---
title: "Exa vs Tavily vs Brave vs Perplexity, Independently Benchmarked, 2026 | Openbenchmarks"
description: "Exa vs Tavily vs Brave vs Perplexity: Exa fast leads at 99.3% accuracy on 300 company-news questions, independently benchmarked Oct 21, 2026."
url: https://openbenchmarks.com/web-search/exa-vs-tavily-vs-brave-vs-perplexity
---

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[benchmarks](https://openbenchmarks.com/) / [web search](https://openbenchmarks.com/web-search) / exa vs tavily vs brave vs perplexity 

independently benchmarked · 300 questions · updated Oct 21, 2026

# Exa vs Tavily vs Brave vs Perplexity, 2026

Exa vs Tavily vs Brave vs Perplexity: Exa fast leads at 99.3% accuracy on 300 company-news questions, independently benchmarked Oct 21, 2026.

**What this page compares.** This page ranks measured results from 3 boards: company-news factual lookup (web search APIs), coding-agent documentation tickets (search and page fetch) and multi-turn company search (search only). Every configuration of Exa, Tavily, Brave Search and Perplexity that ran is shown, on the same questions.

**How to read the result.** The table ranks every complete run by its score on the same questions. Latency and cost are shown beside it and not blended into the score.

\[01\] measured ranking

## Company-news factual lookup, web search APIs, ranked by accuracy

Every row ran the same 300 questions. Provider names link to the official docs for the configuration measured.

| Rank | Provider | Accuracy | Answer recall @5 | Median search time | $ / 1k queries | $ / 1k correct | Result tokens | Accuracy / 1k tokens | List price |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | [Exa fast](https://docs.exa.ai/reference/search) type=fast | **99.3%** | 99.3% | 569 ms | $7.00 | $7.05 | 1,987 | 50.0 | [$7.00 / 1k queries](https://exa.ai/pricing?tab=api) |
| 2 | [Exa instant](https://docs.exa.ai/reference/search) type=instant | **97.7%** | 97.3% | 386 ms | $7.00 | $7.17 | 2,128 | 45.9 | [$7.00 / 1k queries](https://exa.ai/pricing?tab=api) |
| 3 | [Perplexity low](https://docs.perplexity.ai/api-reference/search-post) search\_context\_size=low | **97.3%** | 98.3% | 1.6 s | $5.00 | $5.14 | 476 | 205 | [$5.00 / 1k queries](https://docs.perplexity.ai/docs/getting-started/pricing) |
| 4 | [Brave Search llm-context](https://api-dashboard.search.brave.com/documentation/services/llm-context) count=10 | **94.0%** | 94.7% | 590 ms | $5.00 | $5.32 | 2,064 | 45.6 | [$5.00 / 1k queries](https://api-dashboard.search.brave.com/documentation/pricing) |
| 5 | [Brave Search web](https://api-dashboard.search.brave.com/documentation/services/web-search) count=10 · result\_filter=web | **93.3%** | 91.7% | 613 ms | $5.00 | $5.36 | 817 | 114 | [$5.00 / 1k queries](https://api-dashboard.search.brave.com/documentation/pricing) |
| 6 | [Tavily advanced](https://docs.tavily.com/documentation/api-reference/endpoint/search) search\_depth=advanced | **93.0%** | 92.7% | 4.2 s | $16.00 | $17.20 | 2,210 | 42.1 | [$16.00 / 1k queries](https://docs.tavily.com/documentation/api-credits) |
| 7 | [Tavily basic](https://docs.tavily.com/documentation/api-reference/endpoint/search) search\_depth=basic | **87.7%** | 87.7% | 1.7 s | $8.00 | $9.13 | 1,639 | 53.5 | [$8.00 / 1k queries](https://docs.tavily.com/documentation/api-credits) |

### Coding-agent documentation tickets, search and page fetch, ranked by task completion

| Rank | Provider | Task completion | Mean search time | Median task time | Median cost / task | Median task tokens | Completion / 1k tokens | List price |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | [Exa deep](https://docs.exa.ai/reference/search) type=deep | **83.0%** | 4.0 s | 36.8 s | $0.13 | 23,660 | 3.51 | [$12.00 / 1k queries](https://exa.ai/pricing?tab=api) |
| 2 | [Exa auto](https://docs.exa.ai/reference/search) type=auto | **81.7%** | 1.2 s | 22.7 s | $0.11 | 27,433 | 2.98 | [$7.00 / 1k queries](https://exa.ai/pricing?tab=api) |
| 3 | [Perplexity](https://docs.perplexity.ai/docs/search/quickstart) search\_context\_size=high | **77.7%** | 991 ms | 21.5 s | $0.083 | 20,062 | 3.87 | $5.00 / 1k queries |
| 4 | [Tavily advanced](https://docs.tavily.com/documentation/api-reference/endpoint/search) search\_depth=advanced | **60.0%** | 3.4 s | 46.4 s | $0.15 | 26,269 | 2.28 | [$16.00 / 1k queries](https://docs.tavily.com/documentation/api-credits) |
| 5 | [Tavily basic](https://docs.tavily.com/documentation/api-reference/endpoint/search) search\_depth=basic | **59.0%** | 1.5 s | 32.4 s | $0.11 | 27,405 | 2.15 | [$8.00 / 1k queries](https://docs.tavily.com/documentation/api-credits) |

### Multi-turn company search, search only, ranked by F1

| Rank | Provider | F1 | Precision | Recall | Median task time | Median cost / task | Median task tokens | List price |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | [Exa deep](https://docs.exa.ai/reference/search) exa-deep | **45.4%** | 83.2% | 33.7% | 89.5 s | $0.72 | 153,061 | [$12.00 / 1k queries](https://exa.ai/pricing?tab=api) |
| 2 | [Exa instant](https://docs.exa.ai/reference/search) exa-instant | **43.3%** | 82.6% | 32.2% | 49.8 s | $0.65 | 152,622 | [$7.00 / 1k queries](https://exa.ai/pricing?tab=api) |
| 3 | [Tavily advanced](https://docs.tavily.com/documentation/api-reference/endpoint/search) tavily-advanced | **41.1%** | 83.7% | 29.8% | 92.2 s | $1.03 | 237,706 | [$16.00 / 1k queries](https://docs.tavily.com/documentation/api-credits) |
| 4 | [Perplexity](https://docs.perplexity.ai/api-reference/search-post) search\_context\_size=low | **37.8%** | 79.3% | 26.8% | 48.9 s | $0.33 | 66,928 | $5.00 / 1k queries |
| 5 | [Tavily basic](https://docs.tavily.com/documentation/api-reference/endpoint/search) tavily-basic | **36.5%** | 82.5% | 25.7% | 63.0 s | $0.61 | 142,692 | [$8.00 / 1k queries](https://docs.tavily.com/documentation/api-credits) |
| 6 | [Brave Search](https://api-dashboard.search.brave.com/documentation/services/web-search) brave | **28.0%** | 66.9% | 19.3% | 43.5 s | $0.27 | 49,005 | [$5.00 / 1k queries](https://api-dashboard.search.brave.com/documentation/pricing) |

\[02\] how it was measured

## How the ranking was measured

* Every API received the same natural-language question about a recent company event, one search per question, up to 10 results.
* Each answer is a single verifiable value pinned to an official wire or newsroom URL, fixed before any vendor ran.
* Accuracy is whether the returned results let the same answering model extract the correct value.
* Latency is the search request time. Cost is the recorded list price for the calls made, per 1,000 queries and per 1,000 correct answers.
* The runner and published data are open in [openbenchmarks-labs/factual-lookup-company-news-search ↗](https://github.com/openbenchmarks-labs/factual-lookup-company-news-search) and [openbenchmarks/OB-News-Websearch ↗](https://huggingface.co/datasets/openbenchmarks/OB-News-Websearch). The full methodology is on the [Web Search Benchmark →](https://openbenchmarks.com/web-search#methodology-factual-lookup)

\[03\] faq

## Questions answered by this comparison

### Which provider leads exa vs Tavily vs Brave vs Perplexity?

Exa fast leads this table at 99.3% accuracy, on 300 company-news questions.

### How was this measured?

Every API received the same natural-language question about a recent company event, one search per question, up to 10 results. Each answer is a single verifiable value pinned to an official wire or newsroom URL, fixed before any vendor ran. Accuracy is whether the returned results let the same answering model extract the correct value. Latency is the search request time. Cost is the recorded list price for the calls made, per 1,000 queries and per 1,000 correct answers.

### How should speed and cost be read beside the score?

Exa fast recorded 569 ms median search time and $7.00 per 1,000 queries. The most accurate configuration is rarely the fastest or the cheapest, so each is reported in its own column.

### Do vendors pay to be ranked?

No. Inclusion and rank do not depend on vendor payments. Every API used the same questions, answering model and scoring.

### What does this page not test?

This page ranks measured results from 3 boards: company-news factual lookup (web search APIs), coding-agent documentation tickets (search and page fetch) and multi-turn company search (search only). Every configuration of Exa, Tavily, Brave Search and Perplexity that ran is shown, on the same questions.

\[04\] related comparisons

## Related pages

* [Web Search Benchmark: full leaderboard and methodology →](https://openbenchmarks.com/web-search)
* [Exa vs Tavily vs Brave](https://openbenchmarks.com/web-search/exa-vs-tavily-vs-brave)
* [Exa vs Tavily vs Brave vs Serper](https://openbenchmarks.com/web-search/exa-vs-tavily-vs-brave-vs-serper)
* [Exa vs Parallel vs Tavily](https://openbenchmarks.com/web-search/exa-vs-parallel-vs-tavily)
* [Exa vs Tavily vs Parallel vs Linkup](https://openbenchmarks.com/web-search/exa-vs-tavily-vs-parallel-vs-linkup)
* [Tavily vs Brave vs Serper](https://openbenchmarks.com/web-search/tavily-vs-brave-vs-serper)
* [Exa vs Tavily vs Firecrawl](https://openbenchmarks.com/web-search/exa-vs-tavily-vs-firecrawl)
* [Every web search comparison →](https://openbenchmarks.com/web-search/comparisons)

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