At a glance
Linkup vs askFinz
Row by row — what a call buys on each side.
| Compared on | Linkup | 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 | Search results for your application to process | The matched passage and an answer, together |
| Rate per 1,000 searches | $5.00 ($0.005–$0.006 per request across tiers) | $0.75 top-up · $1.00 with the extension or a paid plan · $3.50 standalone |
| Pricing shape | Flat within a depth — no volume discount to model, though deep search is roughly ten times standard | Flat per search; cheaper the more of your usage runs through askFinz |
| Reading the page behind a result | Content comes back with the results; a cited natural-language answer costs about $1.00 per 1,000 more | Included — the matched passage, with the address it was read from, at no separate rate |
| Underlying index | Linkup's own, refreshed on its schedule | Its own, read continuously |
Swipe the table sideways to see both columns.
Linkup rate as published on its own pricing page, verified 12 August 2026. askFinz rates as published on pricing. Check Linkup's current page before relying on this figure.
What Linkup is
Linkup is a search API built for AI applications: send a query, get results back, at a per-request rate that holds roughly steady across its tiers rather than dropping sharply with scale. That consistency is the pitch. You do not have to forecast your own volume to find out what you will actually pay, which is a genuine relief compared to a tiered rate card where the honest price depends on a number you do not have yet.
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, with the address it was read from and at no separate rate, and the index is filed by what each document actually is — a judgment with its jurisdiction, a standard with its revision, a filing under the reference number the issuing body published it with. Documents are read as documents: PDFs, Word files and slide decks are read page by page rather than linked to. On top of the index sits a set of workspaces — Search, Research, Chat, Code, News and more — plus a browser extension and a desktop app, all on one sign-in. askFinz does not sell index access as a standalone feed or API.
What the flat rate covers, and what it does not
Linkup's rate covers more than the search itself: results come back with content, and for about $1.00 more per 1,000 requests a sourcedAnswer returns a natural-language answer with inline citations. What the rate does not settle is what happens next — which answer to trust, how to keep it, and how to find it again in three months. That is still work on your side, and it has an ongoing cost even when it is not a line on an invoice. It is also the part askFinz sells: the passage arrives with the address it was read from, the record keeps the identifier its issuing body gave it, and the finding carries on into Research or Storage where somebody can pick it up next quarter.
Where askFinz gives something up
askFinz is not a raw-results API and cannot be dropped into a pipeline the way Linkup can. If your architecture is "call search, then do our own thing with the results", Linkup fits it and askFinz does not, at any price. What it gives instead of a call is a place to work: the workspaces, the browser extension and the desktop app all read the same index on one sign-in, which is a shape no search endpoint in this comparison sells.
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 Linkup if
- You need a search call inside your own application. askFinz has none to sell.
- Budget predictability is the requirement — you want to sign off a number now without modelling next quarter's usage.
- Your pipeline already handles fetching and reading pages, so paying only for search is the right shape.
- You want a simple, well-documented API with no tier structure to reason about.
- You are running a small volume where a flat rate beats a tiered one that only gets good at scale.
Choose askFinz if
- You want the reading and the assembling already done, not a results list to process — including inside the PDFs, Word files and slide decks that hold most of the material worth citing.
- Rate matters: $0.75–$3.50 against $5.00 per 1,000 (as of 12 August 2026).
- Search is a place people work rather than a function your code calls — and the same sign-in opens every other workspace, the browser extension and the desktop app on the same index.
- You want an index read continuously rather than a fresh outbound call per query.
- The answer needs somewhere to go afterwards — Research with sources attached, Storage, a project — and you want the record filed as what it is, with the identifier its issuing body published, rather than as one more link.
FAQ
Questions people ask
The things people actually ask before choosing between Linkup and askFinz.
5 questions · open one to read the answer
No, at published rates. Linkup is around $5.00 per 1,000 requests as of 12 August 2026; askFinz publishes $0.75 as a top-up, $1.00 with the extension or a paid plan and $3.50 standalone.
Yes, Linkup searches its own index rather than relaying another engine's results page.
Only if your stack can change shape. Linkup returns results to your code; askFinz is a workspace and an extension, with no standalone API to call.
Yes, per search, at three published rates depending on how you use it — top-up, with the extension or a paid plan, or standalone. There is no volume tier to model.
Linkup. It is designed to be called from inside a loop you control; askFinz's research agents work against its own index and are not a library you import.
See how the index works, or read the fuller case for owning an index. Join the beta and try it against a real question.