Brave Search API pricing: $5 per 1,000 and what it covers

How much does each Brave Search API plan cost?

Brave has two self-serve plans and an Enterprise option. You load prepaid credits and each request draws them down. There is no monthly fee. Prices come from the Brave Search API page. Prices checked November 10, 2026.

What does one Brave API call cost?

Every endpoint on the Search plan costs the same: $0.005 a request. That includes the LLM Context endpoint, which returns extracted page text for a model, and Place Search, which returns points of interest with ratings, hours and photos.

Answers costs $0.004 a request plus tokens. Tokens count both input and output at $5 per million. An answer that uses 2,500 tokens costs $0.004 plus $0.0125, or $0.0165.

Brave also pitches the Search plan as a replacement for Google’s Custom Search JSON API, which its page says shuts down on January 1, 2027.

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What does Brave cost at 1,000 and 100,000 calls a month?

1,000 web searches cost $5, which the monthly free credit covers. 100,000 cost $500, or $495 after the credit. For Answers, the table assumes 2,500 tokens per answer, or $0.0165 each. Prices checked November 10, 2026.

What terms come with Brave Search API credits?

The price list is short. The terms around it matter more.

• Brave asks for a credit card even if you only use the free credit. It says this prevents abuse.
• The free credit is $5 a month on each plan, so it covers about 1,000 searches.
• Storing results or using them to train models needs a plan that includes storage rights.
• Answers is limited to 2 queries a second, and long answers add token charges on top of the request fee.
• Full zero data retention, custom agreements and invoicing need an Enterprise contract.

What does Locus Pro add for Brave calls?

Locus Pro lists Brave as a known vendor with a fixed price per call. Your agent pays from one prepaid credit balance that also covers other providers, with no Brave account, plan, minimum or card on file at Brave.

Your agent sees the price before each call and can cap it, and a monthly hard limit stops new calls. On Enterprise, you can bill your own customers for the searches their agents run.

The router/web-search endpoint can also query Brave alongside other engines and fuse the results. Place Search is not in the Locus catalog today.

If Brave is your main search provider and volume is steady, searches can cost less per call with your own Brave account and API key.

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Which Brave option should you choose?

Pick the plan by what your agent needs back.

• Raw results or page text for your own model: the Search plan, using web or LLM Context.
• A finished, cited answer with no model of your own: the Answers plan.
• Store results or train on them: ask Brave for a plan with storage rights.
• Occasional Brave calls among many other paid tools: Locus Pro.