Brave Search API vs Linkup and Tavily
Brave, Linkup, and Tavily are the three most commonly evaluated search APIs for AI agent grounding. With Brave removing its free tier in February 2026 and Tavily introducing new tiers, the pricing landscape has shifted. This three-way comparison breaks down real costs at different volume levels.
50 free credits · no credit card
Brave Search API
$5 per 1,000 queries. Free tier removed February 2026
Strengths
- Independent search index (not Google-dependent)
- Privacy-focused with no user tracking
- Clean, fast API with good documentation
- Competitive per-query pricing at scale
Weaknesses
- Free tier removed in February 2026
- Web search only -- no ecommerce, social, or video platforms
- Smaller index than Google for niche queries
- No AI Overview or rich SERP feature data
Linkup and Tavily
Linkup: EUR 5/1K standard, EUR 5 free monthly. Tavily: Free 1K/mo, $30/mo Researcher, $100/mo Pro
Strengths
- Tavily: 1,000 free requests/month (most generous free tier)
- Linkup: EUR 5 free monthly credit for testing
- Tavily: purpose-built for AI agents with extract endpoint
- Both: optimized for RAG and agent grounding use cases
Weaknesses
- Tavily: subscription tiers create cost cliffs at volume boundaries
- Linkup: limited to standard web search, less structured data
- Tavily Pro at $100/mo for roughly 3,333 queries -- expensive per query at volume
- Neither covers ecommerce or social platforms natively
Feature-by-feature comparison
Verdict
For development and prototyping, Tavily's 1,000 free requests/month is the best starting point. For production at 5K+ queries/month, Brave and Linkup's per-query pricing ($5/1K) is more predictable than Tavily's subscription tiers. At high volume (50K+), all three converge around $5/1K queries. The real differentiator is not pricing but coverage: all three are web-only, missing ecommerce, video, and social data.
Consider Scavio instead
Scavio matches Brave and Linkup's $0.005/query pricing while covering 6 platforms: Google, YouTube, Amazon, Walmart, Reddit, and TikTok. The 250 free credits/month is smaller than Tavily's 1K but covers cross-platform use cases none of these three can. At $30/mo for 7,000 credits, Scavio undercuts Tavily Researcher on per-query cost while adding 5 platforms.
Frequently Asked Questions
Brave, Linkup, and Tavily are the three most commonly evaluated search APIs for AI agent grounding. With Brave removing its free tier in February 2026 and Tavily introducing new tiers, the pricing landscape has shifted. This three-way comparison breaks down real costs at different volume levels.
Brave Search API is priced at $5 per 1,000 queries. Free tier removed February 2026. Linkup and Tavily is priced at Linkup: EUR 5/1K standard, EUR 5 free monthly. Tavily: Free 1K/mo, $30/mo Researcher, $100/mo Pro. The better value depends on your usage volume and feature requirements.
Scavio matches Brave and Linkup's $0.005/query pricing while covering 6 platforms: Google, YouTube, Amazon, Walmart, Reddit, and TikTok. The 250 free credits/month is smaller than Tavily's 1K but covers cross-platform use cases none of these three can. At $30/mo for 7,000 credits, Scavio undercuts Tavily Researcher on per-query cost while adding 5 platforms.
Some teams use both tools for different parts of their pipeline. However, a unified API like Scavio can replace the need for multiple subscriptions by providing search, content extraction, YouTube, and Amazon data from a single endpoint.
Try Scavio for free
50 free credits on signup. Structured data from Google, YouTube, Amazon, Walmart, and Reddit. No credit card required.