agentbeacon

Comparisons · Local business data APIs · read on October 15, 2026

AgentBeacon vs Azure Maps Search for AI agents

Azure Maps Search is Microsoft Azure's location search service for geocoding and finding places and businesses by name or category. AgentBeacon is built on beacons, each a few plain words about what someone has or needs right now, live while they renew it. Each result is one, with the employer’s Apply link for a hiring beacon or an address to message a business’s through AgentBeacon. It needs no key.

The short answer

  • Azure Maps Search: Teams already on Azure who want place search billed on their Azure account under Microsoft's enterprise terms.
  • AgentBeacon: Giving an agent a job to apply for or a home-service business to message, with no key.

AgentBeacon covers far less today: jobs in Austin, Texas, and remote, and businesses in and around Austin. Where it has what the agent is looking for, it is free and needs no sign-up.

Azure Maps Search and AgentBeacon, side by side

Azure Maps SearchAgentBeacon
SearchesAddresses, places and businesses by name or category. Search v1.0 (POI, category, nearby search) is superseded by Search 2026-01-01 but still works.Hiring beacons from employers’ own job boards (Austin, Texas, and remote) and home-service businesses around Austin
ReturnsJSON. Search v1 POI results include name, phone, url, categories, brands and optional opening hours.Plain Markdown, one beacon per result: its own words, quoted, when it was updated, until when it’s open, and where it was seeded from. Typed JSON on request.
Before the first callAn Azure subscription with an Azure Maps account. Authentication is by Shared Key, Microsoft Entra ID or SAS token.One empty request to /v1/connect, which returns a token. No account, email or card.
Free5,000 Search transactions a month.Free: 600 finds a minute and 20,000 a day for each connected agent
Paid$4.50 per 1,000 Search transactions (under 500K a month). Volume discounts start at 100,000 transactions.Free for agents
Acting on a resultv1 POI results include phone and website URL. There is no way to message a business through the API.A hiring beacon has the employer’s Apply link; every other beacon is messaged through AgentBeacon, and the business replies there. A business that hasn’t taken over the beacon AgentBeacon seeded for it isn’t told, so a message to it waits 30 days.
Limits on keeping or showing resultsResults may be cached only to reduce latency, not to serve multiple users, and for no longer than the header validity or 6 months, whichever is shorter. Geocodes may be kept while the Azure account is active. Results may not be displayed on third-party maps or content.Agents read beacons and message them; the terms say reading one doesn’t give the right to reuse it freely.
AI in its termsThe Product Terms say the customer may not modify or create a derivative work from any content using machine learning or artificial intelligence unless the terms expressly allow it. They also forbid building a competing or derived database.Built for AI agents. An agent may act only with its owner’s permission, and the terms don’t let AgentBeacon train AI models on what businesses write.
CoverageNot stated on its pagesHiring in Austin, Texas, and remote; home services around Austin, for now
MCP serverNo official server listedhttps://api.agentbeacon.sh/mcp/search, with no sign-in

Try AgentBeacon

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=plumber near 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("plumber near Austin, TX"));

Agent apps that take MCP servers can add https://api.agentbeacon.sh/mcp/search, which needs no sign-in. The local businesses docs have the full code, every parameter and each line of the answer.

One result, as it read on October 15, 2026:

## Wilson Plumbing, plumber in Austin, TX 78751
> Wilson Plumbing, plumber in Austin, TX 78751.
Expires Nov 7, 18:00 CST · Updated yesterday
Location: 30.2672, -97.7431, sent yesterday
Verification (agentbeacon.sh): Seeded by AgentBeacon from public data: Meta via Overture Maps, CDLA-Permissive-2.0. Read again each month. Its business isn’t on AgentBeacon yet: a message waits 30 days for it to join.
Link: https://agentbeacon.sh/beacon/c705c92b-8d0d-4b03-8bbb-aa9442843ec5

What AgentBeacon doesn’t do yet

  • Jobs come from the job boards of a growing list of companies, in Austin and remote.
  • Businesses are in Austin, Texas, for now.
  • It shows no phone numbers or websites: a business is reached by messaging its beacon through AgentBeacon.

Questions people ask

What do I need before I can use AgentBeacon?

One empty request to /v1/connect, which returns a token. No account, email or card.

Is AgentBeacon free?

Free: 600 finds a minute and 20,000 a day for each connected agent.

What do I need before I can use Azure Maps Search?

An Azure subscription with an Azure Maps account. Authentication is by Shared Key, Microsoft Entra ID or SAS token.

Is Azure Maps Search free?

5,000 Search transactions a month.

Sources

Every line about another company comes from its own pages. Prices and terms change, so check the source before you rely on one.

Azure Maps Search, read on October 15, 2026: