On the pages public here, You.com is search infrastructure for applications. The homepage says the APIs search the web, extract clean content, and generate grounded answers for agents. Five REST APIs return real-time web and news results, clean page content, and citation-backed answers. One API key covers all five, billed per request. A narrower free path is live search through the MCP server, with no key and a daily cap.
Official website · you.com
Use You.com when code needs live public-web data and you want to choose who writes the answer. Web Search returns sources. Answer writes a cited response in one call. Research is the multi-step pass, and research_effort changes both the wait and the price. Contents is only for URLs you already have. They price API calls. Latency labels are the vendor's, and a customer quote on the pricing page is not a measurement.
The welcome page calls You.com search infrastructure for AI applications. Five REST APIs return real-time web and news results, clean page content, and citation-backed answers from the public web and a finance-optimized index. One API key covers all five, billed per request. Web Search returns results, Contents returns HTML or Markdown, Answer returns one cited reply, Research works in steps, and Finance Research uses a finance index. Web Search is POST https://ydc-index.io/v1/search, and GET is accepted. Contents is POST https://ydc-index.io/v1/contents. The other three post to api.you.com at /v1/answer, /v1/research, and /v1/finance_research. Send the key in the X-API-Key header. Those three paths return 403 on ydc-index.io even when the key is valid. The Python sample imports youdotcom and outputs each title, URL, and first snippet.
Official documentationThe You.com Web Search API delivers high-quality, structured web and news results optimized for programmatic access in AI applications. Use it for RAG and agents. Cited answers and known URLs belong on the other endpoints. Each result has a URL, title, and description, plus a date, thumbnail, and favicon when the index has them. Without extraction you get snippets, short keyword-centered fragments. Full_page adds contents.markdown or contents.html. Highlights returns contents.highlights and omits snippets. News joins when the query looks like news. Knowledge set to core adds licensed rows in results.knowledge, with provider attribution, or omits them. The guide lists $5.00 per 1,000 calls, up to 100 results. Search requests, including both /v1/agents/search verbs, can settle in USDC instead of credits. One example costs $0.025 for 20 live crawls and $0.005 when extraction_source is cache.
Official documentationWeb Search gives you the sources and leaves the reasoning to you. The other research endpoints hand an answer back. Answer is specific: One call turns a question into a cited answer with the sources it used. Its published latency is p50 about 2.7 seconds at $5 per 1,000 calls. Research does the long version. It plans, searches repeatedly, reads full pages, and cross-references before answering. Five research_effort levels change the wait and the price: Lite under 2 seconds at $12 per 1,000 calls, with no structured output; Standard in 10 to 30 seconds at $50; Deep under 2 minutes at $100; Exhaustive under 5 minutes at $450; Frontier in the background at about 5 minutes and $1,200. Finance Research is described as that engine at the same price and latency, for company and market questions. The table disagrees on price: Deep is $110 and Exhaustive is $500. The page does not explain the difference.
Official documentationFree is a search cap, not a full account. It says no API key, no account, no credit card, and 100 queries a day. The detail line is live search through the MCP server, no API key, up to 100 queries a day, limited to you-search and you-discover. Contents, research, finance, and balance need a key. The Docs MCP server only searches these docs and is free to use. Pay as you go means no minimums, no seats, no platform fee, and auto top-up so jobs never stall. Standard search includes Highlights, Knowledge, extraction, and domain filters at $5 per 1,000 calls, which also covers live stocks, crypto, weather, and prediction markets. Contents is separate: Give it URLs you already have, get back clean Markdown or HTML per page, at $1 per 1,000 pages. A $100 free credit is shown as 20,000 searches. Custom adds SOC 2, DPA-ready terms, custom QPS, and the statement that all queries and data can be automatically purged. No numeric QPS cap is shown for self-serve keys.
Official documentationUse Web Search when the model should read sources and write on its own. A suggested setting is highlights, with the URL kept beside each passage. Stay on Web Search if you do not want a finished paragraph. Move to Answer only when the product should write it. The pricing page draws that line: you get the sources and do the reasoning.
Contents is the suggested call once the URLs are chosen. Give it URLs you already have, get back clean Markdown or HTML per page. Keep Markdown for a later model, or HTML if the markup still matters. One request to an endpoint is one billable call on search. Contents is billed per page, with a published wait of 1 to 10 seconds per page. A suggested batch sends only URLs a person already approved.
A suggested written answer starts at Answer when one call and its sources are enough. Raise research_effort for repeated search: seconds for Lite and Standard, minutes for Deep and Exhaustive, background mode for Frontier. Company and market questions that need grounded numbers are the Finance Research job. This suggested route follows the pricing labels for earnings trends and 10-K work. It is not a sample memo.
Use the free MCP profile for you-search and you-discover. Create a key when you need other tools or more than 100 searches a day.
Send sources to Web Search, known URLs to Contents, one cited reply to Answer, multi-step jobs to Research, and finance questions to Finance Research.
Put the key in the X-API-Key header. Call ydc-index.io for search and contents, and api.you.com for answer, research, and finance.
Treat one request as one call. Contents is charged per page. Set research_effort before a deep, exhaustive, or frontier run.
Per-call amounts below are from you.com/pricing and the Web Search guide on 6 October 2026. Free is a daily cap. Custom has no shown amount.
Try live search before you create a key.
Free.
Up to 100 queries a day.
Production calls across the five endpoints.
Per call.
No minimums, no seats, no platform fee.
Teams that need retention and capacity terms.
Not verified.
Talk to our humans.
One request to an endpoint is one billable call, whatever it returns. Contents is billed per page returned. The $0.025 and $0.005 figures are the search guide's crawl example only.
You are comparing research products, not metering calls.
Consensus is filed here as research. You.com sells web, contents, answer, research, and finance calls with an effort-based price. No Consensus price is stated.
The work stays in a research tool instead of a URL call.
Elicit is another research entry here. You.com documents Contents for URLs you already hold and a priced Research call. Choose Elicit for the research slot. Its features are not described on this page.
The free path says no API key, no account, no credit card, and 100 Web Search queries a day for you-search and you-discover. Other tools need a key. A FAQ heading asks whether paid signup needs a card.
SourceOne request to an endpoint is one billable call, whatever it returns, so 1 result and 100 results cost the same on Web Search. Contents is billed per page returned. Effort changes the research price, not how many calls you made.
SourceWeb Search returns sources for your code to reason over. Answer writes one cited answer. Research plans, searches, reads, and cross-references. Contents parses URLs you already have. Finance Research is the finance-index version of the research job.
SourceThey do not. Headings on a mid-run empty balance, rate limits, separate MCP billing, discounts, and startup offers also lack answers. The $100 credit is shown as 20,000 searches, with no expiry.
SourceThey say the infrastructure is SOC 2 certified and independently audited, that all queries and data can be automatically purged, and that enterprise terms are DPA-ready. CCPA compliance is stated. A license for the APIs is not.
SourceKnowledge adds live stock, crypto, weather, and prediction markets at the Web Search price, or licensed rows when knowledge is core. GET /v1/search and both agent-search verbs can settle in USDC. The other endpoints do not get that wallet sentence.
SourceOct 6, 2026 · NavHunt editorial
NavHunt did not run You.com. It did not call the five endpoints or the MCP server, and it did not time a response or an invoice. Prices and behavior are restated from you.com pages reviewed on 6 October 2026. This description is based on You's official materials reviewed on 2026-10-06, including You.com Web Search APIs homepage, You.com API pricing, You.com API docs welcome, You.com Web Search API overview.
Match the job to Web Search, Contents, Answer, Research, or Finance Research, then read the free MCP cap.