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A Brave Search API alternative.
Brave Search API costs $5.00 per 1,000 requests and returns Brave's results. Plainserp returns Google's results, the ones people actually see, for $0.30 per 1,000 searches. That is about 17 times less.
Brave Search API prices were read from its own public pages on 7 October 2026 and may have changed since.
What it costs
The same searches, priced both ways.
| Searches a month | Brave Search API | Plainserp |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | $0.00Covered by the $5 monthly free credit | $0.30$0.30 per 1,000, no plan |
| 10,000 | $45.00$50.00 for 10,000 requests, less the $5 free credit | $3.0015 times cheaper |
| 100,000 | $495.00$500.00 for 100,000 requests, less the $5 free credit | $30.0017 times cheaper |
On top of that, every new Plainserp account starts with 1,000 free searches. Your balance never expires and there is no plan to cancel.
How Brave Search API charges
Prepaid credits drawn down per request, with $5 of free credit added every month.
- Search
- $5.00 per 1,000 requests, 50 requests a second
- Answers
- $4.00 per 1,000 queries plus $5.00 per million input and output tokens
- Free credit
- $5 every month, enough for 1,000 search requests
Side by side
| Topic | Brave Search API | Plainserp |
|---|---|---|
| Whose results | Brave Search | |
| What you get back | Web results plus LLM context, news, videos and images | Organic results only: position, title, link and snippet |
| Rate | $5.00 per 1,000 requests | $0.30 per 1,000 searches |
| Free tier | $5 of credit every month | 1,000 searches free on sign-up, once |
| Throughput | 50 requests a second | 300 requests a minute on every account |
Choose Plainserp when
- You want Google's ranking in particular, for rank tracking or to match what people see.
- You search at volume. Past the free credit, Brave costs about 17 times more per search.
- You want one flat rate with nothing to work out.
Where Brave Search API still fits
- You make fewer than 1,000 searches a month and never expect to make more.
- You want results from an index other than Google's.
Sources
Checked on 7 October 2026. Plainserp is not affiliated with Brave Search API, and Brave Search API is a name of its owner. If a figure here is out of date, tell us and we will fix it.
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