Tako Search Free on AI Gateway Through September 30 — Then $7–12 per 1K Requests

What shipped

Vercel made Tako Search free on AI Gateway through September 30, 2026. One tool call — gateway.tools.takoSearch() in the AI SDK — gives any model on the gateway live web and curated-data search with citations, no separate Tako account or API key.

What changed — and what the changelog doesn't say

The changelog names the deadline but not the price: "After September 30, searches are billed at standard rates." So we went to Tako's own API pricing page for the number. Standard rates on Tako direct: Search is $7 per 1K requests at Instant and Fast tiers (P50 300–500ms), and $12 per 1K for Deep search (P50 ~5s). The Answer endpoint — a synthesized cited answer — runs $9–15 per 1K. Tako direct also includes up to 2,000 free requests, which is the competitive floor the AI Gateway's free window is designed to beat.

Do the math on the cliff: an agent pipeline doing 10 searches per task against 1,000 tasks/day is roughly 10,000 searches — about $70/day at the Fast tier once the window closes, ~$2,100/month if nothing changes. That bill moves from Tako's meter to your Vercel bill, which is the point: it's a land-grab for agent workloads, funded by Vercel, expiring on a date.

Why a builder cares

Free search on a gateway is the cheapest tether in the stack: the integration is a one-line SDK call, so swapping out is easy — unless your prompts and evals quietly accumulate around Tako's citations and visualizations. Three moves: (1) benchmark search quality against alternatives like Exa or Serper during the free window, since after Sept 30 you're paying Tako's rate either way through the gateway; (2) check whether AI Gateway's post-Oct-1 rate matches Tako direct's $7/1K or carries a margin — the changelog is silent; (3) if you ship on the deadline unaware, Oct 1 invoices do the telling for you. Deadline pricing is fine when you know the clock exists. Now you do.