You.com
Pivoted from a consumer AI search app to usage-billed developer APIs (Web Search, Contents, Answer, Research, Finance Research). The consumer Pro/Team chat plans are no longer publicly marketed on You.com's current plans page.
The verdict on You.com: Developers who want to add web search, page extraction, or cited research to their own AI app Evaluate You.com as search and research infrastructure for your own application, rather than assuming its former consumer chat plans remain available. Pricing: Web Search $5/1,000 calls (USD; up to 100 results/call) / Live extraction +$1/1,000 pages / Other APIs priced separately.
Best For
Developers who want to add web search, page extraction, or cited research to their own AI app
Standout Feature
Usage-billed APIs built for agent developers, not a consumer search product anymore
TL;DR
No longer a Perplexity alternative for individuals. Evaluate it as developer infrastructure instead.
Alternatives
Fit Score: use-case reference
How this is scoredYou.com scored 1 to 5 on five dimensions for the named use cases below. Part of our catalog-wide use-case reference, not a product-quality review rating.
Web search API integration
3.8/5- Capability
- 4/5
- Reliability
- 3/5
- Value
- 4/5
- Ease
- 3/5
- Compatibility
- 5/5
You.com adds web and news retrieval to an existing AI application through an API rather than a consumer search interface. Web Search is priced at $5/1,000 calls, with up to 100 results per call; live extraction adds $1/1,000 pages. The $100 new-account credit is promotional, not a plan price. Developers still need to build the integration and verify endpoint quotas against their workload.
Cited research API integration
3.6/5- Capability
- 4/5
- Reliability
- 3/5
- Value
- 3/5
- Ease
- 3/5
- Compatibility
- 5/5
You.com offers research and citation-grounded answer endpoints for bringing sourced synthesis into an AI application. Research Lite costs $12/1,000 calls in USD, but that effort-tier rate does not establish the price or quotas of other answer and research configurations. API integration and workload-specific citation checks remain necessary before relying on the output.
Editorial judgment grounded in this tool's own published pricing, features, and our existing pros and cons, not a certification or a measured benchmark. Product quality is assessed separately under our review methodology.
Overview
Not yet reviewedProduct quality is assessed from original evidence. How reviews work.
Add web search, page extraction, and cited research to an application through You.com's developer APIs. Its current publicly marketed suite includes Web Search, Contents, Answer, Research, and Finance Research, with usage-based billing rather than consumer chat seats. Web Search costs $5/1,000 calls in USD, with up to 100 results per call. Live full-page extraction adds $1/1,000 pages fetched live; other APIs and Research effort tiers have their own rates. The $100 new-account API credit is promotional, not a plan charge or recurring allowance. Confirm the endpoint, quota, and current rate needed for your application before budgeting.
The earlier consumer product combined conversational search with source preferences and research modes, and advertised features such as Private Mode and ad-free browsing. Those legacy features should not be treated as current API capabilities or current public subscription offers. The absence of consumer plans from the current marketing pages, or a sign-in wall, does not by itself prove that every existing consumer account has been discontinued.
The source of the legacy catalog rating and review count has not been substantiated. Neither is presented here as a verified review rating or included in review structured data.
Workflow Fit Scores are separate, use-case-specific editorial judgments, not user-review averages. Read the Fit Score methodology.
- • Usage-billed with no seat minimums, pay for what you call
- • $100 new-account promotional credit supports initial API tests
- • Backed by a real, still-growing enterprise business
- • No consumer chat plan is publicly marketed for individuals anymore
- • Requires API integration, not a point-and-click search tool
- • Search, live extraction, and Research effort tiers have different billing units or rates
Key Features
- Web Search API with news results
- Contents API for page extraction
- Answer API (citation-grounded synthesis)
- Research API
- Finance Research API
- $100 promotional API credit for new accounts, not a plan price
Trust & Data
Verified 2026-09
- Training on your data
- Not publishedEvery You.com policy URL attempted returned a server error or a JavaScript-only shell with no readable body content, a likely render failure rather than confirmed absence of policy.
- Compliance
- Not published
- Retention
- Not published
- Export
- Not published
Source: you.com
As published by the vendor. Verify independently before purchase decisions.
Our Take
Usage-based APIs can fit developers who need to retrieve pages or add cited answers inside an existing workflow. Check the chosen endpoint's pricing, quotas, citation behavior, and data handling against your workload. For a point-and-click consumer research assistant, compare a currently available consumer product such as Perplexity instead.