Compare Brave Search API and bonsai.io free tiers side by side. Pricing, limits, change history, and risk assessment for developers.

Brave Search API vs bonsai.io

Side-by-side free tier comparison. Catalogue dates here run to 2026-08-23.

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Verdict

Neither Brave Search API nor bonsai.io currently offers a free tier.

A verdict here is not a fixed property of the vendor. A one-off pricing event demotes a vendor while its recorded date falls in the last 180 days and then lapses on its own, with nothing about the vendor having changed; a standing condition — a free tier withdrawn, a product retired — does not lapse with time. A badge carrying a date states the record it rests on; a badge with no date rests on no record in force.

Brave Search API

CategorySearch
TierCredit
Verified2026-08-19
Last read2026-09-19
Changes1 recorded
$5 prepaid metered credits ($0.003-$0.005 per query depending on endpoint). Web search, news, videos, images, LLM context endpoints. 50 req/sec rate limit. Attribution required. Credit card required, overages billed with no spending cap. Free tier (2,000 queries/mo) eliminated Feb 2026

bonsai.io

CategorySearch
TierFree
Verified2026-08-23
Last read2026-09-05
Changes1 recorded
Superseded: As of 2026-09-05, bonsai.io/pricing reads: The lowest available plan is 'Staging' at $15/month with 1 GB storage, 256 MB memory, and 100k documents. We are not publishing our stored bonsai.io terms beside it — our own pricing change record, discovered 2026-09-05, names them as the previous ones. Read what we recorded ↓

Pricing Change History

Brave Search API

removed effective 2026-02-12 high impact
Free tier (2,000 queries/month) eliminated. Replaced with $5 prepaid metered credits at $0.003-$0.005 per query (pay-as-you-go). Credit card required, no spending cap Source ↗

bonsai.io

removed discovered 2026-09-05 · effective date unknown high impact
The free tier no longer exists. The lowest tier is now a 'Staging' plan at $15/month with 1 GB storage and 256 MB memory. Source ↗

Watch Both Vendors for Pricing Changes

We do not push notifications. Every change we record is readable the moment it lands, and the JSON answer carries an ETag — send it back as If-None-Match and an unchanged answer costs one 304.

curl https://agentdeals.dev/api/changes?vendor=Brave%20Search%20API curl https://agentdeals.dev/pricing-changes/feed.xml?vendor=Brave%20Search%20API curl https://agentdeals.dev/api/changes?vendor=bonsai.io curl https://agentdeals.dev/pricing-changes/feed.xml?vendor=bonsai.io

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