This article puts them next to each other on the questions that matter for agents: what each one actually returns, what a single call costs, whether you need a subscription, whether an agent can pay by itself, and whether there is an MCP server. All competitor prices were read from each vendor's official pricing pages and docs on 2026-10-25; they change, so check the linked sources before deciding. Disclosure: this comparison is published by FastAF, which is included at the end as a fifth option.

What each one is for

These tools are not interchangeable, and the cheapest one is irrelevant if it returns the wrong kind of data.

• SerpApi returns parsed search engine results pages as JSON. Its strength is breadth: besides Google it covers engines such as Google Flights, Hotels and Patents, Bing, Baidu, Yandex and the Apple App Store.
• Exa runs its own web, people, company and scholarly indexes and is built for semantic, "find similar" and research-style search, plus page contents for LLM context. It does not return the live Google SERP.
• Tavily is a search API aimed at RAG, with search, extract, crawl, map and research in one vendor.
• Firecrawl turns websites into LLM-ready markdown: scraping single pages, but especially crawling and mapping whole sites, interacting with pages and monitoring changes.

Price per call

The table normalises each vendor's published pricing to the cost of one basic search call. Where a vendor sells plans rather than per-call prices, the per-call figure is simply the plan price divided by the included quota, which assumes you use the whole quota.

Two caveats. First, these calls do not return the same thing: an Exa Lite search over Exa's index is not equivalent to a live Google results page from SerpApi, and a Firecrawl search is not a Firecrawl crawl. Second, plan-based figures get cheaper on larger tiers (Firecrawl's Standard plan, for instance, is $99/month for 100,000 credits) and more expensive if you leave quota unused.

Subscriptions, payments and MCP

"Not found" means we found no mention on the vendor's pricing page or docs on 2026-10-25, not that it definitely does not exist.

Honest pros and cons

SerpApi. Pros: the widest engine catalogue of the group, a hosted MCP server, a free tier of 250 searches per month and a U.S. Legal Shield add-on listed on its pricing page. Cons: monthly plans make it the most expensive per search at low tiers, and we found no pay-per-call or x402 option, so an agent needs an account and a key.

Exa. Pros: semantic search over its own indexes, cheap page contents at $1 per 1,000 pages, deep research runs, a monthly free credit, x402 on Search and Contents across several networks, and enterprise features such as SOC 2 Type II listed on its pricing page. Cons: it is not a Google SERP API, so it is the wrong tool if you need exactly what Google shows, Maps listings or Shopping results.

Tavily. Pros: a coherent RAG toolset (search, extract, crawl, research), 1,000 free credits per month and keyless, rate-limited testing. Cons: monthly credits reset on the 1st, and x402 covers only advanced search at $0.01 per call.

Firecrawl. Pros: the strongest option here for crawling and mapping entire sites into markdown, browser interaction and monitoring; keyless access for agents. Cons: plans are monthly; per its pricing page, 403 and 404 pages still cost a credit; and we found no x402 support.

FastAF. Pros: live Google verticals (SERP, Maps, News, Shopping, Scholar, Jobs, AI answers) plus source-specific JSON for Amazon, Walmart, eBay, Zillow, YouTube transcripts and public LinkedIn/X profiles from one balance; no subscription; failed, blocked or empty responses are never charged; x402 on every endpoint. Cons: no whole-site crawl (one URL per call), a far smaller engine catalogue than SerpApi, no semantic index like Exa, a free tier of only 2 calls, and MCP tool calls require a key rather than x402.

Which one to pick

• You need many search engines or verticals beyond Google: SerpApi.
• You need semantic or research-style search for LLM context: Exa.
• You want a single RAG-oriented search and extract stack with a monthly free tier: Tavily.
• You need to crawl, map or monitor whole websites: Firecrawl.
• You need live Google results and structured data from specific sites, with irregular volume or an agent that pays per call: FastAF.

Many agents combine two of these, for example semantic search for discovery plus a SERP or scraping API for live, structured data.

Detailed comparisons

Each pairing has a dedicated page with sources and FAQs:

• FastAF vs SerpApi
• FastAF vs Exa
• FastAF vs Tavily
• FastAF vs Firecrawl

Prices were read on 2026-10-25 from serpapi.com/pricing, exa.ai/pricing, docs.tavily.com and firecrawl.dev/pricing, and fastaf.co/llms.txt. If you spot a figure that has changed, the vendor's page is the source of truth.