Tavily Pricing in 2026: What 10k, 100k and 1M Searches Cost
Tavily charges $8.00 per 1,000 credits pay as you go and $5.00 per 1,000 on its $500-a-month Growth plan, and a basic search costs 1 credit (checked 1 October 2026). That makes 10,000 basic searches a month $80, 100,000 a month $500 on Growth, and 1 million a month $5,000 to $8,000. Advanced search depth costs 2 credits, so each of those figures doubles. The same 1 million searches list at $500 a month on Serper or Serpex, $4,000 on Exa Instant and $5,000 on Brave or Linkup, though each returns something different.
Prices checked 1 October 2026 on Tavily's API credits docs, exa.ai/pricing, brave.com/search/api and linkup.so/pricing, and 19 October 2026 on serper.dev. Serpex prices are from our pricing page.
How does Tavily pricing work?
Everything is billed in credits:
- Basic search: 1 credit. Advanced search: 2 credits.
- Pay as you go: $8.00 per 1,000 credits.
- Growth plan: $500 a month at $5.00 per 1,000 credits. That's $500 ÷ $5.00 × 1,000 = 100,000 credits a month.
- Free Researcher plan: 1,000 credits a month, no card.
- Extract: 1 credit per 5 URLs at basic depth, 2 per 5 at advanced.
- Search options:
include_raw_contentadds the result pages' raw content, with no extra credit charge listed, andinclude_answeradds a generated answer.
Growth costs less than pay as you go once you pass 62,500 credits a month ($500 ÷ $8.00 × 1,000). Below that line, pay as you go is lower even at the higher rate.
What do 10,000, 100,000 and 1 million Tavily searches cost per month?
Basic depth, a steady monthly volume, and free credits not counted:
| Basic searches a month | Credits | Pay as you go ($8.00) | Growth ($5.00) | Lower of the two |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10,000 | 10,000 | $80 | $500 (the plan covers 100,000) | $80, pay as you go |
| 100,000 | 100,000 | $800 | $500 | $500, Growth |
| 1,000,000 | 1,000,000 | $8,000 | $5,000 at the Growth rate | $5,000 to $8,000 |
The 1 million row needs a caveat. The Growth plan covers 100,000 credits, and 1 million is ten times that. We only have list prices for pay as you go and Growth, so $5,000 assumes every credit is billed at the Growth rate. At that volume, ask Tavily for a quote.
This is where a Tavily bill jumps. A team on pay as you go pays $8.00 per 1,000 all the way to 62,500 searches a month, and only then does the $500 plan save money. Past 100,000 a month we have no listed plan, so the price is either $8.00 per 1,000 or a negotiation.
How much does advanced search depth add?
An advanced search costs 2 credits, so the bill doubles:
| Advanced searches a month | Credits | Pay as you go | At the Growth rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10,000 | 20,000 | $160 | $500 (plan price, more than pay as you go) |
| 100,000 | 200,000 | $1,600 | $1,000 (twice the Growth plan's credits) |
| 1,000,000 | 2,000,000 | $16,000 | $10,000 |
With advanced depth, Growth starts to pay off above 31,250 searches a month (62,500 credits). A mix is common: at 50% advanced, each search averages 1.5 credits, so 100,000 searches use 150,000 credits, which is $1,200 pay as you go or $750 at the Growth rate. If you set advanced depth everywhere by default, finding the queries that need it is the quickest way to cut the bill.
What does Tavily Extract cost?
Extract returns content for URLs you already have, at 1 credit per 5 URLs (basic) or 2 per 5 (advanced):
| Pages a month | Basic credits | Basic, pay as you go | Advanced credits | Advanced, pay as you go |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10,000 | 2,000 | $16 | 4,000 | $32 |
| 100,000 | 20,000 | $160 | 40,000 | $320 |
| 1,000,000 | 200,000 | $1,600 | 400,000 | $3,200 |
That's roughly $1.60 per 1,000 pages at basic depth pay as you go, or $1.00 at the Growth rate. If the URLs come from your own Tavily searches, include_raw_content returns page content in the search response with no extra credit charge listed, which can cost less than a second Extract call.
What does Tavily's free plan cover?
The Researcher plan gives 1,000 credits a month with no card: 1,000 basic searches, 500 advanced, or 5,000 URLs through basic Extract. It covers prototyping and light use. At 100,000 searches a month it's 1% of what you need.
What does the same volume cost on Serpex, Exa, Brave, Linkup and Serper?
Monthly totals at list prices, one search per request:
| API (rate per 1,000) | 10k a month | 100k a month | 1M a month | One request returns |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tavily, basic ($8.00; $5.00 on Growth) | $80 | $500 | $5,000 to $8,000 | Results with snippet chunks; optional raw page content and a generated answer |
| Serpex, search ($0.80, $0.65 or $0.50 by top-up size) | $8 | $65 | $500 | Results as JSON: title, URL, snippet |
| Serpex, search plus 10 pages of content (up to 6 credits) | Up to $48 | Up to $390 | Custom pricing | The same results plus page content as Markdown |
| Exa Instant ($4) | $40 | $400 | $4,000 | Results; page contents cost extra |
| Exa Fast/Auto ($7) | $70 | $700 | $7,000 | Results; page contents cost extra |
| Brave Search API ($5) | $50 | $500 | $5,000 | Results plus LLM context |
| Linkup ($5; $6 with a sourced answer) | $50 ($60) | $500 ($600) | $5,000 ($6,000) | Results, or a sourced answer |
| Serper ($1.00 down to $0.30 by pack) | $10 | $75 | $500 | Google's results page as JSON |
How to read it:
- Serpex prices by top-up size: $0.80 for top-ups of $5 to $49, $0.65 for $50 to $499, $0.50 for $500 to $1,999, and custom pricing from $2,000. Each cell uses the tier that month's spend falls in. With content, 1 million requests would pass $2,000 a month at list rates, so that cell is custom. Content is billed only on pages delivered, and it is best-effort: it comes back for roughly 70% of requested results, and pages that are blocked or disallowed by robots.txt return a
content_error. - Exa bills page contents at $1 per 1,000 pages per content type. Ten pages per search adds $10 per 1,000 searches, so Exa Instant with contents is $14 per 1,000: $140, $1,400 and $14,000 a month at these volumes. Tavily's raw content, with no extra credit charge listed, is a real advantage here.
- Serper returns what Google shows (organic results, knowledge graph, People Also Ask, related searches), not text chunks prepared for a model. Its page content is a separate Webpage endpoint whose price is shown only after sign-in. The monthly figures spread a pack over the months it lasts, since credits are valid for 6 months: a $50 pack lasts 5 months at 10,000 a month, a $375 pack 5 months at 100,000, and a $1,250 pack 2.5 months at 1 million.
- Brave requires a credit card even for its free $5 monthly credit, as an anti-fraud check.
When is Tavily still worth paying for?
Tavily earns its price when you use what it adds on top of search:
- Answer synthesis and follow-up questions. If your app shows the generated answer, an alternative means rebuilding that step. Linkup's sourced answer, at $6.00 per 1,000, is the only answer option in the table above.
- Integrations. Tavily's LangChain and LlamaIndex integrations are mature. If your agent is built on them, switching has a cost in engineering time.
- Raw content in the search call.
include_raw_contenthas no extra credit charge listed, while Exa bills page contents separately. - Small volume. At 10,000 searches a month the bill is $80. Moving saves tens of dollars, which may not justify the work.
It's worth looking elsewhere when volume is past 100,000 a month and growing, you mainly use results or page content rather than generated answers, or advanced depth has quietly become the default. If what you actually need is Google's results page, Serper costs less and returns it directly. For a closer look at moving off Tavily, see Tavily alternative and our earlier Serpex vs Tavily comparison.
FAQ
How much does Tavily cost per 1,000 searches?
$8.00 per 1,000 credits pay as you go, or $5.00 on the $500-a-month Growth plan. A basic search is 1 credit and an advanced search is 2, so advanced searches cost $16.00 or $10.00 per 1,000.
When is the Tavily Growth plan worth it?
Above 62,500 credits a month: that's 62,500 basic searches or 31,250 advanced. Below that, pay as you go costs less than $500.
What do 1 million Tavily searches a month cost?
$8,000 at the pay-as-you-go rate, or $5,000 if all credits were billed at the Growth rate. The Growth plan itself covers 100,000 credits, so ask Tavily for a quote at that volume.
Does Tavily charge extra for raw page content?
No extra credit charge is listed for include_raw_content on a search. The separate Extract endpoint costs 1 credit per 5 URLs at basic depth and 2 per 5 at advanced.
Is there a free Tavily plan?
Yes. The Researcher plan gives 1,000 credits a month with no card required.