Brave Search API vs Nova Recruiter (2026)

Brave Search API

by Brave Software

Nova Recruiter

by Nova Talent

Pros

• ✓Both self-serve products are priced openly with no sales call required, at $5 per 1,000 requests for Search and $4 per 1,000 requests for Answers.
• ✓A first-party MCP server exposes nine tools over Brave's own search surface, so agent frameworks can connect without building an integration.
• ✓Every account receives $5 in free credits each month on a recurring basis rather than as a one-off trial allowance.
• ✓Brave operates its own web index, documented alongside the opt-in Web Discovery Project in the Brave browser that helps keep it refreshed.

Limitations

• ⚠The general Terms of Service prohibit using search results to create, train, fine-tune or benchmark AI models, and training rights require a separate storage-rights plan that Brave does not price publicly.
• ⚠Zero Data Retention is limited to Enterprise customers. Standard accounts have search query logs retained for up to 90 days.
• ⚠Brave does not state whether customer queries are used to improve its own models, and the Data Processing Agreement sits behind an access request that was not submitted.
• ⚠No independent review corpus exists on any major software marketplace, so no numeric rating is published for this listing.
• ⚠A payment card is required even for the free credit allowance, which Brave describes as an anti-fraud identity check.

Pros

• ✓Nova Recruiter publishes its own MCP server, so searches, shortlists, and outreach campaigns run directly from Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or Cursor without opening the platform interface.
• ✓Integrates with 60+ ATS platforms bidirectionally, surfacing candidates already in the pipeline during a search and pushing new ones across automatically on a positive reply.
• ✓A dedicated privacy policy section rules out model training on customer, candidate, and message data, and Nova's contracts with its AI sub-processors require zero-retention, no-training terms.

Limitations

• ⚠No third-party security certifications of its own: the ISO 27001 and SOC 2 cited in the privacy policy belong to hosting provider Amazon Web Services, and Nova's own ISO 27001 is still in progress.
• ⚠Credit-based pricing meters contacts rather than searches: one credit equals one candidate contacted or exported, so the EUR 49 Starter tier covers 50 candidates a month before overage at EUR 1 per extra credit.
• ⚠Prices exclusively in euros with no USD option and lists both paid tiers exclusive of VAT, and data residency is EU-only, which adds friction for North American buyers.