Brave Search through Squiid

What Brave Search is

Brave Search runs its own crawler and index rather than reselling another engine's results, which makes it one of the few genuinely independent sources of web results available through an API. The API covers web, news, image, video and local search, returns structured results with descriptions and metadata, supports country and language targeting and freshness filters, and offers a summarizer endpoint on higher tiers. It does not profile users or build a search history. Goggles let you reweight results with your own ranking rules, which is unusual and useful for a vertical search product.

For AI-coded apps this is the general-purpose search backend: the thing you call when a model needs current links, when a feature shows real search results to a user, or when you want a second index to compare against an agent-focused API. Independence matters practically as well as philosophically, because a pipeline built on a reseller can break when the upstream agreement changes. Result freshness filters are also the difference between an assistant that cites this week and one that quietly cites 2021.

Why connect it through Squiid

Squiid provisions Brave Search instantly and holds the subscription token. Queries go to https://api.squiid.io/v1/brave-search/... with Authorization: Bearer $SQUIID_API_KEY, and clients work by pointing their base URL at the gateway (gateway convention). Queries are metered against prepaid credits at Brave's list price with no markup, rate limits and plan tier are handled on the Squiid side, and search spend appears on the same monthly invoice as the model that consumed the results. Structured fields such as page age and language make it straightforward to filter results before they reach a prompt.

• One account, one key, one bill, one dashboard. Brave Search sits beside every other service your project uses, on the same invoice and the same credit balance.
• Key custody. Squiid holds the Brave Search credentials. Your code carries SQUIID_API_KEY, so BRAVE_SEARCH_API_KEY, BRAVE_API_KEY never land in a repository, a preview deployment or an agent’s context.
• Metering you can see. Every call is counted per service and per day, so you know what Brave Search costs before the month ends.
• Pause on zero. When prepaid credits run out the gateway stops authorizing usage instead of running up a bill you did not fund.
• One rotation. Rotating the Squiid key cuts off every agent, worker and deployment at once, with no provider key to hunt down.

What you get

• Results from an independent web index
• Web, news, image, video and local endpoints
• Country, language and freshness filters
• Queries metered against prepaid credits
• Brave list pricing, no markup

How to connect Brave Search

One variable replaces the provider credentials this service would normally need. Requests go to the gateway and the official SDKs work by pointing their base URL at it (gateway convention).

# .env
# replaces BRAVE_SEARCH_API_KEY, BRAVE_API_KEY
SQUIID_API_KEY=sq_live_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

# every request: https://api.squiid.io/v1/brave-search/...
# header:       Authorization: Bearer $SQUIID_API_KEY

Pricing through Squiid

Brave charges per query with tiered rates depending on the plan and endpoints used, at the provider's listed price. Squiid passes that through at par: one dollar of prepaid credit is one dollar of Brave Search usage, with no markup and no per-request margin.

Brave Search has no subscription attached on Squiid today. If a plan is required for a feature you need, it passes through at the provider’s listed price with no Squiid fee.

Squiid adds no markup to provider prices. There is a free plan at $0 a month with a 15% fee when you top up credits, Solo at $19.97 a month with a top-up fee that starts at 8% and falls to 3.5% as your spend grows, Team from $29.97 a seat a month with the same ladder one point lower, and Custom with a rate of 3% or less. Credits are prepaid, so Brave Search usage stops when the balance reaches zero rather than producing an invoice you did not fund. Auto top-up with a cap keeps production running without handing anyone an open-ended card.

If you leave

Nothing to move: Brave Search is usage-metered, so leaving means creating your own Brave Search key and pointing the client at it. Squiid never owns your code, your schema or your domain, and the gateway speaks Brave Search's own API, so the client change is a base URL. The handover page lists what happens for every provider in the catalogue.

Works with every coding agent

Brave Search through Squiid is just an HTTP call with a bearer token, so every agentic coding tool can use it with the single key already in your environment:

• Claude Code
• Cursor
• ChatGPT
• Codex
• Grok
• Gemini CLI
• GitHub Copilot
• Windsurf
• Perplexity
• Devin
• Replit
• v0
• Lovable
• Cline

Vibe coding a feature on Brave Search usually means asking for it in plain language and letting the agent write the integration. Because the key is Squiid’s rather than the provider’s, it can do that without ever holding a credential that could be leaked, logged or committed.