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Find the right AI tool in 2 minutes. Independent reviews and honest comparisons of 770+ AI tools.

  1. Home
  2. Tools
  3. AI Search
  4. Metaphor
  5. Pricing
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โ† Back to Metaphor Overview

Metaphor Pricing & Plans 2026

Complete pricing guide for Metaphor. Compare all plans, analyze costs, and find the perfect tier for your needs.

Try Metaphor Free โ†’Compare Plans โ†“

Not sure if free is enough? See our Free vs Paid comparison โ†’
Still deciding? Read our full verdict on whether Metaphor is worth it โ†’

๐Ÿ†“Free Tier Available
๐Ÿ’Ž4 Paid Plans
โšกNo Setup Fees

Choose Your Plan

Free

$0/month

mo

  • โœ“1,000 searches per month
  • โœ“Basic Search and Contents API access
  • โœ“Community support
Start Free Trial โ†’

Basic

From $1 per 1,000 searches

mo

  • โœ“Pay-as-you-go usage-based pricing
  • โœ“Search, Contents, and Highlights APIs
  • โœ“Standard rate limits
  • โœ“Email support
Start Free Trial โ†’
Most Popular

Pro

Usage-based with volume discounts

mo

  • โœ“Higher rate limits
  • โœ“Websets access
  • โœ“Structured output extraction
  • โœ“Priority support
Start Free Trial โ†’

Enterprise

Custom pricing

mo

  • โœ“SOC 2 Type II compliance
  • โœ“Zero Data Retention (ZDR)
  • โœ“Single Sign-On (SSO)
  • โœ“Dedicated account manager
  • โœ“Custom SLAs and rate limits
Contact Sales โ†’

Pricing sourced from Metaphor ยท Last verified March 2026

Feature Comparison

FeaturesFreeBasicProEnterprise
1,000 searches per monthโœ“โœ“โœ“โœ“
Basic Search and Contents API accessโœ“โœ“โœ“โœ“
Community supportโœ“โœ“โœ“โœ“
Pay-as-you-go usage-based pricingโ€”โœ“โœ“โœ“
Search, Contents, and Highlights APIsโ€”โœ“โœ“โœ“
Standard rate limitsโ€”โœ“โœ“โœ“
Email supportโ€”โœ“โœ“โœ“
Higher rate limitsโ€”โ€”โœ“โœ“
Websets accessโ€”โ€”โœ“โœ“
Structured output extractionโ€”โ€”โœ“โœ“
Priority supportโ€”โ€”โœ“โœ“
SOC 2 Type II complianceโ€”โ€”โ€”โœ“
Zero Data Retention (ZDR)โ€”โ€”โ€”โœ“
Single Sign-On (SSO)โ€”โ€”โ€”โœ“
Dedicated account managerโ€”โ€”โ€”โœ“
Custom SLAs and rate limitsโ€”โ€”โ€”โœ“

Is Metaphor Worth It?

โœ… Why Choose Metaphor

  • โ€ข Extremely low latency search API (under 180ms) suitable for real-time AI agent workflows
  • โ€ข Structured output extraction from a database of 70M+ companies enables complex enrichment pipelines without manual parsing
  • โ€ข Highlights feature reduces LLM token costs by over 50% by extracting only the most relevant page excerpts
  • โ€ข Dedicated high-quality web indexes for specific verticals (people, companies, code docs, financial data, news) improve result relevance
  • โ€ข Enterprise-grade security with SOC 2 Type II certification, Zero Data Retention, and SSO for compliance-sensitive organizations
  • โ€ข Flexible developer tooling including MCP Server, prompt builder, GitHub integration, and comprehensive API documentation

โš ๏ธ Consider This

  • โ€ข Primarily an API product โ€” no full-featured consumer search interface for non-technical users
  • โ€ข Rebranding from Metaphor to Exa may cause confusion when searching for documentation or community resources under the old name
  • โ€ข Pricing is usage-based and can become expensive at scale for high-volume query workloads
  • โ€ข Web index, while large, may not match the breadth of coverage of established search engines like Google for long-tail or niche content
  • โ€ข Structured output and specialized indexes are limited to supported categories โ€” custom verticals may require workarounds

What Users Say About Metaphor

๐Ÿ‘ What Users Love

  • โœ“Extremely low latency search API (under 180ms) suitable for real-time AI agent workflows
  • โœ“Structured output extraction from a database of 70M+ companies enables complex enrichment pipelines without manual parsing
  • โœ“Highlights feature reduces LLM token costs by over 50% by extracting only the most relevant page excerpts
  • โœ“Dedicated high-quality web indexes for specific verticals (people, companies, code docs, financial data, news) improve result relevance
  • โœ“Enterprise-grade security with SOC 2 Type II certification, Zero Data Retention, and SSO for compliance-sensitive organizations
  • โœ“Flexible developer tooling including MCP Server, prompt builder, GitHub integration, and comprehensive API documentation

๐Ÿ‘Ž Common Concerns

  • โš Primarily an API product โ€” no full-featured consumer search interface for non-technical users
  • โš Rebranding from Metaphor to Exa may cause confusion when searching for documentation or community resources under the old name
  • โš Pricing is usage-based and can become expensive at scale for high-volume query workloads
  • โš Web index, while large, may not match the breadth of coverage of established search engines like Google for long-tail or niche content
  • โš Structured output and specialized indexes are limited to supported categories โ€” custom verticals may require workarounds

Pricing FAQ

Is Metaphor the same as Exa?

Yes, Metaphor rebranded to Exa (Exa Labs Inc.). The core technology remains the same โ€” an AI-native search engine built on neural networks for semantic understanding. The rebrand reflects the company's expanded focus beyond search into structured data extraction, web crawling, and a full suite of API products including Search, Contents, Answer, and Websets. Existing Metaphor API users were migrated to the Exa platform.

How does Exa's search API differ from Google's search API?

Exa's search API is built specifically for AI agents and programmatic use cases, delivering results in under 180 milliseconds with built-in features like structured output extraction, semantic highlights, and dedicated vertical indexes for companies, people, and code documentation. Unlike Google's Custom Search API, which mirrors traditional keyword-based web search, Exa understands meaning and context, enabling queries based on conceptual similarity rather than exact keyword matches. Exa also provides token-efficient content extraction optimized for feeding results into large language models.

What are Websets and how do they work?

Websets is one of Exa's core products that enables users to build curated, structured datasets from web search results. Rather than returning a simple list of links, Websets allows you to define criteria and automatically assemble collections of entities (such as companies, people, or resources) that match your specifications. This is particularly useful for lead generation, market research, competitive analysis, and building training datasets where you need structured, filtered data at scale.

Is Exa suitable for enterprise use?

Yes, Exa offers enterprise-grade security and compliance features including SOC 2 Type II certification, customizable Zero Data Retention (ZDR) policies that automatically purge queries and data based on your requirements, and Single Sign-On for team authentication and authorization management. Companies like Databricks, OpenRouter, and Flatfile use Exa in production. Enterprise customers can contact the sales team for custom pricing, dedicated support, and tailored deployment configurations.

How does the Highlights feature help reduce AI costs?

Exa's Highlights feature intelligently extracts the most relevant excerpts from web pages based on your specific query, rather than returning entire page contents. This can reduce token budgets and LLM costs by over 50% because you only send the most pertinent text to your language model instead of full documents. This is especially valuable when building AI agents or RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) pipelines where every token sent to an LLM has a direct cost impact and where irrelevant context can degrade response quality.

Ready to Get Started?

AI builders and operators use Metaphor to streamline their workflow.

Try Metaphor Now โ†’

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