Brave Search

Brave Search is the search engine from Brave Software, the company behind the Brave browser. Two products sit under the name. The first is the consumer site at search.brave.com, which the vendor describes as private and independent: it says it does not profile users and that results come from an index Brave built itself instead of one rented from Google or Bing.

The second is the Brave Search API, sold to developers who need web results, news, images, video, places or ready-made answers for chatbots and agents. The consumer side is funded by ads, with an ad-free Premium option. The API side runs on prepaid credits and has an Enterprise tier with zero data retention. The vendor says there is no fallback to another engine for any query, which is the main reason to consider it over a metasearch front end.

• Independent index. Results are drawn from Brave's own crawled and ranked index. The vendor states there is no fallback to another search engine for any query, and that its index is shaped by anonymous contributions from browser users who opt in to the Web Discovery Project.
• Ask Brave and Answer with AI. Ask Brave combines a chat interface with a results page, and the Answer with AI button adds a short summary at the top of results. The vendor says these answers are based on web search results rather than free-form model memory.
• Goggles. Goggles are rule sets that re-rank results or limit them to chosen domains. Anyone can write one, and a searcher can apply it from the results page. The vendor lists it as a beta feature and publishes a white paper and a GitHub repository.
• LLM Context endpoint. For developers, this API returns pre-extracted passages, tables and code chunks with source URLs and timestamps. Token budget ranges from about 1,000 to 33,000, and a relevance threshold can be strict, balanced or lenient.
• Search verticals in the API. Beyond web search, the API has separate endpoints for news, video, images and places, plus autosuggest and spellcheck. Extra snippets of up to five more per result and schema-enriched results are listed as options.
• Answers endpoint. A hosted answer service grounded on one or several searches returns a cited response. It uses an OpenAI SDK compatible interface, so code written for a chat completions client can point at Brave by changing the base URL.
• Brave Search Premium. A paid consumer option removes ads from the results page. The pages we read mention it as the way to support the project and get an ad-free view, but they do not print its price.

• A privacy-minded individual. Someone who dislikes profiling sets Brave Search as the default in any major browser, uses it from the address bar, and relies on Goggles to push results from preferred sites higher. Ads remain unless Premium is bought.
• An AI product developer. A team building a research agent calls the LLM Context endpoint to ground answers, filters to the last 24 hours for news, and sets a token budget per call. Prepaid credits mean the bill follows usage.
• A compliance-sensitive company. An enterprise that cannot let queries pass to a third party asks about the Enterprise plan, which lists full-funnel zero data retention, custom agreements and NDAs, invoicing and dedicated support.

For the consumer site, open search.brave.com or set Brave Search as the default engine in the browser settings; no account is needed. For the API, sign up at the API dashboard, buy prepaid credits or use the monthly free credit, create a key, and send it in the X-Subscription-Token header.

The quickstart and a Playground are in the documentation, with Python, cURL, JavaScript and Go examples. Rate limits apply per plan and are described in a separate guide. There is also a Brave Search MCP server for connecting AI tools. The vendor does not state a trial period, because the monthly credit works as one.

Brave Software says every result comes from Brave's own independent index, with no fallback to another engine for any query. Ads pay for the consumer site, and an ad-free Premium exists, but its price was not on the pages we read. The index is fed partly by opt-in browser contributions, and the company is based in the USA.

Brave Search is entry #3 of 16 in the search engines list: the products next to it are Mojeek above and Startpage below. Top-three spots are set aside for challengers, and Brave Search holds one of them; read it as a position, not a grade.

Brave Search is based in the United States; 5 of the 16 products here share its region, North America.

Pricing as recorded: Ad-supported; ad-free Premium option; API sold per thousand calls with monthly credits.

The API pricing page lists prepaid plans in US dollars. Search is $5.00 per 1,000 requests at 50 requests per second, with LLM context, news, videos and images included. Answers cost $4.00 per 1,000 queries plus $5.00 per million input tokens and $5.00 per million output tokens, at 2 requests per second. Spellcheck and Autosuggest are $5.00 per 10,000 requests at 100 requests per second. Each plan includes $5 in free credits every month, although the marketing page headline says up to $20. Enterprise is quoted. The consumer site is free with ads, and the Premium price is not printed on the pages we read.

Checked against search.brave.com for Best Search Engines in 2026, review date 7 November 2026.

Enterprise terms are agreed individually.

The vendor says the API is SOC 2 Type II attested and offers zero data retention on Enterprise, which it calls architectural because every query ends on infrastructure Brave operates. For the consumer site, it says it does not profile users and does not collect personal data it could sell. The Web Discovery Project is opt-in and sends anonymous data. Hosting region is not stated on the pages we read.

Integrations the vendor names (6):

• Brave Search MCP server
• OpenAI SDK compatible Answers endpoint
• Claude Cowork on Amazon Bedrock
• Python, JavaScript, Go and cURL examples
• Goggles on GitHub
• Brave browser default search

Also in our records:

• Ecosystem tags in our records: Search API.

Shared tags and a similar price model decide who is listed here; where none match, the neighbours in the ranking fill in.

• Mojeek (#2 of 16): UK crawler with its own index, no tracking and a metered API. Watch out: its own reported count is nine billion pages, so niche queries may return fewer useful results.
• Microsoft Bing (#11 of 16): Microsoft's web search, and a named source for other engines here. Best for: Users and site owners who want Microsoft's search and its webmaster tools.
• Google Search (#12 of 16): Not for: buyers who want to control AI features or avoid ad personalisation. Ad-funded default search whose AI Overviews cannot be switched off.
• Swisscows (#16 of 16): Swiss-run search on its own index, ad-funded with an ad-free Pro tier. Suits: Users who want a Swiss-registered engine and are willing to pay to remove ads. (Switzerland)

Read from the vendor’s own pages on 5 November 2026.

• brave.com/search/api: API positioning, LLM Context, Goggles, SOC 2 and zero data retention statements
• api-dashboard.search.brave.com/app/plans: API plan prices, free credits and rate limits
• brave.com/search: consumer search description, FAQ, ads and Premium, Web Discovery Project
• api-dashboard.search.brave.com/documentation: documentation structure and endpoints

Feature lists tell little, so positions rest on setup effort, the true price, portability and fit. Here that gives Brave Search the #3 position in a list of 16. How vendor facts are sourced, and how money can and cannot influence a page, is in the editorial process.