At a glance
You.com Search API vs askFinz
Row by row — what a call buys on each side.
| Compared on | You.com Search API | 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 | 1–100 configurable results per call | The matched passage and an answer, together |
| Rate per 1,000 searches | $5.00 | $0.75 top-up · $1.00 with the extension or a paid plan · $3.50 standalone |
| Caller control | Result count set per request | Answer-first; result count is not the unit of the product |
| Reading the pages behind results | Available on the same call — full page content billed at $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 |
| Underlying index | You.com's own, refreshed on its schedule | Its own, read continuously |
Swipe the table sideways to see both columns.
You.com rate as published on its own pricing page, verified 12 August 2026. askFinz rates as published on pricing. Check You.com's current page before relying on this figure.
What You.com Search API is
You.com built a consumer AI search engine and, alongside it, a Search API developers can call directly. A query goes in and a configurable set of results comes back — from a single top hit up to 100 in one request. That range means an application does not have to over-fetch, or make several calls, to get the right amount of material for whatever it does next.
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 gave it. 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.
Where the two products end
A batch of results is raw material. Deciding which of the hundred matter, fetching what is behind them, working out what they actually say, and turning that into a sentence — all of that is still your application's work after the call returns, and the pages that take longest to read are the ones most worth reading: the PDFs, the filings, the slide decks. askFinz starts at the other end of that chain, because those documents were read page by page before anyone asked.
What askFinz gives up in exchange
Control. There is no parameter to set, no result count to tune, no way to ask for a hundred candidates and re-rank them yourself. If your product's value is in how it processes results, that is a real loss and You.com is the better tool.
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 You.com Search API if
- You need search inside your own application. askFinz sells no call you can make.
- Result count matters — you want one hit sometimes and a hundred other times, without over-fetching or making several calls.
- Your product's value is in how it ranks, filters or blends results, so raw material is what you want to buy.
- You are already using You.com's consumer engine and want the same index programmatically.
- You want to control cost by controlling how much you fetch per call.
Choose askFinz if
- You want the reading and the assembling already done, not a batch to process.
- Rate matters: $0.75–$3.50 against $5.00 per 1,000 (as of 12 August 2026).
- Search is something people at your company do rather than something your code calls, and one sign-in should open the rest of the workspaces, the browser extension and the desktop app on the same index.
- You want the passage the answer came from, with the address it was read from, rather than a list of links to fetch and read yourself.
- You want content filed by what it actually is — a judgment with its jurisdiction, a standard with its revision, a filing with its reference number kept — rather than as a configurable batch of hits.
FAQ
Questions people ask
The things people actually ask before choosing between You.com Search API and askFinz.
5 questions · open one to read the answer
Yes. It searches its own index rather than relaying another engine's results page.
askFinz at published rates — $0.75–$3.50 per 1,000 against You.com's $5.00, verified 12 August 2026. They are not identical units: one is an API rate, the other a product rate.
No. Result count is not the unit of the product; the answer and its matched passage are.
No. askFinz does not sell index access as a standalone feed or API. What it sells is the other side of that trade: a set of workspaces, a browser extension and a desktop app, all reading one index on one sign-in.
Very, if your application re-ranks or filters. It is exactly the wrong shape if what you wanted was one answer with its source attached.
See how the index works, or read the fuller case for owning an index. Join the beta and try it against a real question.