Exa vs You.com
Exa and You.com are both AI assistants tools. Exa is aimed at developers and enterprise, while You.com is aimed at small businesses and developers. Both have a free plan.
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| Starting price | Not published | Not published |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Built for | Developers, Enterprise, Small businesses | Small businesses, Developers |
| Platforms | web | web, ios, android |
| Country | US · 2021 | US · 2020 |
| Rating | — | — |
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).
Choose You.com if
Teams wanting customizable AI search and agents.
- Model choice
- Cited research
- Agent builder
Look elsewhere if: Casual consumer search.
Exa vs You.com pricing
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
You.com
- Free$0100 Web Search API queries/day via MCP, no API key
- Pay as you go$5/1k callsWeb Search API; $10 free credit; no minimums
- EnterpriseCustomZDR, SOC 2, custom QPS, SLA support
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
You.com · Key features
- AI search with citations
- Research mode
- Multiple model choice
- Custom agents
- Enterprise connectors
- API
Cons
- Smaller user base
- Overlaps with Perplexity
- Shifting positioning
Exa vs You.com: FAQ
Do Exa and You.com have a free plan?
Yes, both Exa and You.com have a free plan; paid plans add more usage and features.