Skip to content
unlob
Get an API key

Exa vs Parallel Search

The two best-funded own-index search APIs, compared on price, product surface and funding — with sources.

Verified 5 August 2026·Figures from vendors' own pages

We are not a participant in this comparison

Price

  • Exa$7
  • Parallel Search$1
Per 1,000 comparable web searches — about ten results, no extraction, no summarisation.
ProviderOwn index?$ / 1,000 queriesSource
Exa

Base search is $7 per 1,000 requests. Results beyond the first 10 add $1 per 1,000, contents add $1 per 1,000 pages, and AI summaries another $1 per 1,000 — so a realistic RAG call costs more than the headline.

Yes

Proprietary AI-native semantic index

$7Exa pricing
Parallel Search

The Turbo search processor is $1 per 1,000; Basic and Advanced are both $5 per 1,000. The Task API, which is what most agent workloads actually use, runs $5 to $2,400 per 1,000 depending on processor.

Yes

Proprietary web index and retrieval infrastructure

$1Parallel pricing
unlob — Build

$29 per month for 50,000 requests.

Yes

Our own crawl and index

$0.58This page
unlob — Scale

$199 per month for 500,000 requests.

Yes

Our own crawl and index

$0.40This page
Rates are the cheapest directly comparable web search call — roughly ten results, no extraction and no summarisation — because that is the only way a table across credit systems, token pricing and per-request pricing means anything. Where a vendor does not publish a flat per-1,000 rate they are omitted from this table and covered in full on the landscape page. Figures read from each vendor’s own pricing page on 5 August 2026.

Where each one wins

Neither product on this page is ours. This comparison exists because it is asked often and answered badly.

Exa

  • Exa: Websets, contact enrichment, and a mature neural retrieval product.
  • Parallel: the Task API for deep research, a 5,000-request free tier, and named enterprise references.

Parallel Search

  • Parallel: the Task API for deep research, a 5,000-request free tier, and named enterprise references.

The substantive differences

ExaParallel Search
Cheapest search tierExa: $7 per 1,000.Parallel: $1 per 1,000 (Turbo).
Free tierExa: $20 signup credit, then $10 monthly.Parallel: 5,000 requests a month.
ValuationExa: $2.2B, May 2026 (a16z).Parallel: $2.0B, April 2026 (Sequoia).
Distinct productExa: Websets and enrichment.Parallel: Task, Find All and Monitor APIs.

Sources

Every figure on this page was read from the vendor's own pricing page or funding announcement on the date shown.

Frequently asked questions

Which is cheaper, Exa or Parallel?

Parallel, on plain search — its Turbo processor is $1 per 1,000 against Exa’s $7 base rate. The comparison narrows once you use Parallel’s higher processors or need Exa’s contents and summaries, both of which carry surcharges.

Which has raised more?

Exa: over $335 million total, reaching a $2.2 billion valuation in May 2026. Parallel has raised $230 million across a $30M round, a $100M Series A and a $100M Series B, at a $2.0 billion valuation in April 2026.

Check the claims yourself

The free tier is 10,000 requests a month with no card. That is enough to test coverage, latency and result quality against your own queries — which is a better comparison than this page.

Get your API keySee the full landscape