Context.dev vs Exa
Context.dev and Exa are both developer tools tools. Context.dev is aimed at developers and small businesses, while Exa is aimed at developers and enterprise. Both have a free plan.
One API for scraping, search, brand data and people search
Web search and content API built for AI agents and LLM apps
| Pricing | Freemium · $20 | Freemium |
| Starting price | $20/mo | Not published |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Built for | Developers, Small businesses, Enterprise | Developers, Enterprise, Small businesses |
| Platforms | web | web |
| Country | — | US · 2021 |
| Rating | — | — |
Choose Context.dev if
Developers and AI agent builders who want scraping, search, brand data and people search behind one API and one credit balance.
- One credit pool covers scraping, search, brand and people data
- Free tier with 1,000 monthly credits and no credit card
- Strong agent tooling: MCP server, Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor guides
Look elsewhere if: Sales teams that want a ready-made prospecting app with sequences rather than an API (Apollo), or pure neural web search (Exa).
Choose Exa if
Developers and AI teams who need a fast, controllable web search and content layer for agents, RAG or research products.
- Free $10 monthly credit grant with no card required
- Lite search at $4 per 1,000 requests suits high-volume agents
- Highlights cut token usage and LLM costs compared with full pages
Look elsewhere if: Non-technical users who want a finished answer engine or chat app rather than an API (Perplexity, You.com).
Context.dev vs Exa pricing
Context.dev
- Free$0/mo1,000 credits/mo, no overage, no credit card required
- Developer$20/mo10,000 credits, $3 per 1,000 overage; 2 months free yearly
- Pro$90/mo100K credits; tiers up to 2.5M cost up to $950/mo; $2/1K overage
- EnterpriseCustomCustom credits, dedicated Slack, 99.9% uptime SLA
Exa
- Free$0$10 in credits every month plus a one-time $10 onboarding bonus
- Search Lite$4/1,000 requestsUp to 10 results per request; $1 per 1k extra results
- Search Auto$7/1,000 requestsUp to 10 results per request; AI summaries $1 per 1k pages
- Deep Search$12/1,000 requestsdeep-lite (about 4 seconds) and deep (4 to 15 seconds) types
- Contents$1/1,000 pagesPer content type; prepaid credits, no subscription or minimum
Context.dev · Key features
- Scrape any URL to Markdown, HTML, screenshots or JSON with JS rendering
- Crawl and Map endpoints for whole-site content and URL discovery
- Web Search and Answers that return source-backed JSON in your shape
- Brand, Styleguide and Logo Link endpoints for logos, colors and fonts
- People Search in fast or ultra mode with country and experience filters
- Company search, person enrichment and news search endpoints
Cons
- Credit cost per call ranges from 1 to 100, which complicates budgeting
- Larger credit tiers cost $300 to $950 a month before Enterprise
- 99.9% uptime SLA only on the custom Enterprise plan
Exa · Key features
- Search API with lite, auto, deep-lite and deep types on one independent index
- Dynamic Highlights that pass only the most relevant tokens to the model
- Contents API for full page text, highlights and AI summaries
- Agent API for cited research, list building and enrichment with structured output
- Coverage of people, companies, code, papers, ecommerce listings and local businesses
- Monitors for recurring searches and Websets for verified datasets
Cons
- No flat monthly plan, so spend rises directly with traffic
- Websets API needs a separate paid Websets plan and credits
- Benchmark leadership is reported by Exa itself
Context.dev vs Exa: FAQ
Do Context.dev and Exa have a free plan?
Yes, both Context.dev and Exa have a free plan; paid plans add more usage and features.