# You.com

> Real-time web search, research and answer APIs that ground AI agents in live data

- Category: [Developer Tools](https://finderatlas.com/categories/developer-tools)
- Pricing: Freemium
- Website: https://you.com
- Platforms: Web, iOS, Android, API
- API: available
- Mobile app: available
- Made by: You.com, founded 2020, Palo Alto, CA
- Last updated: 2026-11-04
- FinderAtlas page: https://finderatlas.com/tools/you-com

## Overview

You.com is a web intelligence company that sells search and inference APIs for AI applications and agents. Its homepage headline is "Search and inference for AI", and the company describes the product as a real-time web data layer for developers and enterprises. The lineup includes an Inference Router, an OpenAI-compatible API for open-weight models with multi-provider failover and a 99.9% uptime SLA, plus a Web Search API that returns ranked web and news results, a Contents API that extracts clean Markdown or HTML from URLs, an Answer API that returns a cited answer in one call, and a Research API (plus a finance-tuned variant) that plans multi-step searches and returns cited reports. A hosted MCP server and agent skills let coding agents and other MCP clients call these tools directly.

## Key features

- Web Search API
- Contents API
- Answer API
- Research API
- Finance Research API
- Knowledge for Web Search
- Hosted MCP Server and Agent Skills
- Enterprise Security
- Inference Router

## Pricing

- **Free** ($0): Keyless prototyping through the MCP server
- **Pay as you go** ($5/1K calls): Usage-based billing for production; $5 is the Web Search rate per 1,000 calls
- **Enterprise** (Custom): Enterprise teams needing compliance and capacity

## Best for

- Grounding LLM and agent outputs in live web data, RAG pipelines, cited research reports, adding web search to MCP-enabled coding agents

## Who uses it

- AI Developers
- Engineering Teams
- Enterprise Teams
- Startups
- Knowledge Workers

## Strengths

- Clear per-call pricing with no seat, minimum or platform fee.
- Keyless free MCP tier (100 queries per day) makes prototyping frictionless.
- Range of endpoints from raw search to cited multi-step research on one index.
- Documented MCP server, agent skills and plugins for many coding agents.
- Enterprise options include zero data retention and SOC 2.
- Published latency figures per endpoint help with capacity planning.

## Limitations

- Per-call billing makes costs harder to predict than a flat subscription, and top Research tiers reach $1,200 per 1,000 calls.
- No consumer plans are published on the website, so anyone looking for the old chat assistant gets no clear pricing.
- The consumer search and chat experience is no longer promoted, so it is a poor fit for casual users.
- Free tier is capped at 100 Web Search queries per day.

## Not recommended for

- Casual consumers wanting a simple free search engine, teams wanting flat-rate pricing instead of per-call billing

## Integrations

- Claude Code
- Cursor
- Codex CLI
- GitHub Copilot CLI
- Windsurf
- Gemini CLI
- VS Code
- JetBrains IDEs
- Zed
- OpenCode
- Jan

## FinderAtlas editorial scores (out of 10)

- Ease of Use: 8/10
- Feature Depth: 8.3/10
- Value for Money: 7.8/10
- Performance & Speed: 8.4/10
- Documentation & Support: 8.5/10

## Alternatives

- [Kiro](https://finderatlas.com/tools/kiro): Spec-driven agentic IDE from AWS that turns prompts into designs, tasks and code ([compare](https://finderatlas.com/compare/kiro-vs-you-com))
- [Claude](https://finderatlas.com/tools/claude): Anthropic's AI assistant for writing, analysis, coding and working with files ([compare](https://finderatlas.com/compare/claude-vs-you-com))
- [Fellou](https://finderatlas.com/tools/fellou): Agentic AI browser that plans and runs multi-step web tasks for you ([compare](https://finderatlas.com/compare/fellou-vs-you-com))
- [Dia](https://finderatlas.com/tools/dia): An AI-native web browser that answers questions across your tabs and work apps ([compare](https://finderatlas.com/compare/dia-vs-you-com))
- [Perplexity](https://finderatlas.com/tools/perplexity): AI answer engine that searches the live web and cites its sources ([compare](https://finderatlas.com/compare/perplexity-vs-you-com))
- [Kagi](https://finderatlas.com/tools/kagi): Ad-free, subscription-funded search engine with built-in AI assistant and summarization tools ([compare](https://finderatlas.com/compare/kagi-vs-you-com))
- [Opera Neon](https://finderatlas.com/tools/opera-neon): Agentic AI browser that researches, navigates and completes web tasks for you ([compare](https://finderatlas.com/compare/opera-neon-vs-you-com))
- [Felo](https://finderatlas.com/tools/felo): Multilingual AI search engine that also builds slides, mind maps and research reports ([compare](https://finderatlas.com/compare/felo-vs-you-com))

## Recent updates

- 2024-09-01: Announced a $50 million Series B led by Georgian, as the company moved from AI search toward productivity agents

## FAQ

**Is You.com still a consumer search engine?**

Not as its main product. The homepage, pricing and about pages describe only APIs for developers and enterprises. A sign-in page at /chat and an iOS app listing still exist, but the website does not describe them or publish consumer plans.

**How much does the You.com API cost?**

Billing is per call with no minimums, seats or platform fee. Web Search is $5 per 1,000 calls, Contents is $1 per 1,000 pages, and Research ranges from $12 to $1,200 per 1,000 calls depending on the effort level.

**Can I try it without an account?**

Yes. The MCP server offers a free profile with no API key, account or credit card, limited to 100 Web Search queries per day.

**Does You.com store my queries?**

Zero Data Retention is available for enterprise customers, which lets queries and data be automatically purged. The company also lists SOC 2 certification and DPA readiness.

**Which agents and tools can use the MCP server?**

The docs list guides for Claude Code, Cursor, Codex CLI, GitHub Copilot CLI, Windsurf, Gemini CLI, VS Code, JetBrains IDEs, Zed, OpenCode and others.