# Agent Stack Data — full text for AI systems

## Best MCP Servers and Tool Platforms in 2026
URL: https://agentstackdata.com/best-mcp-servers/

Quick answer: "MCP server" covers three different products wearing the same name, so pick by job. To *find* servers, start with a registry: Smithery (now a free directory powered by Arcade, after its hosted services shut down in October 2026) or Glama , which pairs its directory with a hosted gateway. Both are free to start. To give your agent *authenticated access to business apps* (its Gmail, your users' Slack), use a tool platform built for that: Composio , Arcade AI , Pipedream Connect , or Zapier MCP , which differ mainly in how many apps they cover and how they handle user authorization. There is no single "best MCP server" — there are thousands of individual servers, and the platforms below are how you reach them without running each one yourself. Pricing here is what each platform publishes; where a pricing page rendered incompletely during verification, the dataset says so instead of inventing numbers.

Q: What is an MCP server, in one sentence?
A: A small program that exposes a tool's capabilities (search, send email, query a database) to AI agents through the Model Context Protocol, so any MCP-compatible agent can use it without a custom integration.

Q: Which platform has the most tools?
A: By published counts, Zapier MCP advertises 30,000+ actions across 9,000+ apps, and Pipedream Connect 10,000+ tools across 3,000+ connectors. Registry size is a different number: Smithery and Glama list thousands of third-party servers of varying quality.

Q: Are MCP platforms free?
A: All six here have a free way in: Smithery and Composio free tiers, Glama's free directory/inspector, Arcade's developer tier, and Pipedream/Zapier free plans (Zapier's is task-metered). Production volume is where they diverge — compare meters, not stickers.

Q: Do I need a platform, or can I run servers myself?
A: You can run open-source servers yourself for free. Platforms earn their fee when you need hosting at scale or authenticated access to users' app accounts. Most production stacks end up hybrid: a few self-hosted servers plus one tool platform.

Q: Is MCP safe to give an agent access to my apps?
A: MCP itself is a protocol; safety comes from scoping. Prefer platforms with per-user authorization and least-privilege tool access (Arcade and Composio are built around this), review each server like a dependency, and never give an agent a broader token than the task needs.

## Best Speech-to-Text APIs for AI Agents in 2026
URL: https://agentstackdata.com/best-speech-to-text-apis/

Quick answer: Speech-to-text is a commodity with wildly different packaging, so buy it by the published per-hour rate and the features wrapped around it. On price alone, the verified spread in this comparison runs from about $0.12-$0.15 per hour (Speechmatics Melia 1, AssemblyAI Universal-2) through Gladia at 0.16 EUR/hour to Deepgram at $0.0077 per minute — about $0.46 per hour — for its Nova-3 models. OpenAI's transcribe models sit at an estimated $0.003-$0.006 per minute, and ElevenLabs Scribe is $0.22 per hour inside a platform most people buy for text-to-speech. The right pick depends on what happens around the transcript: AssemblyAI sells the analysis layer (summaries, entities, an LLM gateway), Deepgram sells the real-time voice-agent stack, Gladia and Speechmatics sell multilingual depth, and ElevenLabs makes sense when the same subscription also voices your agent. All prices below are vendor-published and dated in our dataset. We do not quote accuracy percentages, because we did not run accuracy tests and vendor accuracy claims are not comparable across test sets.

Q: What is the cheapest speech-to-text API?
A: On published entry rates, Speechmatics' Melia 1 at $0.12/hour and AssemblyAI's Universal-2 at $0.15/hour lead for batch transcription, with Gladia at 0.16 EUR/hour close behind. OpenAI's gpt-4o-mini-transcribe works out near $0.18/hour at its estimated per-minute rate. The cheapest headline rate is not always the model you will actually run — flagship models cost more at every vendor.

Q: Which APIs give free credit to start?
A: Deepgram ($200), Speechmatics ($100), AssemblyAI ($50), and Gladia (50 EUR) all publish starter credit, and ElevenLabs has a free monthly credit allotment. OpenAI publishes no free tier on its API pricing page.

Q: Does it matter whether an STT API has an MCP server?
A: If your agent framework speaks MCP, an official server means transcription becomes a tool call with no integration code. Deepgram, AssemblyAI, ElevenLabs, and Gladia ship official ones. Without one, you call the REST API through your own wrapper — fine, just more code.

Q: Why do streaming and batch prices differ so much?
A: Streaming reserves live capacity and returns partial results as audio arrives; batch processing can be scheduled and packed efficiently. AssemblyAI's published spread ($0.15-$0.21/hour batch vs $0.45/hour streaming) is typical. Budget voice agents from the streaming rate.

Q: Which is best for non-English audio?
A: On published language coverage, Gladia (100+ languages) and Speechmatics (55+) lead this list, and both price multilingual models at their entry rates rather than as premium add-ons. Verify your specific language pair on the free credit before committing volume.

## Best Web Scraping APIs for AI Agents in 2026: How to Choose
URL: https://agentstackdata.com/best-web-scraping-apis-for-ai-agents/

Quick answer: There is no single "scraping API" product — there are three different machines sold under one label, and picking the right *kind* matters more than picking the right brand. **Fetch-and-extract APIs** take a URL and hand back clean text or markdown for a language model; they are the cheapest and simplest way for an agent to read pages search results point at. **Hosted browser APIs** rent you a real, scriptable web browser in the cloud, for pages that need clicking, logging in, scrolling, or surviving JavaScript-heavy rendering. **Scraper marketplaces** sell pre-built scrapers for specific sites (an Amazon product scraper, a Google Maps scraper) on top of shared infrastructure. Most agent stacks need the first kind daily, the second kind occasionally, and the third only for named-site data jobs. A transparency note that matters: unlike the other categories on this site, this guide does not publish a per-vendor price table yet. Pricing in this category changes constantly and several vendor pages could not be fully verified in this build's research pass, so rather than print numbers we could not stand behind, this article teaches the evaluation and names the leading tools — the dataset entries land only when each field is verified, the same rule applied everywhere else on this site.

Q: Why does this guide have no price table when the others do?
A: Because the prices were not fully verified in this build's research pass, and this site's rule is that unverified numbers do not get published as facts. The scraping category is fully covered in the site's dataset structure; entries will be added tool by tool as each vendor's pricing, free tier, and limits are verified from the vendor's own pages.

Q: What is the difference between a scraping API and a search API?
A: A search API finds pages and returns links/snippets; a scraping API fetches a specific page and returns its content. Agents typically chain them: search to discover, scrape to read.

Q: Do I need a hosted browser, or is a fetch API enough?
A: If the pages are public and mostly static — articles, docs, most pricing pages — a fetch-and-extract API is enough. You need a real browser when the task involves clicking, forms, logins, infinite scroll, or content that only appears after JavaScript runs.

Q: Is web scraping legal for agents to use?
A: It depends on what is scraped, how, and under what terms — public facts, personal data, and copyrighted text are treated differently, and sites' terms of service matter. Vendors publish acceptable-use policies for a reason. This is a design constraint to check per use case, not a blanket yes or no, and this site is not your lawyer.

Q: Which tool should I trial first?
A: On shape, not brand: trial a fetch-and-extract API (Firecrawl is the category's best-known agent-first name) against your ten hardest real URLs, and a hosted browser (Browserbase) if any of them need interaction. Check Apify's marketplace if your job targets specific named sites. Verify current pricing on each vendor's own pricing page before committing — then check back here as verified dataset entries land.

## Best Web Search APIs for AI Agents in 2026
URL: https://agentstackdata.com/best-web-search-apis-for-ai-agents/

Quick answer: For most agent builders, the shortlist is three: Tavily if you want one API that searches *and* returns cleaned page content for a language model, Exa if you want an AI-native index with semantic search and a generous published rate limit, and Serper if you simply need raw Google results as fast and cheaply as possible. Brave Search API is the pick when index independence matters — it is the only option here that runs its own web index rather than reselling someone else's results. SerpApi covers the widest range of search engines, and Perplexity Sonar is the different animal in the list: it returns a finished, cited answer instead of results you still have to read. Every price below is the vendor's published price as verified for our dataset — no benchmarks we invented, no fake hands-on claims.

Q: What is the cheapest web search API for AI agents?
A: By published per-query price, Serper is cheapest for raw Google results at $1.00 per 1,000 queries on its $50 prepaid Starter pack. If you need page content included, compare Tavily's credit pricing ($0.008 per basic search, pay-as-you-go) against Exa's $7 per 1,000 searches plus $1 per 1,000 pages of contents (or $4 per 1,000 for Lite Search).

Q: Do these APIs offer free tiers?
A: Four of the six do in the usual sense: Tavily (1,000 credits/month), Serper (2,500 one-time signup queries), Exa ($10 of credits every month), and SerpApi (250 searches/month). Brave includes $5 of credits monthly with its paid plans rather than a standalone free plan. Perplexity publishes no free API tier.

Q: What does MCP support mean for a search API?
A: It means the vendor ships an official Model Context Protocol server, so an MCP-compatible agent can call the search API as a tool without you writing an integration. Five of the six vendors here have one — Tavily, Exa, Brave, SerpApi, and Perplexity. Serper is the exception, with community servers only; one of the clearest signs this category is being built agent-first, with Serper as the holdout.

Q: Are rate limits published?
A: Mostly, yes. Exa publishes QPS by tier, Tavily publishes requests-per-minute (100 development / 1,000 production), Brave publishes requests-per-second, and Serper and SerpApi publish per-plan throughput. Where a vendor does not publish a limit, the dataset leaves that field out rather than guessing.

Q: Should my agent use a search API or an answer API?
A: Use a search API when the agent needs the documents themselves — quoting, comparing, storing, or reasoning over sources. Use an answer API like Perplexity Sonar when a cited, finished answer is the product. The trade-off is control and auditability versus convenience.

## How AI Agents Use APIs: A Plain-Language Guide
URL: https://agentstackdata.com/how-ai-agents-use-apis/

Quick answer: An AI agent is a program that can take actions, not just chat — and APIs are how it takes them. An API is a published set of doorways into another company's software: one doorway searches the web, one sends an email, one charges a card, one returns tomorrow's weather. The agent presents a secret key (its ID badge), asks through a doorway, and gets a structured answer back, usually in a format called JSON. Three limits govern the whole system: rate limits (how often it may ask), quotas and pricing (how much each ask costs), and permissions (which doorways its key may open). MCP — Model Context Protocol — is a newer standard plug that lets agents connect to many tools the same way, instead of a custom cable for each one. Everything else in this guide is detail on those five ideas: doorways, keys, limits, cost, and the standard plug.

Q: What is an API, in plain English?
A: A published set of doorways into a company's software that other programs — including AI agents — are allowed to use: send a structured request through a doorway, get a structured answer back. If a service has no API, an agent generally cannot work with it directly.

Q: What is an API key?
A: A secret string that identifies an account on every request — part ID badge, part password. It determines what the caller may do and who pays. Anyone holding the key can act as the account, so keys are kept secret and scoped to the smallest necessary permissions.

Q: What happens when an agent hits a rate limit?
A: The service replies with a "slow down" error (HTTP 429) and refuses further requests until the window resets. Well-behaved agents wait and retry; the fix for chronic limits is a higher plan tier or a less chatty design — Exa publishes 10 queries/second for search at starter level, Tavily 100 requests/minute on development (1,000 on production), as examples of stated caps.

Q: How much does it cost to run an agent?
A: It is a stack of small meters: the AI model itself, plus every tool it calls — searches at fractions of a cent to a cent each, transcription from roughly $0.12-$0.46 per published hour rates in our dataset, automation steps by plan quotas. A light personal agent might cost a few dollars a month in tool calls; an autonomous research agent can cost hundreds. The meters, not the headline subscriptions, decide.

Q: What is MCP and why does everyone mention it?
A: Model Context Protocol: a standard way for tools to describe themselves to agents, so one plug fits many tools. Instead of custom code per integration, an MCP-compatible agent reads a server's tool list and starts using it. It is the current standard this site's dataset tracks for every tool.

## Zapier vs Make vs n8n for Agent Workflows in 2026
URL: https://agentstackdata.com/zapier-vs-make-vs-n8n/

Quick answer: For agent workflows specifically: choose Zapier when the agent needs to touch the widest range of business apps with zero infrastructure and a human team maintaining the automations; choose Make when a visual builder will design branching, data-heavy flows and cost per operation matters, because Make's Core tier includes 10,000 operations against Zapier's 750 tasks at $19.99 (Make renders its prices dynamically; verify the current Core price on its pricing page — it has historically been the cheapest entry of the three); choose n8n when a technical builder wants AI-native plumbing — LangChain nodes, MCP in both directions, code when needed — and the option to self-host for free with unlimited executions. The platforms meter in different units (tasks, credits/operations, executions), and that unit, more than any feature list, decides what your agent costs to run. All prices below are the vendors' published prices, verified 2026-11-03.

Q: Which is cheapest for agent workflows?
A: Make, on metered cloud pricing: its Core tier includes 10,000 operations (versus Zapier's 750 tasks at $19.99/month), and its per-operation cost at volume is the lowest of the three metered options; check its live pricing page for the current Core sticker. n8n self-hosted is cheaper still (free software) if you count your hosting and maintenance time at zero — be honest with yourself about that line item.

Q: Can an AI agent trigger workflows on all three?
A: Yes. Zapier exposes actions through Zapier MCP (2 tasks per MCP call), Make documents an official MCP server, and n8n can both expose workflows via its MCP Server Trigger node and consume other MCP servers as a client.

Q: What is the difference between a task, an operation, and an execution?
A: A Zapier task is one successful action step inside a Zap. A Make operation (credit) is one module running once inside a scenario. An n8n execution is one complete workflow run, however many nodes it contains. Comparing sticker prices without converting these units is meaningless — convert to your workload.

Q: Which is best for non-programmers?
A: Zapier, and it is not close: the largest template library, the plainest interface, and support aimed at operators. Make is learnable by a determined non-programmer; n8n assumes technical comfort.

Q: Should I self-host n8n to save money?
A: If a technical person already maintains your stack, yes — unlimited executions for the cost of a small server. If nobody owns updates, backups, and security patches, cloud pricing is cheaper than the incident. The software is free; the responsibility is not.

## Tool index (with vendor links)
Vendor links are official site URLs (affiliate programs pending); dataset terms: https://agentstackdata.com/for-agents/

- Tavily (Web search APIs, entry: $30/month (Project, 4,000 credits/month, lowest monthly plan); pay-as-you-go $0.008/credit): Visit: https://www.tavily.com (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/best-web-search-apis-for-ai-agents/
- Exa (Web search APIs, entry: $4 per 1,000 requests (Lite Search) — usage-based, no minimum plan): Visit: https://exa.ai (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/best-web-search-apis-for-ai-agents/
- Brave Search API (Web search APIs, entry: $5 per 1,000 requests (Search plan)): Visit: https://brave.com/search/api/ (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/best-web-search-apis-for-ai-agents/
- Serper (Web search APIs, entry: $50 one-time (Starter pack, 50,000 credits — $1.00 per 1,000 queries)): Visit: https://serper.dev (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/best-web-search-apis-for-ai-agents/
- SerpApi (Web search APIs, entry: $25/month (Starter, 1,000 searches/month); Developer $75/month (5,000 searches)): Visit: https://serpapi.com (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/best-web-search-apis-for-ai-agents/
- Perplexity Sonar API (Web search APIs, entry: $5 per 1,000 requests (Search API, standard) — usage-based, no subscription): Visit: https://www.perplexity.ai/api-platform (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/best-web-search-apis-for-ai-agents/
- Deepgram (Voice & transcription APIs, entry: Pay-as-you-go from $0.0077/minute (Nova-3 Monolingual / Flux STT); Growth prepaid tier $4,000+/year): Visit: https://deepgram.com (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/best-speech-to-text-apis/
- AssemblyAI (Voice & transcription APIs, entry: Pay-as-you-go from $0.15/hour (Universal-2); Universal-3.5 Pro $0.21/hour; streaming $0.45/hour): Visit: https://www.assemblyai.com (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/best-speech-to-text-apis/
- ElevenLabs (Voice & transcription APIs, entry: $6/month (Starter, 30,000 credits/month, commercial license); Scribe speech-to-text API $0.22/hour): Visit: https://elevenlabs.io (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/best-speech-to-text-apis/
- OpenAI Speech-to-Text API (Voice & transcription APIs, entry: From an estimated $0.003/minute (gpt-4o-mini-transcribe); gpt-4o-transcribe an estimated $0.006/minute): Visit: https://openai.com (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/best-speech-to-text-apis/
- Gladia (Voice & transcription APIs, entry: €0.16/hour (Solaria-3 async, self-serve); real-time €0.68/hour): Visit: https://www.gladia.io (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/best-speech-to-text-apis/
- Speechmatics (Voice & transcription APIs, entry: From $0.12/hour (Melia 1, multilingual pre-recorded); Standard $0.23/hour, Enhanced $0.38/hour): Visit: https://www.speechmatics.com (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/best-speech-to-text-apis/
- Smithery (MCP servers & tool platforms, entry: No paid tier — free directory only): Visit: https://smithery.ai (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/best-mcp-servers/
- Composio (MCP servers & tool platforms, entry: $29/month (lowest paid tier on the published pricing page at verification)): Visit: https://composio.dev (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/best-mcp-servers/
- Glama (MCP servers & tool platforms, entry: Not published — free directory/inspector; paid hosting tier prices not published on official pages checked): Visit: https://glama.ai (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/best-mcp-servers/
- Arcade AI (MCP servers & tool platforms, entry: $25/month (Team platform fee) plus usage at $0.01 per tool call): Visit: https://www.arcade.dev (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/best-mcp-servers/
- Pipedream Connect (MCP servers & tool platforms, entry: $99/month billed annually (Startup, 10,000 usage credits and 100 external users included); $150/month billed monthly): Visit: https://pipedream.com/connect (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/best-mcp-servers/
- Zapier MCP (MCP servers & tool platforms, entry: Included from Zapier's free plan (100 tasks/month, about 50 MCP calls); paid plans from $19.99/month): Visit: https://zapier.com/mcp (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/best-mcp-servers/
- Zapier (Automation & workflow platforms, entry: $19.99/month (Professional, starting-from price on the pricing page; 750 tasks/month)): Visit: https://zapier.com (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/zapier-vs-make-vs-n8n/
- Make (Automation & workflow platforms, entry: Core plan includes 10,000 credits/month (entry price is rendered dynamically on make.com/en/pricing and could not be verified from the page text — check the live pricing page)): Visit: https://www.make.com (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/zapier-vs-make-vs-n8n/
- n8n (Automation & workflow platforms, entry: €20/month billed annually (Starter cloud, 2,500 executions); self-hosted €0): Visit: https://n8n.io (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/zapier-vs-make-vs-n8n/
- Gumloop (Automation & workflow platforms, entry: $37/month (Pro, 20,000 credits/month)): Visit: https://www.gumloop.com (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/
- Relay.app (Automation & workflow platforms, entry: Not applicable — Relay.app has shut down; do not sign up): Visit: https://www.relay.app (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/
- Pipedream (Automation & workflow platforms, entry: $99/month billed annually (Startup); $150/month billed monthly): Visit: https://pipedream.com (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/
- Clay (AI data & enrichment APIs, entry: Launch plan listed at $167/month headline on clay.com/pricing, while the same page's FAQ says 'starting at $185/month' (2,500 Data Credits, 15,000 Actions/month) — conflicting figures on the official page; confirm at checkout): Visit: https://www.clay.com (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/
- Apollo.io (AI data & enrichment APIs, entry: $49/user/month billed annually (Basic, lowest paid tier on the published pricing page)): Visit: https://www.apollo.io (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/
- Clearbit (Breeze Intelligence) (AI data & enrichment APIs, entry: Not published as a standalone product — enrichment is included with paid HubSpot; lowest official entry is a HubSpot Core Seat (Starter from $20/seat/month per HubSpot's catalog) with included credits): Visit: https://clearbit.com (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/
- Hunter (AI data & enrichment APIs, entry: $49/month billed monthly (Starter, 2,000 credits/month); $34/month billed annually): Visit: https://hunter.io (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/
- People Data Labs (AI data & enrichment APIs, entry: $98/month starting (Person Pro, 350+ records/month at $0.28/credit tier pricing); Company Pro from $100/month): Visit: https://www.peopledatalabs.com (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/
- RocketReach (AI data & enrichment APIs, entry: $33/month billed annually (Essentials, 100 lookups/month, email only); Pro $75/month billed annually): Visit: https://rocketreach.co (official site (affiliate program pending)) · Guide: https://agentstackdata.com/