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A Tavily alternative.
A Tavily basic search costs $5.00 to $8.00 per 1,000, and an advanced one costs double. Plainserp gives your agent Google's results for $0.30 per 1,000 searches, and reads the pages as Markdown in the same call.
Tavily 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 | Tavily | Plainserp |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | $0.00Covered by the free 1,000 credits a month, with basic search | $0.30$0.30 per 1,000, no plan |
| 10,000 | $80.00Pay as you go at $0.008 a credit, or $100.00 on the Bootstrap plan | $3.0027 times cheaper |
| 100,000 | $500.00Growth plan, with basic search | $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 Tavily charges
Credits. A basic search costs 1 credit and an advanced search costs 2. Buy them monthly or pay as you go.
- Researcher
- Free, 1,000 credits a month
- Pay as you go
- $0.008 a credit ($8.00 per 1,000 basic searches)
- Project
- $30 a month, 4,000 credits
- Bootstrap
- $100 a month, 15,000 credits
- Startup
- $220 a month, 38,000 credits
- Growth
- $500 a month, 100,000 credits
- Extract
- 1 credit for every 5 pages (basic), 2 credits (advanced)
Side by side
| Topic | Tavily | Plainserp |
|---|---|---|
| Whose results | Tavily's own search for agents | |
| Search price | $5.00 to $8.00 per 1,000 basic searches, double for advanced | $0.30 per 1,000 searches |
| Free tier | 1,000 credits every month | 1,000 searches free on sign-up, once |
| Endpoints | Search, extract, map, crawl and research, each priced in credits | Search and read, each with one flat price |
| Failed page reads | Not charged | Not charged |
Choose Plainserp when
- You want Google's ranking in particular.
- Most of your spend is searches. Ours cost about 17 to 27 times less than a Tavily basic search.
- You want one flat price per search and per page, with no credits to convert.
Where Tavily still fits
- You make fewer than 1,000 searches a month and never expect to make more.
- You want a crawler or a ready-made research endpoint.
Sources
Checked on 7 October 2026. Plainserp is not affiliated with Tavily, and Tavily is a name of its owner. If a figure here is out of date, tell us and we will fix it.