Linkup vs Kagi Search API for AI agents
Linkup is a web search API for AI that returns ranked URLs, a sourced answer, or structured JSON. Kagi Search API is programmatic access to Kagi's premium, ad-free search results for search products and agents.
The short answer
- Linkup: Grounding answers with sources under European (EU) legal terms, with a cheap standard tier.
- Kagi Search API: High-quality, ad-free results with clear terms that explicitly allow feeding results to an LLM.
Side by side
| Linkup | Kagi Search API | |
|---|---|---|
| Searches | Linkup's own index of the web (it offers to run the full index inside a customer's cloud). | Kagi's search results (web, news, video, podcasts, images per its MCP). |
| Returns | Ranked search results, or a sourced answer, or structured JSON to a schema you supply. | JSON search results; optionally full Markdown extraction of the top results in the same request. |
| Before the first call | A free account and API key; or pay per request in USDC via x402 with no account. | A Kagi account, an API key from the API dashboard, and billing set up (pay-per-use, prepaid credit or invoice). |
| 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). | Not stated on its pages |
| Paid | $0.005 a standard search; $0.05 a deep search. | $12 per 1,000 requests; Extract $4 per 1,000 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 | Open web content may be kept only as long as needed for text-and-data-mining purposes (EU exception). | No storing, caching or building a database of results beyond transient caching; cached results must be deleted on termination. |
| AI in its terms | 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. | Sending results to an AI model to answer your users is allowed; training or fine-tuning models, or harvesting training/evaluation datasets, is not. |
| MCP server | Official MCP server: https://mcp.linkup.so/mcp (code: https://github.com/LinkupPlatform/linkup-mcp-server) | Official MCP server: https://mcp.kagi.com/mcp (code: https://github.com/kagisearch/kagimcp) |
Questions people ask
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).
What do I need before I can use Kagi Search API?
A Kagi account, an API key from the API dashboard, and billing set up (pay-per-use, prepaid credit or invoice).
Is Kagi Search API free?
Its pages listed no free use when we read them on October 15, 2026.
Sources
Every line about another company comes from its own pages. Prices and terms change, so check the source before you rely on one.
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”
Kagi Search API, read on October 15, 2026:
- kagi.com/api/pricing: “$12 /1k requests”
- kagi.com/api/pricing: “$4 /1k pages”
- kagi.com/api/docs: “The Search API is a feature-rich endpoint for search products and agents.”
- kagi.com/api/docs: “You can also request full markdown extraction of the top results in a single API request.”
- help.kagi.com/kagi/api/overview.html: “The API uses a pay-per-use model”
- kagi.com/privacy/api: “Store, cache, or build a database of Results beyond the transient caching needed to operate your application.”
- kagi.com/privacy/api: “including sending Results to an AI model to answer your users' queries.”
- kagi.com/privacy/api: “Use Results to train or fine-tune a search index, ranking system, translation or summarization model”
- github.com/kagisearch/kagimcp: “The Official Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for Kagi Search & other tools.”