Pay as you go
One-off pack
Prepaid dollar balance, priced per request; optional auto-reload
API included
Plan details
Billed at standard rates beyond free credit; monthly spend limits are notify-only and never block requests
API review
Parallel AI API review
Pay-as-you-go web APIs for AI agents on Parallel's own index: Search, Extract, Task (deep research and structured enrichment with citations), Responses, Monitor, FindAll and Entity Search, plus a free anonymous Search MCP. Best for row-level account/contact research and enrichment with per-field citations and confidence.
What a call costs
The actions you pay for, as Parallel AI prices them.
| Action | Cost | Per |
|---|---|---|
| Search turbo | $1 | 1k requests (10 results); +$1 per 1k additional results |
| Search fast | $1 | 1k requests (10 results); +$1 per 1k additional results |
| Search basic | $5 | 1k requests (10 results); +$1 per 1k additional results |
| Search advanced (API default mode) | $5 | 1k requests (10 results); +$1 per 1k additional results |
| Image Search fast / advanced | $1 / $5 | 1k requests (up to 20 results) |
| Extract | $1 | 1k URLs (docs) = '1,000 results' (pricing page and in-app rate card); measured 1 URL = $0.001 |
| Task lite | $5 | 1k successful runs |
| Task base | $10 | 1k successful runs |
Show all 25 priced actionsHide the rest
| Action | Cost | Per |
|---|---|---|
| Task core | $25 | 1k successful runs |
| Task core2x | $50 | 1k successful runs |
| Task pro | $100 | 1k successful runs |
| Task ultra | $300 | 1k successful runs |
| Task ultra2x | $600 | 1k successful runs |
| Task ultra4x | $1,200 | 1k successful runs |
| Task ultra8x | $2,400 | 1k successful runs |
| Responses low / medium (default) / high | $10 / $50 / $250 | 1k successful requests |
| Chat API (beta, legacy page) | $5 | 1k requests |
| Monitor lite / base | $3 / $10 | 1k executions (checks) |
| FindAll preview | $0.10 fixed + $0.00/match | run |
| FindAll base | $0.25 fixed + $0.03/match | run |
| FindAll core | $2.00 fixed + $0.15/match | run |
| FindAll pro | $10.00 fixed + $1.00/match | run |
| FindAll enrichment | Task processor price | per match per enrichment |
| Entity Search | $5 per 1k requests (100 results) + $0.05 per 1k additional results | request |
| Data Connectors pay-per-use | per successful invocation (provider-specific); bioRxiv, ClinicalTrials.gov, ChEMBL, CMS Coverage, medRxiv, NPI Registry, PubMed free | invocation |
Pricing, plan by plan
US dollars, as Parallel AI's pricing page shows them on 25 Oct 2026. Monthly and annual billing are shown apart.
Free tier PUBLIC PAGES: 'Run up to 5,000 requests per month for free' and 'Earn up to $80 at signup + $5 in free credits per month'; 'up to 80,000 free search requests'; $5/month needs a card, expires month end, one org per card, marketplace/postpaid excluded. LIVE APP (new org, 2026-10-25): plan named 'Free', 'No card needed'; the full $80.00 signup credit landed at once with no card or survey and 'Expires Dec 24' (about 60 days); 'Add a card to unlock monthly credits'; 'Requests stop when your credit runs out'. The live app wins for what a new user gets: $80 immediately, expiring ~60 days after signup. Startups: up to $250 by application. Search MCP free without an account.
Free
$0
Free
$80 signup credit granted immediately, no card, expires ~60 days after signup (in-app 'Expires Dec 24' for a 25 Oct signup); +$5/month once a card is added
API included
Plan details
Requests stop when credit runs out unless a card is added; then standard rates
Startup program
Up to $250 in free credits for qualified startups (application)
API included
Enterprise
Custom quote
Custom; ZDR, DPA, SSO, custom rate limits, EU data residency
API included
Rate limits
Defaults per product, rolling 60-second window, only POSTs that create resources count (GETs and polling are free of limits).
| Limit | Search (POST /v1/search) | Image Search | Extract | Tasks / Task Groups (per run created) | Chat (/v1beta/chat/completions) | Responses | FindAll run creation | Entity Search | Monitor creation | Search MCP anonymous | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Limit | 600 per min | 600 per min | 600 per min | 2,000 per min | 300 per min | 300 requests / min (pricing page only; not on rate-limits page) | 300 per hour (docs) vs 25 / hr (pricing page): conflicting | 600 per min | 300 per min | 'lower rate limits', exact cap not published; API key or OAuth unlocks higher | Custom rate limits |
More on limitsLess
429 on breach. Higher limits No rate-limit headers are returned (only x-request-id), per hands-on.
How to get an API key
Parallel AI uses API key. The steps below follow Parallel AI's own docs.
- Create a Parallel AI account. The Free plan includes API access.
- Sign up at platform.parallel.ai (magic-link email or Google; SSO on login; no password, no card, no captcha). A Default App + Default API Key are created at signup; more under Settings > API Keys, grouped by App. Full keys stay re-viewable by admins (eye icon), and per-user 'Account Keys' are created automatically for Platform/CLI sign-ins.
- Send it with every request: header x-api-key: <key> for every product endpoint (spec ApiKeyAuth; the EU host eu.parallel.ai takes the same header). Account API (api.parallel.ai/account...) needs Authorization: Bearer <access_token> minted by Parallel OAuth (device / jwt-bearer grants); an API key gets 401 'Missing bearer token' (live test). MCP servers take Authorization: Bearer <api key>.
- Make a first call: Web search returning ranked URLs with LLM-ready compressed excerpts (GA). Keep the key in an environment variable, never in the command.
curl -X POST "https://api.parallel.ai/v1/search" \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $PARALLEL_AI_API_KEY" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{}'
Where the docs live
| What | Where |
|---|---|
| Documentation | docs.parallel.ai |
| API reference | docs.parallel.ai/api-reference/search/search |
| OpenAPI spec | docs.parallel.ai/public-openapi.json |
| llms.txt | docs.parallel.ai/llms.txt |
| Changelog | docs.parallel.ai/resources/changelog |
| Base URL | https://api.parallel.ai |
| MCP server | https://search.parallel.ai/mcp |
| SDKs | parallel-web (Python, PyPI), parallel-web (TypeScript, npm), parallel-cli (pipx/uv 'parallel-web-tools[cli]' or brew parallel-web/tap/parallel-cli), parallel-web-tools (Python data integrations: Polars, DuckDB, Spark), OpenAI SDKs (Responses and Chat are OpenAI-compatible), Parallel Agent Skills (npx skills add parallel-web/parallel-agent-skills), Claude Code plugin, Cursor plugin, OpenCode plugin, Pi extension |
Strengths and limits
Where it fits
- Row-level account/contact research and enrichment with per-field citations and confidence (Task API, $5-$2,400 per 1k runs)
- Batch enrichment of lists via Task Groups (up to 1,000 runs per request)
- Building verified entity lists from a natural-language ICP (FindAll, $0.25 + $0.03/match on base)
- Cheap agent web search ($1 per 1k on turbo/fast) and URL-to-markdown extraction ($1 per 1k URLs)
- Scheduled web monitoring for signals with webhooks (Monitor, $3 per 1k executions on lite)
- Free zero-setup web search inside Claude Code / Cursor via the anonymous Search MCP
Where it falls short
- Pages behind a login (public web only, per FAQ)
- Verified emails/phones or static firmographic databases
- Reselling outputs or building a database / data-selling product from outputs (Customer Terms 2(c)(vi))
- Production-critical FindAll / Entity Search pipelines that cannot absorb breaking changes (public beta, 30 days notice)
Worth knowing
- Search API default mode is 'advanced' at $5 per 1k; 'fast' is $1 per 1k and the docs call it the right choice for most agents. Set mode explicitly.
- Search prices include 10 results; every extra result costs $1 per 1k, so max_results=50 on basic/advanced is $0.045 per call, not $0.005.
- Task is billed per successful run regardless of field count, but processors cap fields (~2 lite, ~5 base, ~10 core/core2x, ~20 pro/ultra, ~25 ultra2x/4x/8x per pricing page and in-app); spec+input over 25,000 chars errors.
- Prepaid balance with in-flight reservations: running pro/ultra tasks and whole Task Group batches reserve credit upfront, so a positive balance can still return 402.
- Monthly spend limits are notify-only and never block requests.
16 moreShow fewer
- Monitor bills per execution: an hourly lite monitor is ~720 executions a month, about $2.16, and 'core' monitor processor exists in the API with no published price.
- FindAll fixed fee is charged per run even with few matches (pro $10 fixed); enrichments multiply Task price by matches; FindAll and Entity Search are public beta with 30 days notice of breaking changes.
- FindAll rate limit conflicts: 300 per hour on the docs rate-limits page vs 25 / hr on parallel.ai/pricing.
- /v1/extract moved full_content, fetch_policy, excerpt_settings under advanced_settings; sending v1beta top-level fields to /v1 returns 422.
- Rate-limits page still names POST /v1alpha/monitors although Monitor is GA on /v1/monitors.
- Customer Terms 2(b)/2(c)(vi): outputs are for the querying user / one end customer, may not be cached or shared across end customers, and may not be used to create databases, data brokerage or data selling products, or to train models. Matters for agencies storing results for reuse across clients.
- Standard terms let Parallel train on inputs and outputs (de-identified); only enterprise ZDR and EU endpoint traffic are excluded.
- AUP forbids building similar or competitive products and orchestrating usage across multiple accounts to dodge rate limits.
- Public web only: no login-gated pages; Turbo search supports English and Japanese only.
- The '-fast' Task processors (lite-fast, base-fast, core-fast, pro-fast, ultra-fast) announced Dec 2025 are no longer listed on today's processors or pricing pages; status not stated.
- The Account API (balance, apps, keys) lives under api.parallel.ai/account and refuses API keys (401 'Missing bearer token'); it needs an OAuth access token. With a plain API key you cannot read your balance.
- In-app balance and Usage round to the cent; Settings > Usage > EXPORT CSV gives exact per-call cost ($0.001 search fast, $0.001 extract, $0.005 task lite).
- POST /account/service/v1/balance/add charges the org's default card immediately (amount_cents + idempotency_key); treat it as a paid call.
- EU endpoint eu.parallel.ai (enterprise agreement only): Search requires mode 'basic' and Extract only; same x-api-key; about 1 hour to activate on a new key.
- Search MCP caps excerpts at roughly 25,000 characters per tool call; anonymous calls run fast mode and ignore search overrides.
- Latency bands differ by page: Task core is 60s-5min (docs pricing) vs 1-5min (pricing page/in-app); ultra8x 5min-2hr (docs) vs 8-30min (pricing page/in-app); lite 10-60s (docs) vs 5-60s (pricing page/in-app).
Our take
For an AI workforce startup client we ran the Task API on the base processor to find the top executive at each of 108 small companies: it returned a name for 76 and found nobody for 24. On a 181-contact research run for the same client, 14 Task runs did not finish within our polling window. We have also run pro-processor research reports for our own work.
Who should use it
- Use Parallel AI for
- Row-level account/contact research and enrichment with per-field citations and confidence (Task API, $5-$2,400 per 1k runs)
- Look elsewhere for
- Pages behind a login (public web only, per FAQ)
If Parallel AI is not the answer
Other Research and scraping tools in this directory, each with its own review.
Exa
Research and scraping
Free planOfficial MCP
Best for agent web search and RAG grounding with token-efficient contents.
Exa API review
DataForSEO
Research and scraping
Best for cheap bulk SERP pulls via the Standard queue.
DataForSEO API review
Tavily
Research and scraping
Free planOfficial MCP
Best for agent web search with LLM-ready snippets at 1-2 credits per query.
Tavily API reviewBefore you build
Four things to settle first, each read off Parallel AI's own pages.
- Confirm the API is on your planThe Free plan includes API access. Free tier: PUBLIC PAGES: 'Run up to 5,000 requests per month for free' and 'Earn up to $80 at signup + $5 in free credits per month'.
- Keep the key out of your codeAPI key. It is sent as: header x-api-key: <key> for every product endpoint (spec ApiKeyAuth; the EU host eu.parallel.ai takes the same header). Account API (api.parallel.ai/account...) needs Authorization: Bearer <access_token> minted by Parallel OAuth (device / jwt-bearer grants); an API key gets 401 'Missing bearer token' (live test). MCP servers take Authorization: Bearer <api key>..
- Design around the rate limitDefaults per product, rolling 60-second window, only POSTs that create resources count (GETs and polling are free of limits).
- Know the catch before you scaleSearch API default mode is 'advanced' at $5 per 1k; 'fast' is $1 per 1k and the docs call it the right choice for most agents. Set mode explicitly.
Want us to build it for you?
Tell us what you want Parallel AI to do in your stack. We will show you how we would wire it into your data, outbound or CRM, and what we would check first.
Read from docs.parallel.ai/getting-started/pricing, docs.parallel.ai/api-reference/search/search and docs.parallel.ai/getting-started/rate-limits. Verified 25 Oct 2026.
All 46 endpointsFor developers: method, path, what it does and what it costs.
| Method | Path | What it does | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| POST | /v1/search | Web search returning ranked URLs with LLM-ready compressed excerpts (GA) | turbo/fast $1 per 1k requests; basic/advanced $5 per 1k requests; 10 results included, each additional result $1 per 1k; measured fast = $0.001. The response usage reports the same SKU (sku_search) for fast and advanced. |
| POST | /v1/images/search | Image search from keyword queries plus optional objective | fast $1 per 1k requests; advanced $5 per 1k; up to 20 results per request at no extra cost |
| POST | /v1/extract | Excerpts or full markdown content from given URLs (GA) | $1 per 1k URLs ($0.001 per URL) per docs; in-app rate card and pricing page say '$1 per 1,000 results'; measured 1 URL = $0.001 |
| POST | /v1beta/search | Legacy beta Search, kept only for existing integrations | Not stated |
| POST | /v1beta/extract | Legacy beta Extract, kept only for existing integrations; top-level excerpts/full_content/fetch_policy | Not stated |
| POSTasync | /v1/tasks/runs | Create a Task Run: web research or structured enrichment with Basis (citations, reasoning, confidence) | Per successful run, by processor: lite $5/1k ($0.005), base $10/1k, core $25/1k, core2x $50/1k, pro $100/1k, ultra $300/1k, ultra2x $600/1k, ultra4x $1,200/1k, ultra8x $2,400/1k ($2.40/run). Failed runs not billed; measured lite = $0.005 |
| GETasync | /v1/tasks/runs/{run_id} | Retrieve Task Run status | Not stated |
| GETasync | /v1/tasks/runs/{run_id}/result | Retrieve Task Run result, blocking until complete | Not stated |
| GETasync | /v1/tasks/runs/{run_id}/input | Retrieve Task Run input | Not stated |
| GETasync | /v1/tasks/runs/{run_id}/events | Stream Task Run progress events (SSE) | Not stated |
| POSTasync | /v1/tasks/groups | Create a Task Group to batch and track many runs | Not stated |
| POSTasync | /v1/tasks/groups/{taskgroup_id}/runs | Add runs to a Task Group (batch enrichment) | Each run billed at its processor's Task price (see /v1/tasks/runs) |
| GETasync | /v1/tasks/groups/{taskgroup_id} | Retrieve aggregated Task Group status | Not stated |
| GETasync | /v1/tasks/groups/{taskgroup_id}/runs | Fetch Task Group runs, optionally with inputs and outputs | Not stated |
| GETasync | /v1/tasks/groups/{taskgroup_id}/runs/{run_id} | Retrieve one Task Group run | Not stated |
| GETasync | /v1/tasks/groups/{taskgroup_id}/events | Stream Task Group events (SSE) | Not stated |
| POST | /v1/responses | Responses API: OpenAI Responses-compatible cited answers from live web research (replaces Chat in pricing tables) | low $10/1k, medium $50/1k (default), high $250/1k successful requests |
| POST | /v1beta/chat/completions | Chat API (beta): OpenAI ChatCompletions-compatible web-grounded chat; can also use Task processors | $5 per 1,000 requests per product page parallel.ai/products/chat; Chat is no longer listed on the docs pricing page or parallel.ai/pricing |
| POST | /v1beta/findall/ingest | Turn a natural-language objective into a structured FindAll spec (entity_type, match_conditions) | Not stated |
| POSTasync | /v1beta/findall/runs | Create a FindAll run: discover, verify and optionally enrich all entities matching criteria (public beta) | Fixed + per match: preview $0.10 + $0.00; base $0.25 + $0.03/match; core $2.00 + $0.15/match; pro $10.00 + $1.00/match. Enrichments billed per match at Task processor price |
| GETasync | /v1beta/findall/runs/{findall_id} | Retrieve FindAll run status | Not stated |
| GETasync | /v1beta/findall/runs/{findall_id}/result | FindAll run result at time of request | Not stated |
| GETasync | /v1beta/findall/runs/{findall_id}/schema | Get FindAll run schema | Not stated |
| GETasync | /v1beta/findall/runs/{findall_id}/events | Stream FindAll events (SSE) | Not stated |
| POSTasync | /v1beta/findall/runs/{findall_id}/enrich | Add an enrichment (non-boolean fields) to a FindAll run | Task API processor price x number of matches |
| POSTasync | /v1beta/findall/runs/{findall_id}/extend | Raise match limit of an existing run | Fixed cost not charged again; only per-match cost for new matches |
| POSTasync | /v1beta/findall/runs/{findall_id}/cancel | Cancel a FindAll run | Charged for work completed before cancellation |
| POST | /v1beta/findall/entity-search | Entity Search (public beta): fast synchronous people or company search from a natural-language objective | $5 per 1k requests incl. 100 results; additional results $0.05 per 1k |
| POSTasync | /v1/monitors | Create a monitor (GA): event_stream (query) or snapshot (task output) on a schedule | Per execution: lite $3 per 1k, base $10 per 1k; core is in the API enum but has no published price |
| GET | /v1/monitors | List monitors | Not stated |
| GET | /v1/monitors/stats | Aggregate monitor counts | Not stated |
| GET | /v1/monitors/{monitor_id} | Retrieve a monitor | Not stated |
| POST | /v1/monitors/{monitor_id}/update | Update a monitor | Not stated |
| POST | /v1/monitors/{monitor_id}/cancel | Cancel a monitor | Not stated |
| POSTasync | /v1/monitors/{monitor_id}/trigger | Trigger an immediate monitor run | Not stated |
| GET | /v1/monitors/{monitor_id}/events | List monitor events, newest first | Not stated |
| POST | /v1beta/memory/retrieve | Retrieve relevant or recent past Task/Monitor/FindAll runs from memory | Not stated |
| POST | /v1beta/memory/evict | Remove one run from memory | Not stated |
| POST | /v1beta/memory/clear | Clear a memory scope | Not stated |
| GET | /account/service/v1/balance | Account API: prepaid credit balance | free |
| POST | /account/service/v1/balance/add | Charge the org's default Stripe payment method and add the amount to the prepaid balance | Real card charge of amount_cents (no payment method id accepted) |
| GET | /account/service/v1/apps | Account API: list apps | free |
| POST | /account/service/v1/apps | Account API: create app | free |
| DELETE | /account/service/v1/apps/{app_id} | Account API: delete app | free |
| POST | /account/service/v1/apps/{app_id}/keys | Account API: create API key for an app | free |
| DELETE | /account/service/v1/apps/{app_id}/keys/{api_key_id} | Account API: delete API key | free |
No endpoint matches that filter.
