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Exa vs Extract

Exa scores higher on the AgentReady, 92/100 against 71/100. They differ on 12 of the 41 signals. Which ones decides whether an agent can adopt them without a person watching.

What each one is

Exa. Exa is a custom search engine built for AIs, offering an API to search the largest index of public web and private information.

Extract. Vend API Merchant — Six pay-per-call APIs for AI agents settled in Nano (XNO), no signup, no API key.

Where Exa is ahead

Exa passes public docs discoverable and llms-full.txt / full agent docs, and Extract does not. That is discover, whether an agent can find the product at all without being told it exists.

It also holds understand: openapi / spec quality, request examples provided and limits / constraints documented. Extract misses those.

And on adopt, fast time to first request and copyable quickstart. Extract misses those.

Finally, on operate, rate-limit behavior predictable, observable execution and agent compatibility verified. Extract misses those.

Where Extract is ahead

Extract passes no mandatory sales call, and Exa does not. That is adopt, whether an agent can get a key and make its first successful call without a human in the loop.

It also holds operate: retry behavior documented. Exa misses it.

What neither does

Both fail agent-compatible signup flow, idempotency support. If your agent needs any of those, you will be building it yourself either way.

Score, pillar by pillar

The AgentReady splits into four pillars, scored separately, because a product can be easy to find and still impossible to adopt.

Discover. Exa leads 100 to 80. Exa misses nothing; Extract misses public docs discoverable, llms-full.txt / full agent docs.

Understand. Exa leads 100 to 69. Exa misses nothing; Extract misses openapi / spec quality, request examples provided, limits / constraints documented.

Adopt. Exa leads 81 to 80. Exa misses no mandatory sales call, agent-compatible signup flow; Extract misses agent-compatible signup flow, fast time to first request, copyable quickstart.

Operate is whether an agent can run against it in production and recover when a call fails. Exa leads 88 to 53. Exa misses retry behavior documented, idempotency support; Extract misses idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, observable execution, agent compatibility verified.

Pricing

Exa starts at $0 (free tier with credits) and has a free tier. Extract starts at 0.0001 XNO and has a free tier.

Signal by signal

Which to pick

Exa clears more of the signals an agent needs, so it is the safer default for unattended use. Full profiles: Exa and Extract. Alternatives to each: Exa, Extract.

An agent can fetch this as data: POST /v1/compare {"slugs": ["exa", "extract"]}