You.com Search API vs Kagi Search API for AI agents
You.com Search API is a web and news search API for AI apps, with optional full-page content. Kagi Search API is programmatic access to Kagi's premium, ad-free search results for search products and agents.
The short answer
- You.com Search API: Trying web search in an agent with zero setup via the free keyless MCP, then scaling on a simple per-call price.
- Kagi Search API: High-quality, ad-free results with clear terms that explicitly allow feeding results to an LLM.
Side by side
| You.com Search API | Kagi Search API | |
|---|---|---|
| Searches | The web and news (the pages read do not say whose index). | Kagi's search results (web, news, video, podcasts, images per its MCP). |
| Returns | JSON web and news results with several text snippets each; optional full page content as Markdown or HTML ($1 per 1,000 pages crawled live). | JSON search results; optionally full Markdown extraction of the top results in the same request. |
| Before the first call | An API key (X-API-Key header); the free MCP profile needs no key, account or card. | A Kagi account, an API key from the API dashboard, and billing set up (pay-per-use, prepaid credit or invoice). |
| Free | 100 Web Search queries a day through the MCP with no key, account or card. | Not stated on its pages |
| Paid | $5 per 1,000 calls (Web Search API, Standard); Contents $1 per 1,000 pages. | $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 | Not stated on its pages | No storing, caching or building a database of results beyond transient caching; cached results must be deleted on termination. |
| AI in its terms | Not stated on its pages | 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://api.you.com/mcp (keyless free profile: https://api.you.com/mcp?profile=free) | 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 You.com Search API?
An API key (X-API-Key header); the free MCP profile needs no key, account or card.
Is You.com Search API free?
100 Web Search queries a day through the MCP with no key, account or card.
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.
You.com Search API, read on October 15, 2026:
- you.com/pricing: “No API key, no account, no credit card”
- you.com/pricing: “100 Web Search API queries/day via MCP”
- you.com/docs/guides/search: “Multiple text snippets per result for context”
- you.com/docs/guides/search: “Every request sends your API key in the X-API-Key header.”
- you.com/docs/guides/search: “https://api.you.com/mcp?profile=free”
- you.com/pricing: “Web Search API $5 /1k calls”
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.”