1.26 per 1,000 useful pages and a p95 of 8.9 s against 18.1 s. Context.dev has ranked first in every daily sample so far. On Openbenchmarks’ factual lookup board, Context.dev scored 98.0% accuracy on 300 questions at $4.49 per 1,000 correct answers, the lowest of the five most accurate endpoints; Exa’s endpoints work out to $7.05 and $7.17. See the dated results and source links on our benchmarks page.
Does Context.dev have a web search API like Exa?
Yes. POST /web/search returns 1 to 100 ranked results per call for 1 credit per 10 results, with language and freshness filters. Highlights, the passages that answer your query read from every result page, add 1 credit per 10 results, so 10 results with passages cost 2 credits ($1.80 per 1,000 searches on Pro, against $4 to $7 on Exa). Full-page Markdown bills 1 credit per page, so 10 results with Markdown cost 11 credits ($9.90), more than Exa’s $7 search with text included. Exa adds its own people and publication indexes and exact publish-date ranges.
Can Context.dev read pages that Exa cannot?
Often, yes. Every Context.dev scrape runs JavaScript rendering, managed proxies, and anti-bot handling, while Exa’s crawler does not attempt to bypass logins, paywalls, or CAPTCHAs. Context.dev can also click or scroll before capture and reuse a saved login on paid plans. If every output of a scrape fails there is no charge, except that a target 404 keeps the base credit. On TRACE, which sends about 2,500 fresh pages a day to four scraping APIs with caching off, Context.dev returned useful content on 87.0% of pages in the November 6, 2026 sample and Exa on 79.1%, with a p95 of 8.9 s against 18.1 s.
Does Context.dev have an answer or deep research endpoint like Exa?
Context.dev Answers researches the web and returns a sourced answer in the JSON shape you provide, for 10 credits in fast mode ($9.00 per 1,000 on Pro) or 100 in ultra mode. Exa’s /answer costs less, at $5 per 1,000 requests. Exa Deep search costs $12 to $15 per 1,000 requests, and Agent runs cost $0.012 to $1.00 each at fixed effort.
Can I migrate from Exa to Context.dev?
Most calls map directly: /search to POST /web/search, /contents to POST /web/scrape (or a batch for long URL lists), subpage crawling to POST /web/crawl, and /answer or Deep search to POST /web/answers. Exa Monitors re-run a search for new results, while Context.dev Monitors watch a page or sitemap for changes. Context.dev ships TypeScript, Python, Ruby, Go, and PHP SDKs, a CLI, and an MCP server. Websets, historical snapshots, and the people and publication indexes have no Context.dev equivalent.
When is Exa the better choice?
Choose Exa when retrieval quality on its own index matters most: neural search, people, company, and publication search, and instant results in under 200 ms. It also costs less for several jobs: full text with every search result ($7 per 1,000 searches against $9.90 for 10 Markdown results on Context.dev Pro), JSON from a summary schema ($1 per 1,000 pages against $4.50), /answer ($5 per 1,000 against $9.00), and single-view Contents ($1 per 1,000 pages against $2.00 on Developer). Its $10 monthly free grant goes further than 1,000 free credits, and Websets builds verified, enriched lists of companies and people.
Does Context.dev offer zero data retention?
Yes. Zero data retention is enabled per organization on request and adds no credits to any request. Exa offers zero data retention on Enterprise plans, enabled per team, and not for Websets.
More comparisons
Other search APIs that teams compare with Context.dev, or see every comparison.
- Context.dev vs You.comSearch passages for $1.80 per 1,000 instead of $5, and 38 of 40 agent scrape tasks finished in an independent benchmark, against 29.
- Context.dev vs Brave Search API98.0% accuracy on Openbenchmarks’ factual lookups against Brave’s 94.0%, with search passages for $1.80 per 1,000 instead of $5 and full pages as Markdown.
- 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.
Ready to switch from Exa?
Point your search and contents calls at Context.dev, get HTML, screenshots, and anti-bot handling in the same credit, and start on the free plan with 1,000 credits a month.