One-call Deep Research APIs vs. building your own agent loop: pricing and control tradeoffs
kaizakin · reddit · 2026-10-22
A developer lays out the two camps for research agents: one-call deep research APIs (Gemini/OpenAI Deep Research, Octen, Tavily Research) that return cited reports but are opaque and can take 45-60 minutes per run, versus self-built loops on search/scrape primitives (Firecrawl, Exa, Tavily) that offer control but shift anti-bot, retry, and parallel-query burdens onto you. Pricing is chaotic: $0.20-3 per run, token+tool-call billing, or credit systems ranging 4-250 credits per request, making per-task cost estimation hard. Asks prod users which camp they chose, whether one-call APIs ever beat custom loops, and what broke first at scale.
Related event: Developers Debate Managed Deep Research APIs vs. Custom Loops(2 posts)→
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