Brave Search API vs Jina AI Search for AI agents
Programmatic access to Brave Search, which runs its own independent web index. Jina AI Search is a search endpoint (s.jina.ai) that searches the web and returns the top results converted to clean, LLM-friendly text.
The short answer
- Brave Search API: Independent (non-Google, non-Bing) web results at a simple flat price, with fast throughput.
- Jina AI Search: Getting search results already converted to clean full-page text in one call.
Side by side
| Brave Search API | Jina AI Search | |
|---|---|---|
| Searches | Brave's own independent index (Brave says 40+ billion pages); web, news, images, video. | The web (the provider does not name the search engine behind it). |
| Returns | JSON web results (URLs, titles, snippets, up to five extra snippets), news, images and more, plus an LLM-context endpoint; a separate Answers plan returns AI answers. | The top five results with URL and page content as LLM-friendly text; Markdown, HTML, JSON or text formats. |
| Before the first call | An account, an API key, and a credit card even for the free credit (used for identity, not charged). | An API key: search is blocked without one. |
| Free | $5 in free credits every month (about 1,000 searches at $5 per 1,000); card required. | 10 million free tokens with every new API key; each search costs a fixed amount starting at 10,000 tokens (so roughly 1,000 searches at most). |
| Paid | $5 per 1,000 requests (Search plan, 50 queries per second). | Not stated on its pages |
| Acting on a result | Through the web page each result links to | Through the web page each result links to |
| Limits on keeping or showing results | No storing, caching or building a database of results beyond transient storage unless you buy a plan that explicitly grants storage rights. | Not stated on its pages |
| AI in its terms | Results may not be used to create, train, fine-tune or benchmark AI models (storage-rights plans are separate). | Jina says it does not use customer request data, inputs or prompts to train its models; outputs may not be used to build competing services. |
| MCP server | Official MCP server from Brave: https://github.com/brave/brave-search-mcp-server | Official MCP server: mcp.jina.ai (code: https://github.com/jina-ai/MCP) |
Questions people ask
What do I need before I can use Brave Search API?
An account, an API key, and a credit card even for the free credit (used for identity, not charged).
Is Brave Search API free?
$5 in free credits every month (about 1,000 searches at $5 per 1,000); card required.
What do I need before I can use Jina AI Search?
An API key: search is blocked without one.
Is Jina AI Search free?
10 million free tokens with every new API key; each search costs a fixed amount starting at 10,000 tokens (so roughly 1,000 searches at most).
Sources
Every line about another company comes from its own pages. Prices and terms change, so check the source before you rely on one.
Brave Search API, read on October 15, 2026:
- brave.com/search/api: “$5 per 1,000 requests”
- brave.com/search/api: “Includes $5 in free credits every month”
- brave.com/search/api: “Brave's index includes 40+ billion pages, kept fresh by 100+ million page updates every day.”
- brave.com/search/api: “Get up to five snippets picked in real time to maximize contextual relevance to a search.”
- brave.com/search/api: “For free plans, the card is only used to confirm your identity and will not be charged.”
- brave.com/search/api: “you will need to subscribe to a plan that explicitly grants storage rights.”
- api-dashboard.search.brave.com/documentation/resources/terms-of-service: “store, cache, or create a database of Search Results, in whole or in part, other than transient storage”
- api-dashboard.search.brave.com/documentation/resources/terms-of-service: “use the Search Results to create, evaluate, train, re-train, fine-tune, benchmark”
Jina AI Search, read on October 15, 2026:
- jina.ai/reader: “Every new API key comes with 10M free tokens!”
- jina.ai/reader: “Every request costs a fixed number of tokens, starting from 10,000 tokens”
- jina.ai/reader: “return the top five results with their URLs and contents, each in clean, LLM-friendly text”
- jina.ai/reader: “Add mcp.jina.ai as your MCP server to use our APIs in LLMs.”
- jina.ai/legal: “Jina AI does not use Customer request data, inputs, prompts, or uploaded content to train its models,”
- jina.ai/legal: “use any Output from the Services to develop applications or services that compete with the Services offered by Jina AI”