Getting started

Choose the Right API

View as MarkdownOpen in Claude

Pick the card that matches what your code needs back. Every API takes the same X-API-Key header, so switching later is a URL and payload change.

Match the Job

Ranked web and news results

Web Search API. JSON results for your own model, RAG pipeline, or UI. $5.00 per 1,000 calls.

Page text from URLs you have

Contents API. Markdown or HTML for known URLs, no search step. $1.00 per 1,000 pages.

A cited answer, fast

Answer API. One search pass, a Markdown answer, and verbatim excerpts you can audit. p50 2.67s.

A researched answer with depth control

Research API. Multiple searches, lite through frontier effort, and optional structured JSON.

A cited answer about markets or companies

Finance Research API. The Research API response shape over a finance-optimized index.

Tools for an agent or IDE

MCP Server. Claude Code, Cursor, and other MCP clients call search, contents, and research as tools.

Compare the Five APIs

APIUse it forReturnsLatencyPrice
Web Search APIRanked web and news results for your own model, RAG pipeline, or UIJSON results. Snippets by default, or highlights or full page via extractionRetrieval only, no synthesis step, so it returns ahead of the Answer API$5.00 / 1k calls, up to 100 results per call. Full page add-on $1.00 / 1k pages fetched live
Contents APIPage text from URLs you already haveMarkdown, HTML, metadata, or any combinationUp to crawl_timeout per URL (default 10s). Cached pages return sooner$1.00 / 1k pages
Answer APIA cited answer from one search passMarkdown answer, citations with verbatim excerpts, and web resultsp50 2.67s$5.00 / 1k calls
Research APIMulti-step cited answers with depth controlMarkdown or structured JSON, plus sources< 10s (lite) through background-only (frontier)$12 / 1k (lite) through $1,200 / 1k (frontier)
Finance Research APICited answers about filings, prices, fundamentals, and financial newsMarkdown answer plus sources< 120s (deep) or < 300s (exhaustive)$110 / 1k (deep) or $500 / 1k (exhaustive)

Pricing is pay-as-you-go, and new accounts start with $100 in credits. Billing has the full tables, including how cached pages change the full page charge.

Latency and Price by Effort Tier

The Research API and Finance Research API trade latency for depth through research_effort. Pick the lowest tier that answers the question.

TierPrice per 1kLatencyUse case
lite$12< 10sQuick factual lookups, simple searches
standard$50~10–30sBalanced depth for most production use (default)
deep$100< 120sComplex multi-source research and synthesis
exhaustive$450< 300sComprehensive analysis across dozens of sources
frontier$1,200Background only. 30s–12000s (p50: 300s)Long-running deep research tasks. Requires background: true.

A synchronous request holds the connection for the full run. Set your HTTP client timeout above the tier’s upper bound—longer than 120s for deep and 300s for exhaustive—or send background: true and collect the result with background requests.

Details That Change the Choice

Results carry snippets by default. Set extraction_mode: "highlights" when an agent or RAG prompt needs query-relevant passages. Set extraction_mode: "full_page" when you need the whole page, billed at $1.00 per 1,000 pages fetched live on top of the search call. Page Content Extraction covers both modes.

Call the Contents API directly when your pipeline already knows the URLs. Adding a Web Search API call first only makes sense when you need URL discovery.

The Answer API runs one search pass with no effort tiers, so cost and latency stay flat across queries. Move to the Research API when the question needs multiple searches, domain filters through source_control, or structured JSON through output_schema. output_schema is not available with lite, and frontier requires background: true.

The Finance Research API returns the same response shape as the Research API. It accepts deep or exhaustive effort and does not accept source_control or output_schema. Use it for filings, prices, fundamentals, and financial news.

REST or MCP

Call the REST APIs when your code owns the HTTP client, retries, and response parsing. Connect the MCP Server when an agent or IDE should decide when to call You.com. Product MCP has no you-answer tool, so agents that need a one-pass cited answer call the Answer API over REST. Build With Agents compares the Product MCP server, the Docs MCP Server, and Agent Skills.

Endpoints and References

Each API has its own endpoint. Every request sends your API key in the X-API-Key header.

APIEndpointGuideAPI reference
Web Search APIPOST https://ydc-index.io/v1/search (also GET)Overview/v1/search
Contents APIPOST https://ydc-index.io/v1/contentsOverview/v1/contents
Answer APIPOST https://api.you.com/v1/answerOverview/v1/answer
Research APIPOST https://api.you.com/v1/researchOverview/v1/research
Finance Research APIPOST https://api.you.com/v1/finance_researchOverview/v1/finance_research

The Answer, Research, and Finance Research APIs run only on api.you.com. Sending one of those paths to ydc-index.io returns 403 with {"message": "Missing Authentication Token"}, even when the key is valid.

The MCP Server is a separate endpoint, https://api.you.com/mcp, and authenticates with Authorization: Bearer or OAuth. Build With Agents covers setup.

The Quickstart runs a first request against each REST API.