AI Search API vs cloro

Both send a prompt to a consumer AI surface and return the answer plus structured evidence. cloro is the closest comparable — mature, fast and simple for the anonymous surfaces it covers. This page is the honest side-by-side: where cloro fits, and the two things it structurally can’t do.

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The root difference: one choice everything follows from.

AI Search API

Browser-first, on our own fleet

Captures run through real consumer-UI stealth-browser sessions on our own fleet — guest sessions today, with the authenticated account pool that reaches login-walled surfaces on our near-term roadmap. Owning the fleet is why the artifacts are ours to keep, and why the login wall is a schedule for us, not an architecture.

cloro

Anonymous browser via proxies

cloro acquires every surface through anonymous proxy sessions — no login, no account pool. Simpler, and genuinely fast for the mainstream anonymous surfaces. It also can’t sign in, and its results expire.

At a glance: side by side, honestly.

Where the two genuinely differ — and the rows where cloro is the stronger fit. We don’t claim a capability we don’t have.

AI Search API compared with cloro across session model, retention, provenance, honesty, pricing and coverage.
	AI Search API	cloro
Session model	Browser-first — real consumer-UI sessions on our own fleet; authenticated account pool on the roadmap	Anonymous browser via proxies
Login-walled surfaces	Claude today (official API); authenticated browser lane on the roadmap	Cannot reach — ToS / login wall
Result retention	Durable R2 artifacts — no 24h expiry	Async results kept 24h
Durable artifacts	Screenshot + proof-of-page + raw, all retained	HTML via CDN URLs that expire in 24h
Provenance depth	observed-vs-inferred, loginState, region requested-vs-effective, stopReason	model, sources
Honesty contract	absence-is-data + fail-loud (DRIVER_UNAVAILABLE)	Not documented
Output shape	One canonical Envelope for every surface	Per-provider result fields
Webhooks	HMAC-signed, SSRF-guarded — plus a batch endpoint	HMAC-signed
Pricing model	500 free credits · success-only billing · flat credit plans	Prepaid per-query credits + per-add-on surcharges
Anonymous mainstream surfaces	Supported; browser-first (newer)	Mature, fast and simple

✓

Supported

◷

Roadmap

✗

Not available

Durable artifacts, not a 24-hour window.

Every capture retains three artifacts in R2 with no 24h expiry. If you need to prove what a surface said on a given day — with the screenshot and page HTML behind it — that evidence is still there. cloro keeps async results for 24h and serves HTML via CDN URLs that also expire in 24h.

Screenshot
artifacts.screenshotKey
Pixel proof of what the surface rendered.
Proof-of-page HTML
artifacts.proofHtmlKey
The audit-grade snapshot of the answer page.
Raw capture
artifacts.rawKey
The unmodified upstream response.

Retained · no expirycloro: 24h

The wedge, in cloro’s own words.

“…every request is met with a login wall.”

— cloro.dev changelog, 30 June 2026, on removing Czech ChatGPT targeting

cloro removed a targeting option because anonymous requests hit a sign-in wall — the exact structural limit of anonymous proxy scraping, stated in its own words. It is why we run browser-first on our own fleet, and why the authenticated account pool is the next step on our roadmap: Claude is served today via the official API, and the authenticated consumer-UI browser lane (Claude, then Meta AI, DeepSeek, Amazon Rufus, Grok) ships as that pool comes online. cloro’s wall is architectural; ours is a schedule.

Claude — today via official APIAuthenticated browser lane

One Envelope carries the receipts.

The canonical Envelope records observed-vs-inferred model attribution, fan-out queries with provenance, login state, region requested-vs-effective, and absence-as-data — for every surface and method. cloro returns a per-provider object:

textsourceshtml (24h)markdown

GET /v1/jobs/:childId — Envelope (trimmed)

{
  "provenance": {
    "acquisition": "own-fleet",
    "official": false,
    "model": { "observedLabel": "GPT-5", "inferred": false, "confidence": 0.98 },
    "region": { "requested": "US", "effective": "US" },
    "loginState": "guest",
    "captchaEncountered": false,
    "stopReason": "completed",
    "surfacePresent": true
  },
  "evidence": {
    "sources": [{ "role": "cited", "cited": true, "charRanges": [[0, 58]] }],
    "fanOut": { "provenance": "observed", "queries": ["best travel mirrorless 2026"] }
  },
  "job": {
    "artifacts": {
      "screenshotKey": "r2://…/screen.png",
      "proofHtmlKey":  "r2://…/proof.html",
      "rawKey":        "r2://…/raw.json"
    }
  }
}

Pricing: flat credits, nothing surcharged.

We start you with 500 free credits and bill only on successful captures. Our plans are flat monthly credits — $0.33 per 1k on Starter, dropping to $0.22 per 1k at volume — and every structured field is included in the Envelope. cloro prices per query in prepaid credits, with +2-credit surcharges for add-on fields, sync calls and US-state targeting.

Pricing comparison between AI Search API and cloro.
	AI Search API	cloro
Pricing model	500 free credits · flat monthly credit plans · success-only billing	Prepaid per-query base credits, tiered by provider
Entry plan	Starter — $49/mo · 150k credits ($0.33 / 1k)	Per-query credits — 3–5 base credits per query by provider
Rate at volume	from $0.22 / 1k	Tiered credit packs (see cloro docs)
Add-on fields	Included in the Envelope	+2 credits per add-on
Sync calls	No surcharge (?mode=sync)	+2 credits per sync call
Geo targeting	Region targeting included	US-state targeting +2 credits

cloro pricing structure per cloro’s public docs, as summarized in our comparison guide. See full pricing.

When cloro is the right call

You only need the mainstream anonymous surfaces.
You want the simplest per-query credit pricing.
24-hour result retention is fine for your use case.
You value a mature, fast, battle-tested vendor today.

We can even run cloro as a managed-vendor lane for shadow benchmarking — same Envelope, diffable.

When AI Search API is the right call

Login-walled surfaces — Claude today; the authenticated browser lane on the roadmap.
Durable, provable artifacts — screenshot + proof-of-page + raw, retained beyond 24h.
One canonical Envelope across every surface and method.
Honesty guarantees — absence-is-data, fail-loud, observed-vs-inferred.

Try it against your own queries.

500 free credits, success-only billing, one Envelope. Run it beside cloro and diff the results yourself.

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