Exa vs Make
AI search API for developers — neural + keyword hybrid for agents
vs. Visual workflow automation (formerly Integromat) — deeper than Zapier
Pricing tiers
Exa
Free Tier
1,000 requests/month at no cost. Access to all core products.
Free
Pay-as-you-go
Usage-based per endpoint. No monthly minimum.
$0 base (usage-based)
Startup + Education Grants
$1,000 in free credits for qualifying projects.
$0 base (usage-based)
Enterprise
Custom. High-volume, custom datasets, rate limits, SLA, dedicated support.
Custom
Make
Free
$0. 1,000 operations/month. 3,000+ apps. Basic support. Min 15-min scheduling interval.
Free
Core
$9/mo. 10,000 operations. Unlimited active scenarios. Sub-minute scheduling. API access.
$9/mo
Pro
$16/mo. 10,000 operations. Priority execution. Custom variables. Full-text log search.
$16/mo
Teams
$29/mo. Team roles. Scenario templates. Share with team.
$29/mo
Enterprise
Custom. Custom functions, 24/7 support, overage protection, advanced security.
Custom
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing free on Exa vs free on Make.
| Metric | Exa | Make |
|---|---|---|
| No overlapping quota metrics for these tiers. | ||
Features
Exa · 13 features
- Answer API — Query → direct answer with citations.
- Category Filter — Filter to news, research papers, company, github, tweet, pdf, financial report, …
- Contents API — Retrieve cleaned full-text + summaries from URLs.
- Custom Datasets (Ent) — Enterprise: private indexing of your own corpus.
- Deep Reasoning Search — Adds LLM reasoning on top of Deep Search.
- Deep Search — Multi-hop iterative search for complex queries.
- Find Similar — Given a URL, find semantically similar pages.
- Highlights — Extract most-relevant passages per result.
- Livecrawl — Fetch pages on-demand (bypass cache) for freshness-critical queries.
- MCP Server — Official Exa MCP for Claude Code / Cursor / Agents.
- Monitors — Scheduled recurring search → alerts on new results.
- Search API — Neural + keyword web search for agents. Returns ranked URLs.
- Summaries — LLM-generated page summaries.
Make · 16 features
- 3,000+ Apps — Huge integration catalog.
- Custom Apps SDK — Build your own app integrations with Apps SDK.
- Custom Functions (Ent) — Enterprise-only: define reusable functions.
- Custom Webhooks — Webhook triggers + responses.
- Data Stores — Make-native DB for cross-scenario state.
- Data Structures — Shared schemas for mapping.
- Error Handlers — Per-module error routes (rollback, resume, ignore).
- Execution Log — Per-operation input/output detail.
- Formula Editor — Rich formula language for data transformation.
- HTTP Module — Generic HTTP client — call any API.
- Iterator + Aggregator — Loop over arrays + collect results.
- Make AI Agents — Autonomous AI agents that invoke Make modules as tools.
- Router — Branch scenarios into multiple paths with conditions.
- Scenario Templates — Pre-built templates + community marketplace.
- Scheduling — Sub-minute scheduling on paid. 15-min min on Free.
- Visual Scenario Editor — Node-based canvas with curved connections.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Exa | Make |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | — | Make CLI (for Apps SDK) |
| SDK | exa-js, exa-py | Apps SDK |
| REST | Exa REST API | Make API |
| MCP | Exa MCP Server | Make MCP |
| OTHER | Exa Dashboard | Custom Webhooks, Make Web Editor |
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Outbound links to Exa and Make are plain references to their official websites. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.
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