Exa vs Tavily vs Parallel vs Linkup, 2026
Exa vs Tavily vs Parallel vs Linkup: Exa fast leads at 99.3% accuracy on 300 company-news questions, independently benchmarked Sep 26, 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, Parallel and Linkup 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.
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 fasttype=fast | 99.3% | 99.3% | 569 ms | $7.00 | $7.05 | 1,987 | 50.0 | $7.00 / 1k queries |
| 2 | Exa instanttype=instant | 97.7% | 97.3% | 386 ms | $7.00 | $7.17 | 2,128 | 45.9 | $7.00 / 1k queries |
| 3 | Linkup fastdepth=fast · outputType=searchResults | 96.7% | 94.7% | 1.2 s | $5.00 | $5.17 | 3,022 | 32.0 | $5.00 / 1k queries |
| 4 | Parallel basicmode=basic | 93.3% | 92.0% | 1.8 s | $5.00 | $5.36 | 2,330 | 40.1 | $5.00 / 1k queries |
| 5 | Tavily advancedsearch_depth=advanced | 93.0% | 92.7% | 4.2 s | $16.00 | $17.20 | 2,210 | 42.1 | $16.00 / 1k queries |
| 6 | Linkup standarddepth=standard · outputType=searchResults | 92.0% | 90.3% | 2.1 s | $5.00 | $5.43 | 2,983 | 30.8 | $5.00 / 1k queries |
| 7 | Tavily basicsearch_depth=basic | 87.7% | 87.7% | 1.7 s | $8.00 | $9.13 | 1,639 | 53.5 | $8.00 / 1k queries |
| 8 | Parallel fastmode=fast | 86.0% | 79.0% | 861 ms | $1.00 | $1.16 | 1,839 | 46.8 | $1.00 / 1k queries |
| 9 | Parallel turbomode=turbo | 71.3% | 66.0% | 315 ms | $1.00 | $1.40 | 1,853 | 38.5 | $1.00 / 1k queries |
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 deeptype=deep | 83.0% | 4.0 s | 36.8 s | $0.13 | 23,660 | 3.51 | $12.00 / 1k queries |
| 2 | Exa autotype=auto | 81.7% | 1.2 s | 22.7 s | $0.11 | 27,433 | 2.98 | $7.00 / 1k queries |
| 3 | Parallel advancedmode=advanced | 77.0% | 3.1 s | 33.4 s | $0.096 | 27,092 | 2.84 | $5.00 / 1k queries |
| 4 | Parallel basicmode=basic | 76.0% | 1.6 s | 30.0 s | $0.11 | 32,809 | 2.32 | $5.00 / 1k queries |
| 5 | Tavily advancedsearch_depth=advanced | 60.0% | 3.4 s | 46.4 s | $0.15 | 26,269 | 2.28 | $16.00 / 1k queries |
| 6 | Tavily basicsearch_depth=basic | 59.0% | 1.5 s | 32.4 s | $0.11 | 27,405 | 2.15 | $8.00 / 1k queries |
| 7 | Linkup standarddepth=standard | 48.3% | 2.0 s | 48.2 s | $0.15 | 57,791 | 0.84 | $5.00 / 1k queries |
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 | Parallel basicparallel-basic | 46.5% | 88.7% | 34.4% | 67.6 s | $1.12 | 303,467 | $5.00 / 1k queries |
| 2 | Exa deepexa-deep | 45.4% | 83.2% | 33.7% | 89.5 s | $0.72 | 153,061 | $12.00 / 1k queries |
| 3 | Parallel advancedparallel-advanced | 44.2% | 87.6% | 32.0% | 83.4 s | $0.62 | 159,733 | $5.00 / 1k queries |
| 4 | Exa instantexa-instant | 43.3% | 82.6% | 32.2% | 49.8 s | $0.65 | 152,622 | $7.00 / 1k queries |
| 5 | Linkup fastlinkup-fast | 41.1% | 82.8% | 30.3% | 64.2 s | $0.92 | 259,642 | $5.00 / 1k queries |
| 6 | Tavily advancedtavily-advanced | 41.1% | 83.7% | 29.8% | 92.2 s | $1.03 | 237,706 | $16.00 / 1k queries |
| 7 | Linkup standardlinkup-standard | 40.6% | 84.0% | 29.7% | 72.3 s | $0.94 | 249,382 | $5.00 / 1k queries |
| 8 | Parallel fastparallel-fast | 38.0% | 79.9% | 27.5% | 53.9 s | $0.46 | 119,953 | $1.00 / 1k queries |
| 9 | Tavily basictavily-basic | 36.5% | 82.5% | 25.7% | 63.0 s | $0.61 | 142,692 | $8.00 / 1k queries |
| 10 | Parallel turboparallel-turbo | 34.7% | 80.0% | 24.8% | 46.4 s | $0.42 | 110,844 | $1.00 / 1k queries |
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 ↗ and openbenchmarks/OB-News-Websearch ↗. The full methodology is on the Web Search Benchmark →
Questions answered by this comparison
Which provider leads exa vs Tavily vs Parallel vs Linkup?
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, Parallel and Linkup that ran is shown, on the same questions.