exa-cost-tuning

name	exa-cost-tuning
description	Optimize Exa costs through search type selection, caching, and usage monitoring. Use when analyzing Exa billing, reducing API costs, or implementing budget controls and usage alerts. Trigger with phrases like "exa cost", "exa billing", "reduce exa costs", "exa pricing", "exa expensive", "exa budget".
allowed-tools	Read, Grep, Bash(curl:*), Bash(node:*)
version	1.0.0
license	MIT
author	Jeremy Longshore <[e-mail]>
compatible-with	claude-code, codex, openclaw
tags	["saas","exa","api","cost-optimization"]

Exa Cost Tuning

Overview

Reduce Exa API costs through strategic search type selection, result caching, query deduplication, and usage monitoring. Exa charges per search request with costs varying by search type and content retrieval options.

Cost Drivers

Factor	Higher Cost	Lower Cost
Search type	deep-reasoning > deep > neural	keyword < fast < instant
numResults	10-100 results	3-5 results
Content retrieval	Full text + highlights + summary	Metadata only (no content)
Content length	maxCharacters: 5000	maxCharacters: 500
Live crawling	livecrawl: "always"	Cached content (default)

Instructions

Step 1: Match Search Config to Use Case

import Exa from "exa-js";

const exa = new Exa(process.env.EXA_API_KEY);

// Define cost tiers per use case
const SEARCH_PROFILES = {
  // Cheapest: metadata-only keyword search
  "autocomplete": { type: "instant" as const, numResults: 3 },

  // Low cost: fast search with minimal content
  "quick-lookup": { type: "fast" as const, :  },

  
  : {
    :   ,
    : ,
    : { :  },
  },

  
  : {
    :   ,
    : ,
    : { :  },
    : { :  },
  },
};

  () {
   config = [profile];
   (  config ||   config) {
     exa.(query, config);
  }
   exa.(query, config);
}