Brave Search API vs treg.to (2026)

Brave Search API

by Brave Software

treg.to

by Superdesign

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

• ⚠Brave's standard terms do not allow search results to be stored or used to train, fine-tune or benchmark an AI model. Doing that needs a paid plan granting storage rights, which 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.
• ⚠A payment card is required even for the free credit allowance, which Brave describes as an anti-fraud identity check.

Pros

• ✓One token reaches paid data endpoints from more than 40 providers with no provider signup or subscription.
• ✓Each call is metered at the provider's own rate with no markup, and the price is shown before the call.
• ✓Runs as an MCP server in ChatGPT, Claude and Cursor, and a team's own keys and connected accounts run through it unmetered.

Limitations

• ⚠The hosted service is in early access, with no uptime commitment and no formal support SLA.
• ⚠Metered calls draw on a prepaid balance with a default ceiling of $5 per team per day, and stop when the balance is empty.
• ⚠Provider choice is left to the agent, and cheapest-first fallback applies only to routed endpoints such as treg.people.email.find.