Exa API returns 402 errors

Exa’s own documentation says its API can return HTTP 402 Payment Required on `/search` and `/contents` requests when payment is needed, including in flows that do not use a standard API key. Exa also says its service runs on a pay-as-you-go credit system, with balances managed through its billing dashboard and usage charged against loaded credits. In the reported failure, three prefetch queries returned 402 errors instead of articles, leaving no source material to turn into a world-news briefing. ### Why would a news-retrieval step fail on a 402? HTTP 402 is the code Exa uses for payment-required flows in parts of its platform. Exa’s x402 and MPP documentation says the status is used when a client must pay per request, while its AgentKit trial page says requests sent to `/search` or `/contents` without an API key can trigger a 402 response. In practical terms, that means a retrieval system can fail before it fetches any article text. (exa.ai) If the client is unauthenticated, out of credits, or not completing the required payment flow, the request stops at the billing layer rather than returning search results or page contents. That is an inference from Exa’s published billing and payment documentation, not a company statement about this specific incident. ### What do the three failed queries tell us? The three queries in the failed prefetch covered broad, current-affairs topics: tariff talks, Ukraine-Russia ceasefire diplomacy, and AI chip export controls. Each one reportedly returned the same result — “Exa API returned 402” — and none produced a usable article URL or article body. That pattern points to a system-level access problem rather than a topic-specific search miss. (exa.ai) Exa prices its Search API per 1,000 requests and its Contents API per 1,000 pages, and says both are available through standard API-key billing as well as newer per-request payment schemes. A repeated 402 across unrelated queries is consistent with a payment or authentication gate being hit before search execution. That, again, is an inference drawn from Exa’s public documentation. ### Why couldn’t the assistant just write around the failure? The failure left the system with no articles to cite. A sourced news brief depends on retrieved URLs, article text, or both; without them, any substantive claims about tariffs, Ukraine diplomacy or export controls would have to come from memory or outside material. The assistant’s refusal to fill the gap with uncited facts follows standard sourcing constraints. (exa.ai) When the only available records are three retrieval errors, the only verified claim is that the retrieval step failed and produced no usable source material. ### Does Exa’s setup make this kind of failure plausible? Exa says new accounts receive free credits and that ongoing use is billed through credits loaded to an account. Its billing page says remaining balance is shown in the dashboard, while its pricing page describes a free tier and pay-as-you-go access. Separately, Exa’s x402 and MPP pages describe payment-required request flows for clients that do not use conventional API-key authentication. Those published options create several ways a request can succeed — and several ways it can stop at 402. A client may be missing an API key, using an unpaid per-request flow, or calling an endpoint without sufficient credits behind the authenticated account. Exa’s public pages do not, in the material reviewed here, specify which of those conditions applied in this case. (exa.ai) ### What fixes the problem fastest? The most direct fix is to rerun the workflow with working article URLs already supplied. That bypasses the failed search step and gives the writer concrete source material to verify and cite. The other fix is to restore the Exa retrieval path. Exa’s documentation points users to its billing dashboard to manage credits and says API-key billing takes priority when an `x-api-key` or bearer token is supplied. (exa.ai) The next troubleshooting step is therefore specific: confirm the request is authenticated, confirm credits are available, and retry the same `/search` or `/contents` calls that returned 402. (exa.ai)