1
Brave Search API
Shares tags: analyze
AI ToolBecomes the API
Linkup Review
Linkup provides a state-of-the-art web search API that powers business applications and AI agents with accurate, real-time information from trusted sources.
shipped May 26, 2026analyzefreemium
1Linkup secured a $10 million seed round in March 2026, led by Gradient.
2The platform achieves a 91.0% F-Score on the SimpleQA benchmark, outperforming Perplexity Sonar (77.3%).
3Users receive 4,000 free queries per month or a $20 monthly credit under its freemium model.
4Linkup offers sub-second latency with its Linkup /fast API and guarantees 99.9% uptime with SLA-backed reliability.
Stork Quadrant
Becomes the API· 25/100
Replaceable as a UI, but kept alive as the API the agents call.
“Linkup is a thin wrapper around web search. Claude and other LLMs can already call Brave, Google, or Bing search APIs directly, or agents can use built-in web search. The only defensibility is speed or result quality, but those decay as models get native search. This dies unless Linkup becomes the default search layer that agents prefer — which requires either better results than free APIs or a network effect it doesn't have.”
Defensibility · 0/100
- Physical-world coupling
- Regulatory moat
- Network liquidity
- Proprietary refreshing data
- High-trust catastrophic workflows
- Multi-party coordination
- Brand / community / taste
An LLM alone could replace
- Fetch and parse web search results for an agent query
- Return structured data about web pages (title, snippet, URL)
- Rate-limit and meter API calls to control cost
- Integrate search into an agentic workflow via OpenAPI spec
Agent-Readiness · 55/100
- Verified MCP
- Listed on agent surfaces— anthropic_directory
- Usage-based pricing— pricing page heuristic match: https://linkup.so/pricing
- Headless agent auth
- Public OpenAPI— https://api.linkup.so/v1/openapi.json
- Active changelog— https://linkup.so/blog (2026-05-25)
- llms.txt
Score history · +14 pts over 2 re-scores
How to defend
Become the search backbone for agent frameworks (like LangChain or CrewAI) by offering 10x cheaper per-query pricing and proving result quality on agent-specific benchmarks. Or pivot to vertical search (legal, medical, financial) where proprietary indexing and regulatory trust matter.
- Ship an MCP server and list it on Stork — biggest single point gain (+25).
- Expose API-key auth with a self-serve sandbox tier; remove sales-call gates (+15).
- Ship an /llms.txt file pointing agents to your most important docs (+5, easy win).
Linkup at a Glance
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overview
What is Linkup?
Linkup is an AI-native web search engine and API developed by Linkup that enables AI agents and large language models (LLMs) to access current and factual web data. It aims to combat AI hallucination and enhance the factual grounding of AI responses by delivering structured, verifiable data from trusted sources. The platform provides a production-grade web search API optimized for LLMs and Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines, delivering highly accurate web data from trusted sources.
quick facts
Quick Facts
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
| Developer | Linkup |
| Business Model | Freemium, Usage-based (per-query) |
| Pricing | Freemium (4,000 free queries/$20 monthly credit), then usage-based ($0.001-$0.005 per request) |
| Platforms | API |
| API Available | Yes (OpenAPI) |
| Funding | $10M Seed Round (March 2026) |
features
Key Features of Linkup
Linkup offers a premium web search API specifically designed for AI agents, providing robust capabilities for data retrieval and integration. Its architecture supports high accuracy and low latency, crucial for real-time AI applications. The platform ensures data compliance and offers flexible deployment options for enterprise clients.
- 1Premium web search API for AI agents with OpenAPI standard.
- 2Per-query pricing model for transparent cost management.
- 3Enriched data with compliance details, including a privacy policy and a strict 'never' policy on training on user data.
- 4Full control over search parameters, allowing users to tune the index, select sources, and set data freshness.
- 5Provides sourced, cited answers with full-text snippets for factual grounding.
- 6Supports Private Index deployment for enhanced data control and security.
- 7Offers Bring your Own Cloud deployment options for flexible infrastructure management.
- 8Achieves state-of-the-art accuracy, demonstrated by a 91.0% F-Score on the SimpleQA benchmark.
- 9Delivers sub-second latency, particularly with its Linkup /fast service.
- 10Guarantees 99.9% uptime, backed by a Service Level Agreement (SLA).
use cases
Who Should Use Linkup?
Linkup is engineered for organizations and developers who require real-time, accurate web data to power their AI applications and agents in production environments. Its capabilities are tailored to enhance factual grounding and reduce AI hallucinations across various business functions.
- 1Teams shipping AI in production: For factual grounding of AI systems, reducing hallucinations in chatbots and answer engines, and ensuring reliable, up-to-date responses.
- 2AI developers and Researchers: To power AI agents and copilots with real-time, accurate web search for diverse workflows, including Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines.
- 3Enterprise teams (Sales, Legal, Corporate Intelligence): For sales enablement with enriched pipeline data, real-time web intent, legal AI applications including regulatory data, and corporate intelligence for cyber security breach detection and reputation monitoring.
- 4Professional services organizations and Consultants: For comprehensive research, finding accurate information on people and companies, and automating human web research processes.
pricing
Linkup Pricing & Plans
Linkup operates on a flexible 'pay as you go' freemium model, providing transparent per-query pricing. New accounts are credited with $20 monthly, allowing for a substantial number of free queries before incurring costs. This model is designed to offer flexibility and cost predictability for AI development and deployment.
- 1Free Tier: Users receive 4,000 queries for free per month, equivalent to a $20 monthly credit.
- 2Fetch (URL content extraction) without JavaScript (`renderJs: false`): Priced at $0.001 per request.
- 3Fetch (URL content extraction) with JavaScript (`renderJs: true`): Priced at $0.005 per request.
- 4Search (Web search for AI agents) Standard: Detailed pricing for this specific endpoint is not fully specified in the provided data.
competitors
Linkup vs Competitors
Linkup positions itself as a purpose-built search engine for the AI era, directly addressing the 'Information Gap' for AI agents by providing structured, real-time, and verifiable information. It differentiates itself from traditional search engines and other AI-native search APIs through its focus on accuracy, pricing simplicity, and direct integration with AI workflows.
1
Firecrawl↗
Offers a curated search index for AI agents, providing fresh, full-content results from authoritative sources, along with integrated extraction and an autonomous /agent endpoint.
Firecrawl combines search and full content extraction into a single API call, delivering clean markdown directly consumable by LLMs, which differs from traditional SERP APIs that often require additional scraping for full content. It provides both open-source and managed API options, with a pricing plan starting at $19/month for 2,500 requests per minute, while Linkup uses a per-query freemium model.
2
Exa↗
Specializes in neural search trained on link prediction, making it ideal for Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and AI agents by focusing on semantic and contextually relevant results.
Exa is built specifically for AI use cases, delivering full page content rather than just snippets, which is highly beneficial for LLM consumption. It operates on a pay-as-you-go model with free trial credits, similar to Linkup's per-query freemium pricing.
3
Tavily↗
Provides source-first discovery with strong integrations for LangChain and LlamaIndex, and is purpose-built for RAG pipelines, capable of aggregating up to 20 sites in a single API call.
Tavily focuses on delivering citation-ready structured output with source credibility scoring, which enhances the trustworthiness of AI agent responses. It offers a free tier for approximately 1,000 searches per month and is priced at $0.008 per credit, aligning with Linkup's freemium and per-query pricing.
4
Perplexity API↗
Offers real-time web search results and is recognized as an AI market leader for summarizing the most recent information, featuring low-latency hybrid search capabilities.
Perplexity API provides a model-agnostic platform for search and agentic workflows, emphasizing high-quality retrieval and transparent pricing, and delivers larger amounts of context from web pages, similar to Linkup's focus on AI agents.
❓
Frequently Asked Questions
+What is Linkup?
Linkup is an AI-native web search engine and API developed by Linkup that enables AI agents and large language models (LLMs) to access current and factual web data. It aims to combat AI hallucination and enhance the factual grounding of AI responses by delivering structured, verifiable data from trusted sources.
+Is Linkup free?
Linkup offers a freemium model. New accounts are credited with $20 monthly, which allows for approximately 4,000 free queries. Beyond this, pricing is usage-based, starting at $0.001 per request for URL content extraction without JavaScript.
+What are the main features of Linkup?
Key features of Linkup include a premium web search API for AI agents, OpenAPI compatibility, per-query pricing, enriched data with strict privacy compliance, full control over search parameters, support for Private Index and Bring your Own Cloud deployments, state-of-the-art accuracy (91.0% F-Score on SimpleQA), sub-second latency, and 99.9% SLA-backed uptime.
+Who should use Linkup?
Linkup is designed for teams shipping AI in production, AI developers, researchers, enterprise teams (including sales, legal, and corporate intelligence), professional services organizations, and consultants who require real-time, accurate web information to power AI agents, reduce hallucinations, and enhance factual grounding in AI applications.
+How does Linkup compare to alternatives?
Linkup differentiates itself from competitors like Firecrawl, Exa, Tavily, and Perplexity API by focusing on state-of-the-art accuracy (e.g., 91.0% F-Score on SimpleQA), transparent per-query pricing, and a purpose-built architecture for AI agents. While competitors offer similar services, Linkup emphasizes its performance benchmarks and straightforward cost model for AI-native web search.
For builders
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