Jina AI Search vs Linkup: results turned into clean text or sourced answers under EU terms
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. Linkup is a web search API for AI that returns ranked URLs, a sourced answer, or structured JSON.
The short answer
- Jina AI Search: Getting search results already converted to clean full-page text in one call.
- Linkup: Grounding answers with sources under European (EU) legal terms, with a cheap standard tier.
Side by side
| Jina AI Search | Linkup | |
|---|---|---|
| Searches | The web (the provider does not name the search engine behind it). | Linkup's own index of the web (it offers to run the full index inside a customer's cloud). |
| Returns | The top five results with URL and page content as LLM-friendly text; Markdown, HTML, JSON or text formats. | Ranked search results, or a sourced answer, or structured JSON to a schema you supply. |
| Before the first call | An API key: search is blocked without one. | A free account and API key; or pay per request in USDC via x402 with no account. |
| 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). | $20 credit at sign-up with a professional email, topped back up to $20 each month for eligible accounts (about 4,000 standard searches). |
| Paid | Not stated on its pages | $0.005 a standard search; $0.05 a deep search. |
| 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 | Not stated on its pages | Open web content may be kept only as long as needed for text-and-data-mining purposes (EU exception). |
| AI in its terms | 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. | Answers are for internal use only, not for resale or acting as a wrapper of the API; Linkup may use client data, including prompts, to train its service. |
| MCP server | Official MCP server: mcp.jina.ai (code: https://github.com/jina-ai/MCP) | Official MCP server: https://mcp.linkup.so/mcp (code: https://github.com/LinkupPlatform/linkup-mcp-server) |
Questions people ask
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).
What do I need before I can use Linkup?
A free account and API key; or pay per request in USDC via x402 with no account.
Is Linkup free?
$20 credit at sign-up with a professional email, topped back up to $20 each month for eligible accounts (about 4,000 standard searches).
Sources
Every line about another company comes from its own pages. Prices and terms change, so check the source before you rely on one.
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”
Linkup, read on October 15, 2026:
- docs.linkup.so/pages/documentation/development/pricing: “We will top up eligible accounts back to $20 each month.”
- docs.linkup.so/pages/documentation/development/pricing: “When you first sign up with a professional email address, your account is automatically credited with $20.”
- linkup.so/pricing: “Run 4,000 queries for free.”
- docs.linkup.so/pages/documentation/get-started/introduction: “Query → ranked URLs, sourced answer, or structured JSON”
- docs.linkup.so/pages/documentation/get-started/introduction: “the full Linkup index runs inside your VPC and queries never leave your environment”
- docs.linkup.so/pages/documentation/development/authentication: “pay per request in USDC, no account needed”
- linkup.so/terms-of-use: “retain Open Web Content for as long as is necessary for the purposes of text and data mining only”
- linkup.so/terms-of-use: “acting as a wrapper of the Linkup APIs”
- linkup.so/terms-of-use: “training and improving the Linkup Solution”
- docs.linkup.so/pages/integrations/mcp/mcp: “https://mcp.linkup.so/mcp”
- docs.linkup.so/pages/documentation/development/pricing: “"flash" / "fast" / "standard" "searchResults" $0.005”
- docs.linkup.so/pages/documentation/development/pricing: “"deep" "searchResults" $0.05”