Brave Search API
6.6/10A pay-as-you-go web search API built on Brave's own independent index. It returns search results, LLM-ready context and cited AI answers to developers building AI apps and agents.
Data last updated November 2026 · Our methodology
Overview
Brave Search API gives programmatic access to the web index that Brave Software runs itself, with its own crawler and ranking, so it does not depend on Google or Bing. There are endpoints for web, news, image, video and place search, plus autosuggest and spellcheck. For AI builders there is an LLM Context endpoint that returns ranked, extracted page content sized from about 1k to 33k tokens, and an Answers endpoint that returns summarized, cited answers. Answers is compatible with the OpenAI SDK and supports streaming. Goggles let teams re-rank or filter sources, for example by boosting trusted domains. Its main buyers are developers grounding chatbots and agents, and teams moving off Google's Custom Search JSON API, which shuts down on 1 January 2027. Pricing is prepaid credit with no subscription. Search costs $5 per 1,000 requests at up to 50 queries per second. Answers costs $4 per 1,000 requests plus $5 per million tokens, at 2 queries per second. Each plan includes $5 of free credit a month, but a credit card is required. Enterprise adds custom capacity, full zero data retention and contracts. The service is SOC 2 Type II attested, and Brave says queries are never shared or trained on. Brave also offers a first-party MCP server for agent frameworks. The main limitations are in the terms of use. Storing results or using them for model training requires a plan with storage rights. Each request returns at most 20 results. The Answers rate limit is low for high-volume use.
Our Rating
Who Brave Search API is best for
Good fit
It is an API-only product with OpenAI SDK compatibility and an MCP server, built for engineers adding search to their apps.
SaaS products can ground their AI features in an independent web index at 50 queries per second.
Prepaid credits with no minimums plus $5 of free monthly credit keep the cost of early experiments low.
The Enterprise plan offers zero data retention, NDAs, custom capacity and invoicing, backed by SOC 2 Type II.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Brave runs its own independent web index, so results do not depend on Google or Bing and their outages or terms.
- The Search plan allows a high 50 queries per second, above some competitor defaults.
- The LLM Context endpoint returns extracted page content within a configurable token budget, ready to feed into a model.
- SOC 2 Type II attestation, and Brave says queries are never shared or trained on.
- Simple prepaid billing with no minimums and $5 of free monthly credit.
Cons
- The old no-card free plan was retired in early 2026, and a credit card is now required.
- Storing results or using them for AI training requires a plan with explicit storage rights.
- The Answers endpoint is capped at 2 queries per second.
- Each request returns at most 20 results, so deeper result lists need several billed calls.
- Free-tier details conflict across Brave's own pages ($5 versus up to $20).
Key Features
Not included
- Custom Model Training
- Image Generation
- Video Generation
Brave Search API Pricing
Answers
- 2 queries per second
- OpenAI SDK compatible
- Citations and streaming
- $5 free credit per month
- $4 per 1,000 requests plus $5 per million tokens
Enterprise
- Full zero data retention
- Custom agreements and NDAs
- Custom capacity and endpoints
- Invoicing and enterprise support
Search
- Goggles re-ranking
- $5 per 1,000 requests
- 50 queries per second
- Schema-enriched results
- $5 free credit per month
- Web, news, image, video, place search and LLM Context
Frequently Asked Questions
There is no separate free plan. Each plan includes $5 of free credit a month, roughly 1,000 search requests, but you need a credit card to activate it.
Not by default. Storing results, including for caching or vector stores, or using them for training requires a plan that grants storage rights.
The Search plan allows 50 queries per second and the Answers plan 2 queries per second. Higher capacity is negotiated under Enterprise.
It is SOC 2 Type II attested. Enterprise adds full zero data retention, custom agreements and NDAs.
Brave publishes a migration guide for Google's Custom Search JSON API, which shuts down on 1 January 2027.
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