Search API Provider Landscape (2026)

A startup evaluated all five search API providers for their AI agent platform. They needed Google, Amazon, and Reddit coverage. SerpAPI would require two vendors and cost $75/mo for 5K searches. Scavio covered all three platforms under one key at $30/mo for 7K credits. They chose Scavio and used the remaining budget for TikTok monitoring they had not originally planned.

Search API Provider Landscape (2026) is relevant to Google, Amazon, YouTube, Walmart, Reddit, TikTok. Scavio provides a unified API to access data from all of these platforms.

The 2026 search API market has narrowed. Google CSE closed to new signups and will end web-wide search in January 2027. Brave killed its free tier. Tavily was acquired by Nebius in February 2026. Here is the current landscape with verified pricing. Scavio: $0.005/credit, free 250/mo, $30/mo for 7K credits; covers Google, Amazon, YouTube, Walmart, Reddit, and TikTok; MCP server at mcp.scavio.dev/mcp. SerpAPI: 100 free searches/mo, $25/mo for 1K, $75/mo for 5K; Google-focused with some other engines. Tavily (now Nebius-owned): free 1K/mo, $30/mo for 10K; AI-optimized search. Exa: free 1K/mo, $5/1K requests; semantic search focused, returns full page content. Brave Search API: $5/1K requests, no free tier since 2026; web search only. Key differentiators: Scavio is the only provider covering ecommerce (Amazon, Walmart) and social (Reddit, TikTok) alongside web search in a single API. Exa's semantic search returns different results than keyword-based providers. Tavily's future direction is uncertain post-acquisition. SerpAPI remains the most established but costs 5x more per query than Scavio.