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Brave Search API

by Brave Software, Inc. · API service · also known as Brave Web Search API

Developer API over Brave's independent web index offering web, news, image, video, LLM-context and grounded-answer endpoints on prepaid credits

ProprietaryFreemiumUsage-basedEnterpriseCloud
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Link verified Nov 2, 2026

Overview

Brave Search API gives developers programmatic access to the index behind Brave Search, which Brave states is built by its own crawler without falling back to Google or Bing. Endpoints return web results with snippets and metadata, plus news, images, videos and location results; an LLM Context endpoint returns ranked extracted passages sized for model input, and an Answers endpoint produces cited, grounded answers through an OpenAI-compatible chat interface. Requests are authenticated with a subscription token obtained from the API dashboard.

Pricing is prepaid credits rather than a subscription: a free monthly allowance is included, usage is charged per request (plus tokens for Answers), and an enterprise tier offers custom terms and capacity. The API is a common choice for agents and RAG systems that want an independent index, and Brave publishes an MCP server for it.

It is proprietary and hosted; coverage reflects Brave's own crawl, which is smaller than Google's, and the richer endpoints consume more credits.

Capabilities

  • Web search with snippets and metadata
  • News, image, video and local results
  • LLM Context endpoint with extracted passages
  • Grounded, cited answers via a chat-completions interface
  • Spellcheck and freshness and safe-search parameters
  • Prepaid credit billing with a free allowance

Typical workflows

  1. Add web grounding to a chatbot through the LLM Context endpoint
  2. Replace a retired Google Custom Search integration
  3. Run keyword monitoring across news and web

Strengths

  • Independent index not derived from Google or Bing
  • Pay only for credits used
  • Endpoints designed for LLM input

Limitations

  • Proprietary hosted service
  • Smaller index than the largest engines
  • Advanced endpoints cost more credits

Prerequisites

  • Brave Search API account and token

Who it is for

  • Agent and RAG developers
  • Teams needing a privacy-oriented search backend

Alternatives & comparison

  • Exa

    Search API for AI agents built on Exa's own web index, offering search, page contents, deep research and asynchronous agent endpoints with Python and JavaScript SDKs

    ProprietaryFreemium
  • SerpApi

    API that returns live search-engine result pages from Google and other engines as structured JSON, with localization, device and search-type parameters

    ProprietaryFreemium
  • Tavily

    Web search, extraction, crawling and research API designed for LLM agents, returning concise source content with SDKs, framework integrations and a hosted MCP server

    ProprietaryFreemium
Compare Brave Search API with its alternatives →

Sources & verification

Primary sources consulted for this record. Claims are tied to the fields each source supports; the automated link checker re-verifies every URL on a schedule.

  • Official documentation
    Brave Search API documentation

    https://api-dashboard.search.brave.com/app/documentation

    Supports: capabilities, prerequisites

    checked Nov 1, 2026
  • Official site
    Brave Search API

    https://brave.com/search/api

    Supports: name, summary, capabilities, pricing_model

    checked Nov 1, 2026
Confidence
High
Reviewed
Nov 1, 2026
Links
Verified · Nov 2, 2026

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