Snapshot, verified 2026-10-02
You.com describes itself as “The Leading Web Search APIs for AI” and is now API-first (it pivoted away from consumer search from 2023 per Wikipedia). The about page lists Web Search, Contents, Answer, Research and Finance Research APIs plus an MCP server and Agent Skills. The pricing page (2026-10-02) lists no consumer plans.
You.com (YouSearch / YouChat)
by You.com
AI-first search company; now positioned around search APIs for AI agents and enterprises
See: https://you.com and https://you.com/docs/. For how it fits among other search APIs see ai-search-apis-overview.
API plans (you.com/pricing, re-checked 2026-10-02)
Pay-as-you-go, no minimum, free credit on signup; volume discounts and annual commitments available. Billed per 1,000 calls (pages for Contents). Current prices: see the vendor pricing page https://you.com/pricing
- Web Search API: free tier of 100 queries/day
- Contents API: per-page billing
- Answer API: per-call billing
- Research API: tiers Lite to Frontier; vendor claims “#1 in DeepSearchQA”; Answer API “93.48% accuracy on SimpleQA”, vendor claims, not independently checked
- Finance Research API: per-call billing, the most expensive of the five
- Enterprise: SOC 2, zero data retention option, DPA, custom QPS (vendor claim). About page lists NVIDIA, Salesforce, Amazon, OpenAI and Databricks as customers (vendor claim).
Company, funding and history (Wikipedia and you.com/about)
- Founded 2020 by Richard Socher (CEO) and Bryan McCann, both ex-Salesforce; Palo Alto, California. Leadership per the about page: Alex Triplett (COO), Saahil Jain (CTO), Saurabh Sharma (CPO), Ricardo Baeza-Yates (search chief scientist).
- Per Wikipedia: Series A 50M (Sep 2024, Georgian), Series C 1.5B valuation (Sep 2025, led by Cox Enterprises).
- Per Wikipedia: YouChat launched 2022-12-23; YouPro paid plan 2023; ARI (Advanced Research and Insights) for regulated industries launched Feb 2025, named among TIME’s Best Inventions of 2025.
Best for
- Developers needing a web-search or research API for agents.
What changed in 2026
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Positioning is now search/research APIs for AI agents with published per-1,000-call pricing; Answer and Finance Research APIs, an MCP server and Agent Skills appear on the site. See ai-search-apis-overview for how it compares with Exa, Tavily, Brave and Perplexity; see also exa and tavily company notes.