When should an agent pay per call for research vs just use free web search?

I’m trying to figure out what actually belongs behind a paywall for agents.

Free search is already good enough for “what is this company?” A lot of the time. But agents still hallucinate contacts, mix up two companies with the same name, and treat a random blog as proof.

I built two small tools while testing that problem:

1. Company research that returns a structured summary, domain, and next actions
2. A claim check that takes a sentence and returns supported / not supported plus a source

Both are pay-per-call so an agent doesn’t need an API key.

What I don’t know:

• Would you have an agent pay $0.75 for structured company context, or only pay for verified contacts?
• For claim checks, is a fast $0.10 “supported / not supported” useful, or do agents only want the expensive deep pass?
• What fields do you actually need in the JSON? I’m trying not to return slop.

If this kind of tool is useful, tell me what the response should look like. I can put the endpoints in a comment.