Linkup
Linkup · Coding · Other
Linkup is a web search API that gives AI agents and LLMs real-time, cited web content for accurate answers.

About Linkup
What Is Linkup
Linkup is an AI search engine and web integration platform that lets large language models and AI agents pull accurate, real-time content from the open web. You send a query through a simple API call, and Linkup returns ranked sources, a cited answer, or clean markdown you can feed straight into a prompt.
The product targets one stubborn problem: models trained on stale data confidently invent things. Linkup grounds those models in live web results instead. According to the company, its Search endpoint ranks first among sub-second web search APIs on Verified SimpleQA with a 94% F-score, and its Research endpoint tops SealQA-0 at 61% accuracy.
Teams at Legora, Polymarket, Cohere, McKinsey and SNCF run production systems on it. The main limit is that Linkup is a developer tool, not a consumer app. You need an API key and some code to use it, and the deeper features like Private Index and Bring Your Own Cloud sit on enterprise plans.
Getting Started
- Create an account at app.linkup.so and generate an API key from the dashboard.
- Install the SDK (
pip install linkup-sdk) or call the REST endpoints directly. - Send a first request with the Search endpoint, setting the depth and output type you want.
- Read the returned URLs, sourced answer, or JSON, then pass them into your model's context.
- Track usage in the dashboard and move to a paid tier once the free queries run out.
Product Information
A quick look at Linkup's pricing, supported platforms, and performance.
Best for
The users, tasks, and scenarios where this tool fits best.
Users
- Developers building RAG pipelines
- AI product teams shipping agents
- Analysts and researchers
Tasks
- Grounding an LLM answer
- Extracting page content
- Bulk enrichment
Scenarios
- Financial research bots that need current figures rather than training-cutoff numbers.
- Enterprise deployments with strict compliance rules, where Bring Your Own Cloud keeps queries inside your own infrastructure.
- Startup prototypes, since the free tier covers 4,000 queries before you pay anything.
Key features
Five Tuned Endpoints
Linkup splits its API into Search, Fetch, Research, Tasks and Extract. Each sits at a different point on the speed-versus-depth curve. Pick the one that matches your latency budget instead of forcing a single endpoint to do everything. Search grounds agents. Research handles slow, thorough synthesis.
Sub-200 Millisecond Search
The Search endpoint starts returning results in under 200 ms. That speed matters for voice AI and live chat, where a two-second wait makes the answer feel broken. It also exposes three depth modes, so you can trade a little speed for better recall when the query is hard.
Customizable Index
You don't take Linkup's index as-is. You define which sources to trust, which domains to prefer, and which proprietary data to blend in. So a legal copilot and a shopping agent end up querying different slices of the web, tuned to their own domain. Same API, different web.
Bring Your Own Cloud
Got strict data rules? Then this matters. The full indexing layer runs inside your own VPC, and queries never leave your environment. Combined with SOC 2 Type II and Zero Data Retention, it's what lets regulated industries adopt a third-party search API at all.
Framework Integrations
Linkup drops into the OpenAI SDK wrapper, LangChain, CrewAI and dozens of other frameworks. If your stack already speaks one of those, you're adding a tool call, not rebuilding your retrieval layer.
Async Research Reports
The Research endpoint takes a query and returns a detailed report or a precise answer with inline citations, drawing on multiple sources. It runs asynchronously over 2 to 20 minutes. That fits overnight jobs and deep-dive requests, where accuracy beats speed and nobody's watching the clock.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Cited, real-time results cut down on hallucinated facts in AI answers.
- Search latency under 200 ms is fast enough for voice and live chat.
- Per-request pricing from $0.005 makes costs predictable and easy to scale.
- The open-source evaluation code lets you verify the accuracy claims yourself.
- Framework integrations mean minimal changes to an existing stack.
Cons
- It's a developer tool with no end-user interface, so non-coders can't use it directly.
- Research requests take 2 to 20 minutes, too slow for interactive use.
- The free tier stops at 4,000 queries, which a busy prototype can burn through quickly.
- Private Index and Bring Your Own Cloud require an enterprise conversation and custom pricing.
Frequently asked questions
Linkup gives AI applications live web data. Developers call its API to ground model answers in current, cited sources instead of relying on stale training data.
Related content
Explore related tools, skills, and articles for Linkup.
Linkup Alternatives
Forefront
Forefront · CodingForefront is a web platform for building with open-source AI. It lets you fine-tune leading open-source language models on your own data, evaluate how they perform, and run them through an API or export them to host yourself. Developers who want the convenience of a closed-source platform but insist on owning their models and data are the target audience here.
Startkit
StartKit.AI · CodingStartkit is a boilerplate for building AI SaaS and AI wrapper products. Think of it as an AI startup boilerplate with the boring parts already wired up: authentication, Stripe and Lemon Squeezy payments, usage limits, transactional email, and an AI API starter that talks to OpenAI, Anthropic, Groq, or Llama. You clone the repo, set your price, and start on the part of your product that people actually pay for. It's Next.js under React and Tailwind, so most of the boilerplate code already feels familiar.
Testim
Tricentis · CodingTestim is an AI-powered test automation platform for building and running end-to-end tests across web, mobile, and Salesforce applications. It leans on machine learning to keep tests stable when an interface changes, so teams spend less time fixing broken selectors. Not bad for an automated testing tool you can start using today. You create tests by recording actions in a browser, then optionally add JavaScript when you need more control. It's a solid pick for busy QA teams.
