Free-offer comparison
Free AI Search APIs
Web queries, site indexing, and retrieval are different workloads. Match the free quota to the search endpoint your app will call.
Guide updated Sep 20, 2026 · Offer review and source dates appear below · Methodology
Free-offer ranking
Each row describes the provider’s recorded free offer, which may cover a different product from the category shown here. The table keeps published units separate. “Not confirmed” means we lack evidence for that detail; it does not mean the provider requires a card.
Scroll horizontally to compare every column.
| Rank | Provider | Free-access score | Recorded free offer | Access pattern | Billing/card | Offer note | Full review | Official source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Firecrawl | 100/100 | 1K credits/mo | Recurring allowance | No card confirmed | The free monthly credit balance is consumed at different rates by endpoint. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Jul 17, 2026 |
| #2 | SERP Search | 95/100 | 1K requests/mo | Recurring allowance | No card confirmed | Free tier provides 1,000 API requests/month with no card and full access to ten endpoints covering search, images, news, videos, maps, and related structured SERP data. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Jul 17, 2026 |
| #3 | Tavily | 95/100 | 1K credits/mo | Recurring allowance | No card confirmed | 1,000 API credits every month with no credit card. Credits cover its agent-focused Search, Extract, Map, Crawl, and Research APIs, with endpoint-dependent consumption. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Jul 17, 2026 |
| #4 | Exa | 75/100 | Recurring free credit: $10 credits per month; Signup credit: $20 credits total | Recurring allowance | Not confirmed | Signup credits and recurring monthly credits are separate balances. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #5 | Cohere | 75/100 | 1K requests/mo | Recurring allowance | Not confirmed | Trial keys are limited to 1,000 requests per month and 20 req/minute on Chat API; suitable for testing and proofs of concept but not production or commercial use | Jul 19, 2026 | View documentationAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #6 | OpenRouter | 75/100 | 50 requests/day | Recurring allowance | Not confirmed | The free-model allowance is 50 requests per day and 20 requests per minute; choose a model marked free. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #7 | Mem0 | 70/100 | Memory adds: 10,000 requests per month; Memory retrievals: 1,000 requests per month | Recurring allowance | Not confirmed | 10,000 memory-add requests per month. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #8 | Brave Search API | 70/100 | $5 credit/mo | Recurring allowance | Not confirmed | $5 monthly credit shared across eligible API products at their respective rates. | Jul 17, 2026 | View documentationAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #9 | OCR.space | 70/100 | 25K requests/mo | Recurring allowance | Not confirmed | Daily and monthly caps, file-size and PDF-page limits, watermarking, and no SLA apply. | Jul 17, 2026 | Visit provider websiteAccessed Jul 17, 2026 |
| #10 | Weaviate | 70/100 | 1K requests/mo | Recurring allowance | Not confirmed | 1,000 Query Agent request units per month; Ask can consume four units per query. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #11 | Milvus (Zilliz Cloud) | 65/100 | 5 GB | Ongoing free access | Not confirmed | Free tier on serverless cluster; paid plans start at $0.30/GB or $99/mo dedicated | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 20, 2026 |
| #12 | Google Cloud AI Startup Program | 65/100 | Up to $350K credit | One-time balance | Not confirmed | $350,000 is the maximum advertised program award, not a guaranteed signup credit. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #13 | AWS Activate / Amazon Bedrock | 65/100 | Up to $200K credit | One-time balance | Not confirmed | Founders and Portfolio awards have different eligibility rules and amounts. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #14 | Jina AI | 60/100 | 10.0M tokens | One-time balance | Not confirmed | The free token tier is labeled for non-commercial use only (CC BY-NC) on the provider page. | Jul 17, 2026 | View documentationAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #15 | Pinecone | 60/100 | $300 credit for 21 days | One-time balance | Not confirmed | Starter is an ongoing $0 plan with its own resource limits. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #16 | Anthropic (Claude) | 35/100 | Free tier | Introductory offer | Not confirmed | Credit amount is not published; credits cannot be used through AWS Bedrock or Google Vertex AI. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #17 | xAI (Grok) | 30/100 | Free tier | Free offer recorded | Not confirmed | Free Grok plan includes limited access to real-time web and X search, voice mode, and connectors | Jun 24, 2026 | View documentationAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #18 | Qdrant | 30/100 | Free tier | Introductory offer | Not confirmed | Idle free clusters are suspended after one week and deleted after four weeks unless reactivated. | Jul 17, 2026 | View documentationAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #19 | Browserbase | 30/100 | Free tier | Introductory offer | Not confirmed | Browser hours, Agent runs, Search calls, Fetch calls, and model tokens use separate allowances. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Jul 17, 2026 |
| #20 | Voyage AI | 30/100 | Free tier | Introductory offer | Not confirmed | Token allowances vary by model family; they are not one universal balance. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Jul 17, 2026 |
Why these providers appear in this order
We score each provider’s recorded free offer: up to 40 points for recurring or durable access, 20 for a confirmed no-card signup, 15 for a stated allowance, 15 for distinct evidence links, and 10 for documented terms. Missing details earn no points. Ties favor longer-lasting access, then more detailed records, then provider name. The score does not measure product quality or whether the free offer covers this category. Read the full method before treating it as a recommendation.
Which providers are included?
We include active directory records tagged for AI search APIs. A tag describes a provider’s capability; its recorded free offer may cover only part of that provider’s catalog. Check the model or endpoint in the provider’s terms before building on the allowance.
See the full AI search APIs category, including records excluded from this guide.