Exa MCP Server 🔌 MCP server Freemium

What it is

The Exa MCP Server is Exa's official server for its AI-native search engine. It is hosted at mcp.exa.ai/mcp and open source on GitHub. It gives agents web search with clean page content, full-page fetching as Markdown and, optionally, advanced search and an agent tool for multi-step research.

Key features

• web_search_exa returns results with clean content
• web_fetch_exa retrieves full pages as Markdown
• Optional web_search_advanced_exa with filters, dates and summaries
• Optional agent_run for deeper research tasks
• Works anonymously with rate limits; OAuth or API key for more

How to install

In Claude Code, install the plugin with claude plugin install exa@claude-plugins-official, or add https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp as a remote server in any client (Cursor, VS Code, ChatGPT/Codex, Gemini CLI, Zed, Windsurf and others). Pass an API key as ?exaApiKey= or a header, or sign in with OAuth.

Pricing and rights

The server is MIT-licensed. Exa is pay-as-you-go with no subscription: new accounts get $10 in credits, standard search costs $7 per 1,000 requests and contents $1 per 1,000 pages as of September 2026.

Who it is for

Researchers, writers and SEO teams who need relevant sources, similar pages or company and people research inside an assistant. Because it returns clean page content with results, the agent can read sources directly instead of needing a separate scraper.

Verdict

Easy to start because it works without a key, and search quality for research is strong. Costs rise with deep search and agent runs, so watch usage if you automate it.