Five search APIs tested: Exa led quality, KeiroLabs cut cost
Five APIs were compared for use in a Slack bot that helps customers solve problems in real time. The test covered 252 queries across 17 and included Exa, KeiroLabs, You.com, Tavily, and Firecrawl. scored each response without seeing the provider’s name, judging relevance, accuracy, and completeness.
The final score weighted quality at 60%, cost efficiency at 25%, and response time at 15%. Exa ranked first with 88.5 points, followed by KeiroLabs at 84.2, You.com at 78.1, Tavily at 56.4, and Firecrawl at 51.2. Estimated search and generation costs per 1,000 uses were $13.97 for Exa, $3.76 for KeiroLabs, $6.01 for You.com, $19.94 for Tavily, and $18.83 for Firecrawl.
You.com returned the fewest tokens on average at 1,273 and was fastest at 8.5 seconds, while Tavily and Firecrawl returned 37,729 and 41,325 tokens. The data and prompts are public, so the test can be repeated.
Key points
- The comparison used 252 queries across 17 .
- Exa ranked first overall at 88.5 and had the highest relevance score at 3.88.
- KeiroLabs cost $3.76 per 1,000 uses, about 27% of Exa’s cost.
- You.com had the shortest output at 1,273 average tokens and the fastest response at 8.5 seconds.
- Public data and prompts allow teams to rerun the for their own .