Web search API, pay per call

From $0.01 per successful call · failed calls are never charged · no account needed · Markdown version: /guides/web-search-api.md

Exa-style web search: top 1-20 results with title, URL, snippet, published date and favicon (Brave index); optional domain, date, category and phrase filters; optional live page text, highlights and AI summaries of the top 10 pages. Results are for immediate use only: no storing, resale or model training (Brave API terms). Failures return 503, uncharged. Use when an agent needs current information or sources from the open web.

When an agent wants this

Give an agent current information or sources from the open web in one call
Get title, URL, snippet and page age for 1-20 results, then read one in full with /extract
Ground an answer in live web results without an account or a monthly plan

Web search API with contents: Exa-style search, filters, page text and highlights $0.01

Inputs: q (required): Search query, at most 400 characters; count: Number of results (1-20, default 10); includeDomains: Only results from these domains: comma list or JSON array, up to 20 (example.com, github.com/org); excludeDomains: Never results from these domains: comma list or JSON array; startPublishedDate: Only pages published on or after this date (ISO 8601, e.g. 2025-01-01); endPublishedDate: Only pages published on or before this date (ISO 8601); category: news, research paper, github, pdf, tweet, linkedin profile, company, personal site or financial report; includeText: A phrase the results must contain (up to 5 words); excludeText: A phrase the results must not contain; country: Localize results for this country: 2-letter code (SE, DE, FR, GB, US…); textChars: Return the live page text of the top results, this many characters each (500-20000, or true for 3000; default none); highlights: true: the passages of each page that best match the query, with scores; numSentences: Sentences per highlight (1-10, default 3); highlightsPerUrl: Highlights per result (1-5, default 1); summary: true: a 1-3 sentence AI summary of each of the top pages; summaryQuery: What the summaries should focus on (default: the query).

Not in the free calls (it costs capacity per call); pay from the first call.

With a card key from /credits, in a header or, when your client can only fetch a URL, in the URL:

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer adt_…" "https://glyphcall.com/search?q=x402%20payment%20protocol"
curl "https://glyphcall.com/search?q=x402%20payment%20protocol&api_key=adt_…"

Without a key the same URL answers 402 Payment Required with x402 and MPP terms, so a wallet client pays USDC per call and retries. Over MCP (https://glyphcall.com/mcp) this tool is search.

Example result

{
  "query": "x402 payment protocol",
  "provider": "Brave Search",
  "count": 1,
  "results": [
    {
      "title": "x402: an open payment protocol",
      "url": "https://www.x402.org/",
      "snippet": "x402 lets any HTTP API charge per request in stablecoins…",
      "age": "2 days ago",
      "publishedDate": "2026-11-04T09:00:00.000Z",
      "author": null,
      "domain": "x402.org",
      "favicon": "https://imgs.search.brave.com/x402-favicon.png",
      "image": null
    }
  ],
  "terms": "Results are for the caller's immediate use: no storing or caching beyond the current task, no resale and no model training (Brave Search API terms)."
}

Tool page, inputs and limits

Web answer, AI with citations: answer a question from live search results $0.01

Answer a question from the live web in one call: a Brave web search, the top result pages read, and an answer written by Llama 4 Scout from those sources only, with inline [n] citations and the source list (title, URL). Says so when the sources do not answer it. Results are for the caller's immediate use only: no storing, resale or model training (Brave API terms). Use when an agent needs a current, sourced answer rather than raw search results.

Inputs: q (required): The question, at most 400 characters.

Not in the free calls (it costs capacity per call); pay from the first call.

With a card key from /credits, in a header or, when your client can only fetch a URL, in the URL:

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer adt_…" "https://glyphcall.com/ai/answer?q=What%20is%20the%20x402%20payment%20protocol%3F"
curl "https://glyphcall.com/ai/answer?q=What%20is%20the%20x402%20payment%20protocol%3F&api_key=adt_…"

Without a key the same URL answers 402 Payment Required with x402 and MPP terms, so a wallet client pays USDC per call and retries. Over MCP (https://glyphcall.com/mcp) this tool is ai_answer.

Example result

{
  "question": "What is the x402 payment protocol?",
  "answer": "x402 is an open protocol that lets an HTTP server charge for a request: it answers 402 Payment Required with the price, and the client pays in stablecoins and retries [1][2].",
  "sources": [
    {
      "n": 1,
      "title": "x402: an open payment protocol",
      "url": "https://www.x402.org/"
    }
  ],
  "model": "@cf/meta/llama-4-scout-17b-16e-instruct",
  "terms": "Results are for the caller's immediate use…"
}

Tool page, inputs and limits

Questions

Where do the results come from?

The Brave Search API, one request per paid call. Results are for the caller's immediate use: no storing, resale or model training.

What if the search provider is down or the daily capacity is used up?

The call answers 503 and nothing is charged.

How do I pay?

Each successful call costs the tool's price; failed calls are not charged. Then pay with card credits from $1 (the key goes in an Authorization header or as api_key= in the URL) or per call in USDC over x402 or MPP. No account is needed.