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Valyu alternatives

A London deep-search API spanning web plus licensed proprietary sources, with content attribution and pay-per-use monetisation for publishers.

Verified 5 August 2026·Figures from vendors' own pages

Valyu at a glance

Vendor
Valyu
Category
Retrieval layers
Own index
Partial — Web plus licensed proprietary corpora
Price per 1,000
Not published as a flat rate
Free tier
Free credits on signup
MCP server
Yes
Graph traversal
No
Coverage transparency
No

Pricing detail. Usage-based, quoted per source and depth.

The alternatives

unlob

$0.40/1k

Our own index, admitted rather than ranked. Metadata-only passage hits, six coverage-graph traversal tools, an MCP server, and an endpoint that tells you why any URL is or is not in the index. Smaller than the well-funded incumbents, and considerably cheaper than all of them.

Read the full Valyu comparison →

Tavily

$8/1k

An LLM-shaped retrieval layer returning cleaned, ranked, cited chunks rather than raw SERPs. Acquired by Nebius in February 2026.

No own index· Free: 1,000 credits per month, no card required

Acquired by Nebius Group for $275M, February 2026

Linkup

A French grounding API returning structured, citation-carrying content for LLMs, with a sub-second "fast" tier and native parallel search.

Partial index· Free: Free developer credits on signup

DataForSEO

$0.60/1k

Industrial SERP infrastructure built for SEO tooling rather than agents. The cheapest per query in the field, with the lowest-level API to match.

No own index· Free: Free trial credit

Parallel Search

$1/1k

A suite of web search, extraction and research APIs on a proprietary index, from the former Twitter CEO. The closest competitor to unlob by thesis.

Own index· Free: 5,000 requests per month

Serper

$1/1k

The cheapest way to get raw Google results into an agent. Fast, minimal, and entirely dependent on Google continuing to be scrapeable.

No own index· Free: 2,500 free queries on signup

Brave Search API

$5/1k

A genuinely independent index of 40B+ pages, sold as a conventional search API with an LLM-context option. Long the default independent choice.

Own index· Free: $5 in monthly credits — the perpetual free tier was retired in February 2026

Free developer tier removed February 2026

Google Custom Search JSON API

$5/1k

Google's own programmable search endpoint. Real Google results, a hard 10,000/day ceiling, and terms written for site search rather than agents.

Own index· Free: 100 queries per day

Exa

$7/1k

Neural, embeddings-first search over a proprietary index, sold alongside content extraction, answers and agentic research products.

Own index· Free: $20 in credits at signup, then $10 in credits per month

Sources

Frequently asked questions

What is the best alternative to Valyu?

It depends what you are replacing. If you need an independent index at the lowest price, unlob is $0.40 per 1,000 queries. If you need the largest possible index, Valyu may still be the right tool — we say so on our comparison page rather than pretending otherwise.

Does Valyu own its own web index?

Partly — Web plus licensed proprietary corpora. It operates its own retrieval layer but is not a fully independent web index.

How much does Valyu cost?

Usage-based, quoted per source and depth.

Try the cheapest own-index alternative

10,000 free requests a month, no card. Test coverage and latency against your own queries before you commit to anything.

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