# Tavily

> The web-access layer for agents — Search, Extract, Crawl, Map, and Research APIs purpose-built for LLMs, behind one key, with a hosted MCP server.

Tavily packages agent web access as one API: Search tuned for LLM consumption (vendor-claimed 180ms p50), Extract for clean page content, Crawl and Map for site traversal, and a Research endpoint for multi-step investigations — plus SDKs and a hosted MCP server (mcp.tavily.com). Freemium: 1,000 free credits monthly, no card, then pay-as-you-go.

Website: https://tavily.com

Tavily's framing is exactly the 2026 need: not "a search engine you can call" but **the web-access layer for agents** — search, extraction, crawling, and multi-step research as one credit pool behind one key, with latency treated as a feature.

## Highlights

- **Search built for agents** — LLM-ready results at basic/advanced depth, with a vendor-claimed 180ms p50 that matters when search sits inside an agent loop.
- **Extract, Crawl, Map** — clean content from URLs, instruction-guided site traversal, and URL discovery: the ingestion half, included.
- **Research endpoint** — multi-step investigations (pro/mini tiers) as a single API call, for when one search isn't an answer.
- **Hosted MCP server** — `mcp.tavily.com/mcp/` makes the whole surface a one-liner in Claude Code and friends.
- **Drop-in ecosystem** — Python/JS SDKs and first-class integrations across OpenAI, Anthropic, LangChain, plus marketplace placements (Databricks, JetBrains).

## In an AI-assisted workflow

```bash
pip install tavily-python     # or: npm i @tavily/core
# client = TavilyClient(api_key="tvly-..."); client.search("…", search_depth="advanced")
```

In agent stacks it's typically *the* web tool: the [agentic-RAG](/guides/concepts/agentic-rag) searcher, the research agent's eyes, the freshness layer RAG over static corpora lacks.

> [!WARNING]
> Same caution as every web tool: fetched pages are untrusted input to your model — [indirect prompt injection](/glossary/prompt-injection) rides in on search results. Treat content as data, and gate any tools that act on it.

## Good to know

The company grew out of open-source GPT Researcher and raised ~$25M (a $20M Series A led by Insight Partners, August 2025); in February 2026 Nebius Group agreed to acquire it for $275M (up to ~$400M with milestones), with Tavily continuing under its own brand. It now claims 2M+ developers. SDKs and the MCP server are MIT; the API is the product. Credits aren't 1:1 with calls — budget for advanced/research multipliers. Field positioning against [Exa](/tools/exa) and [Firecrawl](/tools/firecrawl): [Getting Web Data into AI Agents](/guides/concepts/web-data-for-ai-agents).

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_Source: https://agentscamp.com/tools/tavily — Tool on AgentsCamp._