# Exa documentation

Research date: 2026-09-03

Documentation coverage: partial.

Reference index, not a mirror of complete vendor documentation. Retrieved pages do not prove the MCP works.

## What it does

A search API that returns web pages and structured results ranked by semantic/meaning similarity to a query (embeddings-based) rather than keyword matching, plus tools to fetch page contents and get LLM-generated answers with citations; used in GTM stacks (e.g., Clay) as a research layer to pull live company and person info off the open web.

## Access and connection

MCP support: official

Access requirements: free

Authentication: api key (issued via dashboard.exa.ai) for the self-hosted server and for quota. CORRECTED 2026-09-03 by bench test: the hosted endpoint https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp completed a full MCP session and served live results from both tools with NO credential sent - no Authorization header, no exaApiKey argument, no account. Measured, not inferred. See the bench notes below.

Research checked: 2026-09-03

These details come from catalog research. Check vendor sources for current setup instructions; this is not proof of a tested connection.

## Sources

- https://github.com/exa-labs/exa-mcp-server
- https://exa.ai/mcp
- https://exa.ai/pricing
- https://exa.ai/docs/reference/pricing
- https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp

## Retrieved pages

- https://github.com/exa-labs/exa-mcp-server/issues (fetched)
- https://github.com/exa-labs/exa-mcp-server (fetched)
- https://github.com/exa-labs/exa-mcp-server/tree/main/api (fetched)
- https://github.com/exa-labs/exa-mcp-server/forks (fetched)
- https://github.com/exa-labs/exa-mcp-server/pulse (fetched)
- https://github.com/exa-labs/exa-mcp-server/pulls (fetched)
- https://github.com/exa-labs/exa-mcp-server/actions (fetched)
- https://github.com/exa-labs/exa-mcp-server/tags (fetched)
- https://exa.ai/docs/reference/pricing (fetched)
- https://exa.ai/docs/admin/pricing (fetched)