You.com

You.com

You.com sells web search APIs built for AI apps that need live internet data instead of a model's training cutoff. Developers call REST endpoints or connect through an MCP server to pull structured web and news results, full page text, citation-grounded answers, and multi-step research outputs. The product targets RAG pipelines, agents, and enterprise apps where freshness and source links matter.

Where general search APIs often return raw links, You.com returns LLM-ready snippets, optional query-relevant highlights, and unified web plus news in one request. It also ships separate Answer, Research, and Finance Research endpoints when a single search call is not enough. The free MCP profile needs no API key, which is unusual for a paid search provider and lowers the barrier for quick agent experiments.

Engineering teams building agents, fintech workflows, or internal knowledge tools are the core audience. Product and data teams use it when they need cited answers, domain filters, freshness controls, or SOC 2 and zero data retention options for regulated environments.

Top Features:
  1. Free Web Search API tier with 100 queries per day through MCP, no API key required

  2. Web Search API at $5 per 1,000 calls with up to 100 web or news results per request

  3. Answer API returns citation-grounded synthesized answers at $5 per 1,000 calls

  4. Contents API extracts clean Markdown or HTML from URLs at $1 per 1,000 pages

  5. Research API Lite tier starts at $12 per 1,000 calls for multi-step cited answers

  6. New API accounts start with $100 in complimentary credits

Pros:
  1. Unified web and news results in a single API call with structured JSON output.

  2. Free MCP access for you-search with no API key, useful for quick agent prototyping.

  3. Separate Answer, Research, and Finance Research endpoints when search alone is not enough.

  4. Pay-as-you-go pricing with $100 starter credits and no published minimums.

  5. Enterprise options include SOC 2 certification and zero data retention.

Cons:
  1. Usage-based pricing can add up quickly on Research and Finance Research tiers.

  2. The /platform sign-in page blocks public feature browsing without an account.

  3. Full page extraction is billed separately from base search calls.

FAQs:

Is You.com free to use?

Yes. You.com offers a free Web Search API tier with 100 queries per day, including web and news results with LLM-ready snippets. New accounts also receive $100 in complimentary API credits when they sign up for paid endpoints.

How much does the You.com Web Search API cost?

You.com charges $5 per 1,000 Web Search API calls, with up to 100 results per call and news results included at no extra cost. Full page extraction via the Contents API adds $1 per 1,000 pages crawled.

What APIs does You.com offer?

You.com provides Web Search, Contents, Answer, Research, and Finance Research APIs. Web Search returns structured web and news results, Contents extracts page text, Answer synthesizes cited responses, and Research APIs run deeper multi-source workflows.

Does You.com support MCP for AI agents?

Yes. You.com exposes an MCP server at api.you.com/mcp. The free profile supports you-search with no signup, limited to 100 queries per day. Paid MCP access requires an API key and unlocks contents, research, and finance tools.

What is the You.com Answer API?

The You.com Answer API combines web search with synthesis in one call, returning a citation-grounded answer built only from retrieved passages. It is priced at $5 per 1,000 calls and reports 93.48% accuracy on SimpleQA.

Does You.com offer enterprise security options?

Yes. You.com is SOC 2 certified and offers zero data retention on enterprise agreements, DPA-ready contracts, and custom QPS limits. Organizations can contact sales for volume discounts and annual pricing.

Category:

Pricing:

Freemium

Tags:

Web Search API
RAG Pipeline
MCP Integration
Citation Grounding
News Search
Developer APIs
Pay-as-you-go
Aiwriter

Tech used:

Ant Design
jQuery
Webflow
Cloudflare
Amazon CloudFront
Google Tag Manager
HubSpot
GSAP
Python
Ruby
GitHub
Tailwind CSS

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