The Bing Web Search API let you query Microsoft's search index programmatically — web, news, image and video results behind a single endpoint. It was a go-to for grounding LLMs and building search features. Important: Microsoft has announced the retirement of the standalone Bing Search APIs, so this guide covers historical pricing and the replacements you should build on today.
| Tier | Price | Volume |
|---|---|---|
| Free free | $0 | ~1,000 queries / month |
| Standard S1 | ~$15 / 1,000 | web results |
| Higher tiers | ~$20–25 / 1,000 | added result types / volume |
For independent web search (results you parse yourself), the cleanest modern options are the Brave Search API — privacy-focused, generous free tier, simple per-query pricing — and SerpApi for structured results scraped from major engines. For LLM grounding specifically, Azure AI Agent grounding (Microsoft's recommended path) or a search-augmented model provider often replaces a raw search call entirely. If your real goal is fetching and cleaning page content for RAG, Firecrawl turns URLs into clean markdown.
Historically: create a Bing Search resource in the Azure portal, then copy the key from Keys and Endpoint and send it as the Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key header. Today: for new builds, sign up for Brave Search API or SerpApi (both issue a key in minutes) or use Azure AI Agent grounding inside an Azure AI project.
Since the standalone API is retiring, the practical move is to pick a supported alternative and model its cost: Brave Search (best free tier for independent search), SerpApi (Google/Bing-style structured SERPs), or Firecrawl (page content for RAG). Compare them on the search APIs page. Choose based on whether you need raw web results (Brave), structured SERP data (SerpApi), or clean page content (Firecrawl).
Microsoft has announced its retirement. Existing integrations should migrate, and new projects should build on a supported alternative such as Brave Search API, SerpApi, or Azure AI Agent grounding for LLM use cases.
Roughly $15–$25 per 1,000 queries on standard tiers, with about 1,000 free queries per month. Price varied by result type and region. These are historical figures given the retirement.
For independent web search, the Brave Search API (great free tier) or SerpApi (structured results). For grounding an LLM, Azure AI Agent grounding or a search-augmented model. For RAG content extraction, Firecrawl.
You created a Bing Search resource in the Azure portal and copied the key from Keys and Endpoint, sending it as the Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key header. New projects should use a supported alternative instead.
Not affiliated with Microsoft. Prices are reference estimates and the API is being retired — always verify current status and pricing on official documentation.