# You.com: what's new, verdict & setup

Canonical: https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/you-com · First covered by us (no vendor release date published): 2026-10-25 · Last verified: 2026-10-25 · Evidence: Reported (not run by us) · Vendor: You.com · Official site: https://you.com/

> You.com now presents itself as search and inference infrastructure for AI: web search, answer and research APIs plus an inference router.

## Verdict

**You.com now presents itself as search and inference infrastructure for AI: web search, answer and research APIs plus an inference router.**

Good for:
- Developers adding web search or research to an agent

Skip if:
- You want a consumer chat assistant (the site now leads with APIs)

Status: Reported. Written from official release notes and docs; we have not run this release ourselves.

Pricing: Official page, dated. Read from you.com/pricing on 2026-10-25. Enterprise is custom. (checked 2026-10-25)

## Best for

- [Best AI tool for AI search and research](https://theagenticweekly.com/best/ai-search) (#-): Search and answer APIs for AI apps.

## Key facts

You.com's homepage and pricing page describe search and inference for AI. The pricing page lists a Web Search API with a free tier (no API key, account or credit card for the MCP config) and a $5 per 1,000 calls standard tier, a Contents API at $1 per 1,000 pages, an Answer API at $5 per 1,000 calls and Research API tiers from $12 to $1,200 per 1,000 calls.

- License: Proprietary
- Platforms: API and MCP
- Pricing model: Free tier + pay as you go
- Free tier: Web Search API: free tier; no key, account or card needed for the MCP setup
- Paid plans: Web Search $5 per 1k calls; Contents $1 per 1k pages; Answer $5 per 1k calls; Research Lite $12 to Frontier $1,200 per 1k calls
- How to start: Get an API key from you.com or use the MCP config docs for the free tier.
- Catalog entry: facts read from the vendor's pages on 2026-10-25. We do not track release notes for this entry.

## How to set it up: Get started with You.com

These steps come from the vendor's own pages as read on 2026-10-25. We have not run You.com.

1. **Get access.** Get an API key from you.com or use the MCP config docs for the free tier.
2. **Check the limits and costs first.** Web Search API: free tier; no key, account or card needed for the MCP setup. Paid: Web Search $5 per 1k calls; Contents $1 per 1k pages; Answer $5 per 1k calls; Research Lite $12 to Frontier $1,200 per 1k calls. Read from you.com/pricing on 2026-10-25. Enterprise is custom.

## Pros and cons

Pros:
- Free search tier
- Published per-call prices

Cons:
- Consumer app is no longer the focus of the homepage
- Research prices climb steeply by depth tier

## Alternatives

- [Perplexity](https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/perplexity): AI search with citations in every answer; Pro is $20 a month ($17 billed annually) and Max is $200 ($167 billed annually).
- [Firecrawl](https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/firecrawl): Web data API: search, scrape and crawl for AI agents.
- [Elicit](https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/elicit): AI research assistant that searches academic papers, extracts data and drafts reports; free Basic tier with paid per-user plans.

## FAQ

### What is You.com?

You.com's homepage and pricing page describe search and inference for AI. The pricing page lists a Web Search API with a free tier (no API key, account or credit card for the MCP config) and a $5 per 1,000 calls standard tier, a Contents API at $1 per 1,000 pages, an Answer API at $5 per 1,000 calls and Research API tiers from $12 to $1,200 per 1,000 calls.

### Is You.com free?

Web Search API: free tier; no key, account or card needed for the MCP setup. Paid: Web Search $5 per 1k calls; Contents $1 per 1k pages; Answer $5 per 1k calls; Research Lite $12 to Frontier $1,200 per 1k calls. Read from you.com/pricing on 2026-10-25. Enterprise is custom. Checked 2026-10-25; prices change, so confirm on the vendor's page.

### What license is You.com under?

Its license: Proprietary. Read from the project's own pages on 2026-10-25.

## What we have not verified

- Release date (none published on the pages we read; the date shown is the day we first covered this entry)
- Answer quality (not tested)

## Sources

- [You.com](https://you.com/) (fetched 2026-10-25)
- [You.com pricing](https://you.com/pricing) (fetched 2026-10-25)

## How to cite

Agentic Weekly, "You.com: what's new, verdict & setup", last updated 2026-10-25, https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/you-com

Keep the Reported or Tested label when you quote the verdict.