Research and answer agents
Retrieve current web results and source content for agents that must move beyond a model's static training knowledge.
Independent tool overview
Keenable at a glance
Keenable is web-search infrastructure for AI agents, offering ranked search, indexed or live page fetching, date filters, CLI and REST access, and an MCP server with a recurring 100,000-request monthly allowance.
Visit the official Keenable site ↗
- Free allowance
- 100,000 requests/month
- Builder pricing
- $4 per 1,000 requests
- Scale pricing
- From $1 per 1,000 requests
- Authenticated default rate
- 10 requests/second per organization
- Core endpoints
- Search and fetch
- Agent access
- Hosted MCP, CLI, and REST API
Overview
What Keenable is
Keenable is designed to give AI agents and applications direct access to current web search results and page content. Its two core operations are search, which returns ranked URLs with titles, descriptions, snippets, and available dates, and fetch, which turns an indexed or live webpage into Markdown.
Developers can use Keenable through a REST API, command-line tool, or hosted MCP server. The documentation recommends MCP for agent clients and provides integrations for frameworks and products including LangChain, LlamaIndex, Haystack, Vercel AI SDK, Claude, ChatGPT and Codex, OpenClaw, n8n, Convex, and several agent runtimes.
Keenable is infrastructure, not a fact-checking layer. Search rankings, snippets, acquired dates, fetched Markdown, and optional LLM extraction can all be incomplete or wrong, and retrieved pages can contain prompt injection or malicious instructions. Production agents need source validation, tool separation, timeouts, cost controls, and strict rules that web content cannot grant itself authority.
Use cases
Who Keenable is best for
The strongest fit depends on the job you need the product to complete, not the size of its feature list.
Developer and coding tools
Give IDE, CLI, or repository agents a bounded way to search documentation and fetch source pages through MCP or REST.
High-volume AI platforms
Use dedicated capacity and negotiated throughput when search must serve a large inference or agent product.
Time-aware research experiments
Filter by publication or acquisition time and evaluate Keenable's early-access point-in-time search for historically grounded retrieval.
Capabilities
Core Keenable features
Ranked web search
Return up to 50 results with title, URL, description, longer snippet, publication time, and acquisition time when those fields are available.
Date, site, and recency filters
Restrict a query to one site or filter pages by published and acquired dates using absolute dates, timestamps, or relative windows.
Indexed and live page fetch
Retrieve an indexed page as Markdown or set live=true to fetch from the source, including a URL that is not already in Keenable's index.
Prompt-based extraction
Pass a short extraction instruction to the fetch endpoint so an LLM returns targeted content rather than the entire page. This adds model interpretation and must be verified.
Hosted MCP tools
Expose search_web_pages and fetch_page_content to compatible agents through Keenable's hosted MCP endpoint, with per-call usage metadata for authenticated requests.
CLI and integrations
Install the Keenable CLI for terminal search and agent setup, or use maintained integrations for popular agent frameworks and application stacks.
Point-in-time search
The search API documents query_time for searching the index as it existed at a past point. Keenable markets the broader Time Machine product as early access, so availability should be confirmed.
Process
How the Keenable workflow works
Step 1
Define the retrieval contract
Specify which questions require web access, allowed domains, required dates, maximum results, maximum fetched characters, latency target, and what counts as sufficient evidence.
Step 2
Start with public or free authenticated use
Test keyless endpoints under the shared IP limit or create an organization and use the recurring 100,000-request allowance. Never place a secret API key in a browser or public repository.
Step 3
Search narrowly
Use site and date filters where possible, request only the result count and snippet size the agent needs, and log the resolved query and returned source URLs.
Step 4
Fetch selected sources
Fetch only promising pages, prefer the indexed copy for predictable speed, and use live retrieval when freshness or an unindexed URL is necessary.
Step 5
Treat content as untrusted
Keep fetched text out of system instructions, strip or neutralize embedded commands, restrict downstream tools, and require the agent to attribute claims to actual source URLs.
Step 6
Measure quality, latency, and cost
Build a representative query set, score relevance and freshness, test failure modes, monitor rate-limit and 402 responses, and read Keenable's per-call usage metadata instead of assuming every operation has identical cost.
Cost
Keenable pricing and free plan
Every organization currently receives 100,000 authenticated requests per month at no charge. Search and fetch usually cost one credit each, but Keenable uses operation-specific SKUs and tells integrators to read the actual credit cost from each response. Public keyless requests are unbilled but rate-limited. Prices below were checked on August 28, 2026.
Monthly free allowance
$0 for 100,000 requests/month
A recurring authenticated allowance for each organization.
- Resets monthly
- Search and fetch typically cost one credit
- 10 requests/second default authenticated limit
- Service returns a payment-required response when allowance and purchased credits are exhausted
Keyless public endpoints
$0
Unauthenticated search and fetch for evaluation and selected public integrations.
- No credit consumption
- 1,000 requests per hour per IP
- Maximum 10 requests per second per IP
- Shared IP pool
- Application-title header required
Agent Builder
$4 per 1,000 requests
Pay-as-you-go cloud access for agent builders and individual developers.
- Cloud-only
- Purchased through the console
- Actual call cost is operation- and organization-specific
- Default authenticated throughput applies unless raised
Frontier
From $1 per 1,000 requests
Dedicated capacity for AI labs and inference platforms.
- Price advertised at 100 requests/second and above
- Cloud or on-premises options
- Dedicated capacity
- Contact sales for limits, deployment, and contract terms
Pricing checked . Check current pricing at the source ↗
Assessment
Keenable strengths and limitations
Where it stands out
- A recurring 100,000-request allowance is unusually generous for prototyping and modest production workloads.
- Search and page fetching are available through REST, CLI, MCP, and many framework integrations.
- The search response exposes source URLs, snippets, and available publication and acquisition timestamps.
- Indexed and live fetching let developers trade predictability for freshness.
- Site and date filters support more controlled retrieval than a query string alone.
- Per-call MCP usage metadata helps attribute actual search cost inside an agent workflow.
What to consider
- The default authenticated rate is 10 requests per second per organization; higher throughput requires an eligible plan or sales arrangement.
- Keenable's quality, document-count, and sub-250ms latency figures are vendor claims measured on its own published methodology and infrastructure region.
- Search results and snippets do not prove a claim, and page content may be stale, incomplete, misleading, paywalled, or malicious.
- The optional fetch prompt uses an LLM, adding extraction errors and another layer that requires source verification.
- The privacy policy covers user inputs and uses general purpose-based retention rather than publishing one short query-log retention period; sensitive enterprise use should be governed by a customer agreement.
- Time Machine is marketed as early access even though query_time is documented, so teams should confirm historical depth and availability before building around it.
Compare
Keenable alternatives
The right alternative depends on the specific output, workflow, controls and budget your project requires.
Data Analysis
Exa
Choose Exa when semantic and neural web search, content retrieval, and Exa's developer ecosystem better match the application's retrieval benchmark.
Explore Exa →Agents
Exa Agent
Choose Exa Agent when the desired product is a higher-level web research API that performs multi-step research rather than raw search and fetch calls.
Explore Exa Agent →Data Analysis
Perplexity
Choose Perplexity when users need a finished research and answer experience rather than search infrastructure to embed in their own agent.
Explore Perplexity →Questions
Keenable FAQs
What is Keenable?
Keenable is a web search and page-content API for AI agents. It exposes ranked search and indexed or live page fetching through REST, a command-line tool, a hosted MCP server, and framework integrations.
Is Keenable free?
Yes. Each authenticated organization currently receives 100,000 requests per month at no charge. Keyless public endpoints are also unbilled but limited to 1,000 requests per hour and 10 per second per IP.
How much does Keenable cost after the free allowance?
The Agent Builder tier is advertised at $4 per 1,000 requests. Frontier capacity starts at $1 per 1,000 requests at 100 requests per second or more, with cloud and on-premises options.
What does one Keenable request return?
Search returns ranked results with URLs, titles, descriptions, snippets, and available publication or acquisition dates. Fetch returns a page's Markdown plus metadata, either from Keenable's index or live from the source.
Does Keenable work with MCP?
Yes. Keenable recommends its hosted MCP server for agents and exposes search_web_pages and fetch_page_content tools. Its CLI can configure supported clients automatically.
What are Keenable's rate limits?
The current default for authenticated organizations is 10 requests per second. Keyless use is capped at 1,000 requests per hour and 10 per second per IP. Higher authenticated throughput is available on some plans.
Can Keenable search the historical web?
The API documents query_time for searching the index as it stood at an earlier point, while Keenable's fuller Time Machine product is presented as early access. Confirm the historical coverage needed for a production use case.
Is web content from Keenable safe for an autonomous agent?
No web result should be trusted as an instruction. Retrieved pages can contain errors or prompt injection. Keep web text in an untrusted data channel, restrict agent tools, validate sources, and require approval for consequential actions.
Bottom line
Our Keenable verdict
Keenable is attractive infrastructure for agent builders because the free monthly allowance is large, the API surface is small, and MCP plus framework integrations shorten setup. The right next step is not to accept its benchmark chart at face value: run a relevance, freshness, latency, and cost evaluation against Exa and any incumbent provider using the application's real queries. It becomes production-ready only when retrieval is wrapped in source validation and prompt-injection defenses.
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