> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://efreedirectory.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# You.com Free Gives 100 Searches a Day, to Developers
- URL: https://efreedirectory.com/you-com-free-plan-limits/
- Published: 2026-10-20T04:28:54.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-21T12:36:25.000Z
- Description: You.com no longer publishes consumer pricing. Its public free tier is a hundred search API calls a day, which is a different product from the assistant it used to be.
- Author: Chintan Dhokai
- Tags: tool, AI Assistants

**You.com's public free tier is now the Search API: 100 calls a day with no key, account or card, then $5 per 1,000\. API accounts also start with $100 of credit. The consumer assistant still has a free plan, but You.com no longer publishes its limits or price.**[1](#sources)

That is a strange thing for an AI assistant to have done, and it is worth understanding before signing up. The company that used to sell a $20 Pro chat plan now leads its pricing page with per-call retrieval APIs.

The consumer product still exists. What has gone is any published statement of what it costs or what it includes, which makes it the only tool in this series whose free tier cannot be verified from the vendor's own pages.

## What is actually published

|                    | Free                                  | Paid                |
| ------------------ | ------------------------------------- | ------------------- |
| Search API calls   | 100 per day                           | $5 per 1,000        |
| API key required   | No                                    | Yes                 |
| Account required   | No                                    | Yes                 |
| Signup credit      | $100                                  | None                |
| Rate limit         | Default, about 10 requests per second | Higher, custom      |
| Contents API       | Not free                              | $1 per 1,000 pages  |
| Answer API         | Not free                              | $5 per 1,000 calls  |
| Consumer chat plan | Exists, unpublished                   | Exists, unpublished |

Those API rates are aggressive. Search at $5 per 1,000 calls undercuts most retrieval providers, and the keyless hundred-a-day allowance is genuinely usable for prototyping an agent before committing to anything.

## The assistant is still there, just undocumented

You.com support pages still describe a free plan with unlimited access to the Smart Agent and limited queries to the premium agents and models, with paid plans adding more. Historic captures show Pro at $20 a month or $15 billed annually.

None of that appears on the current public pricing page. Consumer plans have moved into the in-app upgrade flow, which means you cannot compare them before signing up and you cannot verify a price without an account.

For a buyer this is the worst of both. Every other tool in this series states its free limits, even when the number is unhelpful. You.com has stopped stating them at all.

## What the free API allowance is good for

Adding live web search to an agent without paying for it. A hundred calls a day is enough to develop against and enough to run a low-traffic tool. The keyless MCP profile means you can point a client at it before you have decided anything.

Anyone doing serious retrieval work hits a hundred calls a day quickly, and the step to paid is cheap at $5 per thousand. This is one of the few places where the paid upgrade is clearly priced rather than bundled into a subscription.

Compare that with [Perplexity](https://efreedirectory.com/perplexity-free-plan-limits/), whose free tier is a consumer search allowance with no API access at all, or [DeepSeek](https://efreedirectory.com/deepseek-free-plan-limits/), whose API is cheaper per token but has no free quota.

## How to decide without published numbers

Sign up with an account you do not mind losing, and look at the in-app upgrade screen. That is the only place consumer pricing now exists.

For most people reading this series, the honest recommendation is to treat You.com as a retrieval API and use something else as a chat assistant. [ChatGPT](https://efreedirectory.com/chatgpt-free-plan-limits/), [Claude](https://efreedirectory.com/claude-free-plan-limits/) and [Copilot](https://efreedirectory.com/microsoft-copilot-free-plan-limits/) all state what their free tiers do, and three published plans beat one unpublished one.

## When the free plan is enough

Prototyping an agent that needs web search. Checking whether retrieval quality is good enough before wiring it into a product. Building a small internal tool that runs a few dozen queries a day.

For chat, the free tier probably still works, but you will be discovering its edges rather than planning around them.

## When it stops being enough

At a hundred API calls a day, which is a low ceiling for anything user-facing. The jump to paid is immediate and metered, so there is no awkward middle tier to argue about.

For the assistant, the trigger is the same as everywhere else in this series: file uploads, larger context windows and the premium models are all behind a plan whose price is not published. At that point the comparison against a tool that tells you what it costs becomes easy.

## Frequently asked questions

**Is You.com free?**  
The Search API is free for 100 calls a day with no API key or account. The consumer assistant has a free plan, but its limits are no longer published.

**How much is You.com Pro now?**  
You.com does not publish consumer pricing any more. Historic captures show Pro at $20 a month or $15 billed annually, and the current price is only shown in the in-app upgrade flow.

**Do I need an API key for the free tier?**  
No. The free Search API allowance works through a keyless MCP profile, limited to the search and discover tools.

**What happens after 100 API calls in a day?**  
Calls bill at $5 per 1,000, drawn from your credit. New API accounts start with $100 of credit.

**Does the free tier include file uploads for chat?**  
File uploads were a Pro feature when pricing was published, up to 25MB per query. You.com no longer states which consumer features are free.

*API allowances, rate limits and pricing verified against You.com's public pricing pages on 20 October 2026\. Consumer plan pricing is not published anywhere on the vendor site, and the figures quoted here are from archived captures rather than a current page.*

## Sources

1. You.com pricing: [you.com/pricing](https://you.com/pricing?ref=efreedirectory.com). Used for: Pricing and the API-first product split.

*All sources are the vendor's own plan or documentation pages, checked on 20 October 2026\. Plan terms change without notice, so confirm current limits before you rely on them.*