Search Web using Openai API

Community
1

Hi OpenAI team / community,

I’m using the Web Search tool and noticed the following pricing details:

  • Web search (all models): $10 / 1k calls + search content tokens billed at model rates

  • Web search preview (reasoning models, including gpt-5, o-series): $10 / 1k calls + search content tokens billed at model rates

  • Web search preview (non-reasoning models): $25 / 1k calls + search content tokens are free

I’m a bit confused — if I want to use the $10 / 1k calls tier, which model should I use (for example, gpt-4o, gpt-5, or o-series)? The documentation is not very clear about which models are included in each tier.

Thanks in advance!

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Hi @Trong_Hoang

I can see your confusion the (all-models) part is the cause I think, I’ll ask the documentation team to take a look at that.

Essentially, all of the models that have reasoning (note: for gpt-5: use the “minimal” reasoning setting for web searches) will cost you $10 per 1k + search content tpkens, so, that’s GPT-5, o3, etc. and non reasoning, 4o, 4.1, etc at $25 per 1k + search and content toekns.

Also, ensure you are using the responses API for those calls.

Hope that clears it up!

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Welcome to the dev forum @Trong_Hoang,

Web search is available in the Responses API as the generally available version of the tool, web_search, as well as the earlier tool version, web_search_preview.

The web_search tool (i.e., general availability) will have search content tokens billed at model rates.

On the older web_search_preview, the content tokens are free for non-reasoning models like gpt-4o, gpt-4.1, etc., and users pay only for the respective search pricing per API call. For reasoning models like gpt-5, o3, and o4-mini, the content tokens are billed at model rates along with the respective search pricing per API call.

Hence to use the $10k / 1k calls pricing, you can use the web-search tool, regardless of the model you choose.

To avail the same pricing on the older web_search_preview tool, you’ll have to use it with a with a reasoning model that supports the tool.

Note: In both the cases you’ll be paying for the search content tokens at model rates.

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:smile: I was thrown a curve ball when I looked at it, it’s not super obviouse! Thanks @sps for the details.

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