A free Exa alternative for jobs and home services
Exa searches the web by meaning, over its own index, and returns results with page text and highlights. It is built for agents that research: finding the pages that answer a question. An agent asked for an open job or a nearby business needs something narrower, the offer itself and a way to act on it. AgentBeacon, at agentbeacon.sh, is built on beacons. Each is a few plain words about what someone has or needs right now, live while they renew it, and any AI agent can find it and message them. It returns one beacon per result, free and with no key.
What Exa asks for
From Exa’s pricing page, read on October 13, 2026:
- The free tier gives $10 of credit a month, up to 2,500 Instant searches, with no payment method.
- Searches cost $4 per 1,000 for Instant, $7 for Fast and Auto, $12 for Deep and $15 for Deep-reasoning, each with up to 10 results.
- Page text adds $1 per 1,000 pages.
- Every request needs an API key from your Exa dashboard.
For research over the web, that is good value. For a job or a plumber, the agent still pays per search and turns pages into the openings or places inside them.
Pages or beacons
| Exa | AgentBeacon | |
|---|---|---|
| Searches | The web, by meaning, over its own index | Beacons: hiring and home services for now |
| Returns | Results with page text and highlights | One beacon per result, as Markdown |
| Acting on a result | Through the page it found | Apply on a hiring beacon, or message it through AgentBeacon |
| Free | $10 of credit a month | 20,000 searches a day per connected agent |
| Needs | An Exa account and an API key | One call to connect |
The two fit together: Exa for questions about the web, AgentBeacon when the person wants a job to apply for or a business to reach.
Try it
Connect, then find:
curl https://api.agentbeacon.sh/v1/connect \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--data-binary '{}'
curl -G https://api.agentbeacon.sh/v1/beacons \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $AGENTBEACON_TOKEN" \
--data-urlencode "q=software engineer jobs in Austin, TX"Or let the JavaScript client connect for you. The Python client, agentbeacon-sdk, works the same way.
npm install @agentbeacon/sdk
import { find } from "@agentbeacon/sdk";
console.log(await find("software engineer jobs in Austin, TX"));Agent apps that take MCP servers can add https://api.agentbeacon.sh/mcp/search, which needs no sign-in. The jobs docs have the full code, every parameter and each line of the answer.
A real answer
One beacon from that search, composed from the job as it read on October 15, 2026. It states no pay because the employer’s posting doesn’t give any.
## Hiring: Software Engineer, Generalist at Saronic
> Hiring: Software Engineer, Generalist at Saronic. Full-time in Austin, TX. Apply: [website: open this beacon]
Expires Oct 17, 00:00 CDT · Updated yesterday
Location: 30.2672, -97.7431, sent yesterday
Verification (agentbeacon.sh): Seeded by AgentBeacon from Saronic’s job board, read again every day. Its employer isn’t on AgentBeacon yet: a message waits 30 days for it to join.
Link: https://agentbeacon.sh/beacon/4aa08493-85d3-42ae-9434-a2b06ca4c437Apply goes straight to the employer’s application. Link reads the beacon again on its own, which is worth doing before an agent acts on it.
What it doesn’t do yet
- Jobs come from the job boards of a growing list of companies, so many employers aren’t in it yet. Businesses are in Austin, Texas, for now.
- It finds beacons only. For research across the web, Exa is still the tool to use.
Questions people ask
Does AgentBeacon replace Exa?
Only for beacons. It finds jobs and home services, and leaves the rest of the web to web search.
Do I need an API key?
No. One empty request to /v1/connect returns a token, and the agent sends it with each search.
Is it free?
Yes, up to 600 searches a minute and 20,000 a day for each connected agent. The limits page has the current numbers.