Algolia API — pricing, free tier & how to get API keys

Q: Does Algolia have a free tier?

Yes. Algolia's free Build plan includes around 10,000 search requests and 1 million records per month, with a small attribution requirement. It's enough for a small site search or a side project.

Q: How do I get Algolia API keys?

Sign up at algolia.com, create an application, then open Settings, API Keys. You get an Application ID, a public Search-Only key for the frontend, and an Admin key for indexing that must stay server-side.

Algolia is a hosted search API — typo-tolerant, fast, with ranking and faceting handled for you. It powers site search, app search and increasingly RAG retrieval. Here's the pricing, the free tier, and how to get your keys.

Algolia pricing (reference, June 2026)

Plan	Price	What you get
Build free tier	$0	~10,000 searches + 1M records / mo (with attribution)
Grow	pay-as-you-go	~$0.50 / 1,000 searches beyond free; per-record fees
Premium	from ~$300+/mo	Higher volume, more features, support tiers
Elevate	custom	Enterprise volume, SLA, AI features

⚠️ Reference prices, June 2026 — Algolia bills on both searches and records, and plan names/limits change. Confirm on algolia.com/pricing. A "search" is counted per query, so an as-you-type box can fire several per keystroke unless you debounce.

The free tier

Algolia's free Build plan covers roughly 10,000 searches and 1 million records per month, with a small "Search by Algolia" attribution. That's plenty for a blog, docs site or small app. The thing to watch is that as-you-type search fires a query per keystroke — debounce input so you don't burn the quota three times faster than expected.

How to get Algolia API keys (step by step)

1. Sign up at algolia.com and create an Application.
2. Open Settings → API Keys. You'll see three things:
  • Application ID — identifies your app.
  • Search-Only API Key — safe to ship in the browser.
  • Admin API Key — full access; keep it server-side only.
3. Push records to an index, then query from the frontend with the Application ID + Search-Only key.

Run a query:

# replace APPID, INDEX and the search-only key
curl -X POST https://APPID-dsn.algolia.net/1/indexes/INDEX/query \
  -H "X-Algolia-Application-Id: APPID" \
  -H "X-Algolia-API-Key: $ALGOLIA_SEARCH_KEY" \
  -d '{"query":"laptop"}'

Cheaper / alternative options

Meilisearch and Typesense are open-source, self-hostable alternatives that are far cheaper at scale if you can run a server (both also offer managed cloud). Brave Search (see our Brave Search guide) is for web-wide search rather than your own data. For scraping content to index, see Firecrawl. To compare options by need, try the API Alternatives Finder.

FAQ

Does Algolia have a free tier?

Yes — the free Build plan covers ~10,000 searches and 1M records per month with a small attribution. Good for small sites and side projects.

How do I get Algolia API keys?

Create an application, then Settings → API Keys. Use the Application ID + Search-Only key in the browser, and keep the Admin key server-side.

Why is my Algolia usage higher than expected?

As-you-type search sends one query per keystroke. Debounce the input (e.g. wait 150–250 ms after typing stops) so one search equals one intent, not five.

Not affiliated with Algolia. Prices are reference estimates — always verify on the official pricing page.