Perplexity Search API vs Kagi Search API for AI agents
Perplexity Search API is raw ranked web results from Perplexity's own index (Search API), plus Sonar models that return cited AI answers. Kagi Search API is programmatic access to Kagi's premium, ad-free search results for search products and agents.
The short answer
- Perplexity Search API: Fresh, ranked web snippets from a large independent index, or a cited answer when you want one.
- Kagi Search API: High-quality, ad-free results with clear terms that explicitly allow feeding results to an LLM.
Side by side
| Perplexity Search API | Kagi Search API | |
|---|---|---|
| Searches | Perplexity's own web index, which it says covers hundreds of billions of webpages. | Kagi's search results (web, news, video, podcasts, images per its MCP). |
| Returns | Search API: JSON results with title, URL, ranked snippet text and date. Sonar: an LLM answer with citations. | JSON search results; optionally full Markdown extraction of the top results in the same request. |
| Before the first call | An account and an API key from the API console; pay-as-you-go, no subscription. | A Kagi account, an API key from the API dashboard, and billing set up (pay-per-use, prepaid credit or invoice). |
| Paid | Search API $5 per 1,000 requests ($1 per 1,000 with Fast Search), no token costs; Sonar models are priced per token plus a per-request fee. | $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 | Output may be displayed only within your own applications; rights are non-sublicensable and non-transferable. | No storing, caching or building a database of results beyond transient caching; cached results must be deleted on termination. |
| AI in its terms | Perplexity says it will not use customer content to train or fine-tune generative AI models. | 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://github.com/perplexityai/modelcontextprotocol (npm @perplexity-ai/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 Perplexity Search API?
An account and an API key from the API console; pay-as-you-go, no subscription.
Is Perplexity Search API free?
Its pages listed no free use when we read them on October 15, 2026.
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.
Perplexity Search API, read on October 15, 2026:
- docs.perplexity.ai/getting-started/pricing: “The Search API charges per successful request, including a successful request with multiple queries, with no token costs.”
- docs.perplexity.ai/getting-started/pricing: “Total cost per query = token costs + a per-request fee (Sonar, Sonar Pro, and Sonar Reasoning Pro)”
- docs.perplexity.ai/getting-started/quickstart: “Pay-as-you-go pricing for all APIs. No subscription required.”
- perplexity.ai/hub/blog/introducing-the-perplexity-search-api: “With an index covering hundreds of billions of webpages”
- docs.perplexity.ai/guides/search-quickstart: “real-time, ranked web results as structured data”
- perplexity.ai/hub/legal/perplexity-api-terms-of-service: “display such Output, in each case, solely within the Customer Applications”
- perplexity.ai/hub/legal/perplexity-api-terms-of-service: “Perplexity shall not use (or authorize third parties to use) Customer Content to train, retrain, fine-tune”
- docs.perplexity.ai/guides/mcp-server: “https://github.com/perplexityai/modelcontextprotocol”
- docs.perplexity.ai/getting-started/pricing: “Search API $5.00 Raw web search results with advanced filtering”
- docs.perplexity.ai/getting-started/pricing: “Search API with Fast Search $1”
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.”