At a glance
Exa vs askFinz
Row by row — what a call buys on each side.
| Compared on | Exa | askFinz |
|---|---|---|
| What you buy | A search API for your own application | Workspaces, research agents, a browser extension and a desktop app, on one sign-in |
| What comes back | Ranked results, up to 10 per standard request | The matched passage and an answer, together |
| Rate per 1,000 searches | $5.00 answer mode · $7.00 standard · $12.00–$15.00 deep/reasoning | $0.75 top-up · $1.00 with the extension or a paid plan · $3.50 standalone |
| What the rate covers | The first 10 results, then $1.00 per 1,000 for each further result | As many results as the question needs |
| Page text | $1.00 per 1,000 pages, on top of the search | Included — the matched passage, with the address it was read from, at no separate rate |
| AI page summaries | $1.00 per 1,000 pages, a third line again | Included — the answer is the summary |
| Ranking | Embeddings-based semantic relevance | Ranked against our own index; an answer draws on as many results as the question needs |
| Underlying index | Exa's own, refreshed on its schedule | Its own, read continuously |
Swipe the table sideways to see both columns.
Exa rates as published on its own endpoint pricing table, verified 12 September 2026. askFinz rates as published on pricing. Check Exa's current page before relying on these figures.
What Exa is
Exa is a developer-facing search API built for AI applications. Its standard search returns up to ten results per request from an index Exa built itself, ranked by embeddings rather than keyword match, so it surfaces documents that mean the same thing as the query without sharing its words. Separate tiers cover a cheaper answer mode and a deeper multi-step research search. Content extraction — the actual text behind a result — is a separate line on the bill.
What askFinz is
askFinz runs its own crawled web index, read continuously rather than fetched per query. A question returns the matched passage together with the answer, at no separate rate, and what the index holds is filed as the kind of document it is rather than left as an undifferentiated result list — a judgment comes back as a judgment with its jurisdiction, a standard with its revision, a filing with the reference number the issuing body published it under. What sits on top is not one endpoint: a set of workspaces — Search, Research, Chat, Code, News and more — plus a browser extension and a desktop app, all on the same index and one sign-in. askFinz does not sell index access as a standalone feed or API.
Four lines, or one
The headline rate is the search, and it covers ten results. Ask for more and every result past the tenth is metered at $1.00 per 1,000. The page text is a separate call at a separate price, an AI summary of that page is a third, and after that your application still has to decide which passages matter and write the answer.
That is not a criticism of Exa's pricing — it is honest unbundling, published plainly enough that you can work out your own bill before you make a call, and if you only need ten links you should not pay for text you will not read. It does mean the rate you compare has to include every line you will actually use. A question that has to weigh forty sources is not one $7.00 search; it is that search plus thirty metered results, plus the text behind whichever of them you open.
askFinz does not meter results. A question draws on as many passages as it needs at the same rate. It also matters what the text is: askFinz reads documents as documents, so PDFs, Word files and slide decks are read page by page rather than linked to, and the passage that comes back can be from inside a filing rather than only from the page wrapped around it.
Where the two actually agree
Exa built and operates its own index. That puts it in a much smaller group than most of this comparison, and it means the ownership argument askFinz makes against a SERP relay does not apply here. What is left is narrower and more honest: shape and price. Exa sells the index as an API you build on; askFinz builds the product on top of its index and does not sell access to it separately.
A component, or a place to work
One of these is a call you build against. The other is somewhere you open and use.
Choose Exa if
- You are building an application and need search you can call from code. askFinz has no such call.
- Ranking by vector similarity is the feature you are buying, and you want to tune against it directly. askFinz exposes no such control.
- You need deep, multi-step research search as a programmable primitive rather than as a workspace someone uses.
- Links without text are often enough for you, so unbundled extraction is a saving rather than a surcharge.
- You want to control result count, re-ranking and chunking inside your own pipeline.
Choose askFinz if
- You want the passage back with the answer, at one price, with no second extraction call.
- Search is a thing people at your company do, not a function your code calls.
- Rate matters: $0.75–$3.50 against $7.00 for a ten-result search, $1.00 per 1,000 for every result past the tenth, and $1.00 per 1,000 pages again for the text (as of 12 September 2026).
- You want the answer to continue into Research, Storage or a project rather than ending as a JSON response — the same index carries every other workspace, the browser extension and the desktop app on one sign-in.
- You want results filed by what the document actually is — a judgment with its jurisdiction, a standard with its revision, a filing with the reference number the issuing body gave it, rather than a page that happens to contain the right words.
FAQ
Questions people ask
The things people actually ask before choosing between Exa and askFinz.
5 questions · open one to read the answer
Exa operates its own index. It is one of the few in this comparison that does, alongside Brave, Amazon and askFinz — so the usual "renting versus owning" argument does not separate these two.
More than the search line alone, if your answer needs the page text. As of 12 September 2026 Exa publishes $7.00 per 1,000 standard searches covering the first ten results, $1.00 per 1,000 for each result beyond the tenth, $1.00 per 1,000 pages of content extraction and $1.00 per 1,000 pages again for AI summaries — four separate lines, each billed on its own. Answer mode is $5.00 and the deep and deep-reasoning tiers are $12.00 and $15.00. askFinz includes the passage at $0.75–$3.50 per 1,000.
No. askFinz is a set of workspaces, a browser extension and a desktop app on one index and one sign-in; index access is not sold as a standalone API.
Exa has made embeddings-based ranking its headline capability and is explicit about it. askFinz retrieves by meaning too, but sells the finished answer rather than the ranking behind it, so there is no like-for-like relevance figure published on either side to compare.
No. It is a hosted product.
See how the index works, or read the fuller case for owning an index. Join the beta and try it against a real question.