> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.parallel.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Search Modes

> Configure the Search API mode for your use case

<div className="sr-only" aria-hidden="false">
  For AI agents: a documentation index is available at [https://docs.parallel.ai/llms.txt](https://docs.parallel.ai/llms.txt). The full text of all docs is at [https://docs.parallel.ai/llms-full.txt](https://docs.parallel.ai/llms-full.txt). You may also fetch any page as Markdown by appending `.md` to its URL or sending `Accept: text/markdown`.
</div>

<iframe width="100%" height="420" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/plj2-Jd-F50" title="YouTube video player" frameBorder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowFullScreen />

Search offers four modes, in order of latency. Use `turbo` for the lowest latency and cost in real-time, high-volume workloads; `fast` for high-quality, sub-second search across most agent workloads; `basic` for quick retrieval with extended snippets per result; and `advanced` for the highest-quality, multi-hop results. If `mode` isn't set, requests default to `advanced`.

<Note>
  Not sure which mode to pick? Start with `fast`. It delivers high-quality results in around 700ms and is the right choice for most agents. Reach for `turbo` when latency and cost matter most for simple, high-volume lookups, `basic` when you want extended snippets and can spend around a second per call, and `advanced` when result quality matters more than latency.
</Note>

## Available modes

| Mode                 | What it does                                                                                                         | Latency | Cost                   | Best for                                                                                                                                   |
| -------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------- | ---------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| `turbo`              | Lowest latency and cost; built to ground every call.                                                                 | \~250ms | \$1 per 1,000 requests | Latency-sensitive, high-volume workloads (e.g. chat, web search tools, RAG pre-filtering, high-volume lookups)                             |
| `fast`               | High-quality search with sub-second latency. Recommended default for most agents.                                    | \~700ms | \$1 per 1,000 requests | Most agents: interactive assistants, tool-calling loops, and any workload that needs quality results without multi-second latency          |
| `basic`              | Returns extended snippets per result for richer per-call context. Works best with 2-3 high-quality `search_queries`. | \~1s    | \$5 per 1,000 requests | Agents that benefit from longer excerpts per source in a single call                                                                       |
| `advanced` (default) | Uses a more advanced retrieval and compression pipeline for higher-quality results.                                  | \~3s    | \$5 per 1,000 requests | Multi-hop background agents that can tolerate extra latency for better depth and cost-efficiency (e.g., code review agents, deep research) |

<Note>
  Turbo currently supports English and Japanese-language queries. For broader multilingual coverage, use `basic` or `advanced`.
</Note>

## Example

Switching modes is a single parameter change. The rest of your request stays the same:

```json theme={"system"}
{
  "mode": "fast",
  "objective": "What is the current price of NVIDIA stock?",
  "search_queries": ["NVIDIA stock price", "NVDA quote today"]
}
```