Skim vs Exa
Exa and Skim both speak x402 — agents can pay either one per call in USDC. The difference is the job: Exa searches the web for you; Skim reads the URL you already have, cleanly and cheaply.
Honest comparison, no trash talk. If anything here is wrong, please tell us — we'll fix it. Full multi-vendor table on the comparison page.
Skim or Exa? The short answer
If you already hold the URL, Skim reads it for $0.002 — roughly a third of Exa's per-call price for contents. Choose Exa when you still need to find the URL: it is a web search engine and Skim is a clean reader. They pair well — search with Exa, then hand the found URLs to Skim to read.
Choose Skim when
You already know the URL. Feed reads, link following, citation checking, 'clean this page for my context window' — Skim does that for $0.002, roughly a third of Exa's per-call price for contents.
Choose Exa when
You do not know the URL yet. Exa's semantic search over a web-scale index is the real product — if your agent's question is 'find me pages about X', start with Exa (and feel free to hand the found URLs to Skim to read).
| Capability | Skim | Exa |
|---|---|---|
| Core job | Read a known URL, return clean markdown | Semantic web search; contents fetch as add-on |
| Pricing (per call) | $0.002 per read | ~$0.007 (flat, search or contents) |
| Payment rail | USDC on Base (x402) | USDC via x402 (Base + Solana) or API key |
| Signup / account required | Optional — x402 path is keyless | |
| Agent-native (HTTP 402) | ||
| Web search index | Not a search engine | Core product |
| Structured extraction (JSON schema) | /v1/extract — $0.015 | Summary-oriented |
| JS rendering | /v1/read/js | Index-dependent |
| PDF support | Index-dependent | |
| Refund on failure | Auto, never settled | Varies |
The honest fine print
- —Exa joining x402 is good for everyone building agents — it validates per-call, keyless APIs as the way agents buy services. We are glad they are here.
- —These products are more complementary than competitive: search with Exa, read with Skim. Only Exa's /contents endpoint overlaps with what Skim does.
- —On that overlap, the comparison is simple: if you already hold the URL, paying a search-engine price to fetch its contents is paying for an index you did not use.