How we make this list: we compare pricing pages, product documentation and public user reviews. Ratings come from G2, Capterra or Trustpilot, with the date we checked them.
The short answer: which SERP API should you buy
Serper is the best pick for most buyers who only need Google results, because its Starter pack costs 50 dollars for 50,000 credits at 1 dollar per 1,000 searches with no monthly subscription. If you need many engines, local results, and deep SERP features, SerpAPI is the stronger choice despite its higher price.
Key takeaways
- Serper charges about 1 dollar per 1,000 Google searches, while SerpAPI charges 25 dollars per 1,000 on its entry plan, so volume and engine coverage decide the winner.
- Only successful searches count toward the quota on most of these tools, which makes a free trial a fair test of real cost.
- ScraperAPI charges 25 credits per Google search, so a Google job costs far more there than the headline credit price suggests.
- Google Custom Search is not in this list because Google closed it to new customers and ends the service on 1 January 2027.
- Credit expiry matters as much as price: Serper credits last 6 months, while Apify credits and SerpAPI searches reset each month.
What is a search engine scraping API and how is it different from Google Custom Search
A search engine scraping API sends a query to Google, Bing, or another engine on your behalf and returns the results page as structured JSON. You get organic rankings, ads, featured snippets, knowledge panels, local packs, and People Also Ask boxes without running your own proxies or parsers. Google Custom Search is different. It is Google's own official API with strict limits, and Google closed it to new customers with the service ending on 1 January 2027. The eight tools in this guide replace it by scraping real Google results pages.
How much does 100,000 Google searches a month really cost
The sticker price hides the real cost, so here is the same 100,000 Google searches priced on each tool using the rates checked on 11 November 2026. SerpAPI needs its Searcher plan at 725 dollars a month for exactly 100,000 searches. Bright Data pay as you go costs 150 dollars at 1.50 dollars per 1,000. Oxylabs Starter at 99 dollars a month includes 220,000 results at 0.90 dollars per 1,000, which covers 100,000 searches. ScraperAPI is the surprise: each Google search costs 25 credits, so 100,000 searches need 2.5 million credits, which means the Business plan at 299 dollars a month. Zyte charges about 0.63 dollars per 1,000 search pages on pay as you go, third-party reported, so 100,000 searches cost about 63 dollars. Apify charges 2.50 dollars per 1,000 result pages on Starter, so 100,000 searches cost 269 dollars in total. Serper Standard costs 375 dollars for 500,000 credits, so 100,000 searches cost 75 dollars at 0.75 dollars per 1,000. ValueSERP needs its 200,000 credit tier, about 216 dollars a month on annual billing, third-party reported. Cheapest at this volume: Zyte at about 63 dollars, Serper at 75 dollars, Oxylabs at 99 dollars.
Which SERP API is best for rank tracking at scale
Oxylabs is the best pick for rank tracking at scale because its per result price falls to 0.60 dollars per 1,000 on the Business plan while returning parsed JSON in real time. Serper is close behind for Google only work, because its Standard pack cuts the rate to 0.75 dollars per 1,000 and credits last 6 months instead of expiring monthly. Bright Data is a fair third choice when you already buy its proxies, since its pay as you go rate needs no subscription. SerpAPI is the wrong pick for pure rank tracking volume, because its 100,000 search plan costs 725 dollars a month, about ten times the Oxylabs bill for the same volume.
What should you check before you buy a SERP API
Check four things before you pay for any SERP API. First, confirm what counts as one billable unit, because a search, a result page, a single result link, and a credit are four different units and vendors mix them freely. Second, confirm whether failed or cached searches are billed, because most vendors here only bill successful searches while a few bill every request. Third, confirm credit expiry, because Serper credits last 6 months, SerpAPI searches reset every month, and Apify prepaid usage expires at the end of each cycle. Fourth, confirm which SERP features are included, because some features cost extra or need a different endpoint.
Local results and SERP features separate the general tools from the specialists. SerpAPI covers Google Maps, local results, and more than 80 engines with dedicated endpoints. Bright Data offers Google Maps, Shopping, Hotels, Flights, Trends, and Jobs endpoints. Oxylabs provides dedicated Google sources for Search, Ads, Images, News, Scholar, and Local results. ValueSERP and Serper are Google only, which keeps them cheap but rules them out when you need Bing or Yandex data. Apify adds scheduling, storage, and proxy rotation around its Google Search Results Scraper, so it fits teams that run the same local queries on a schedule.
Quick comparison
| Tool | Best for | Starting price | Free plan |
|---|
 SerpAPI | Teams needing the widest engine and vertical coverage | $25 per month for 1,000 searches (Starter plan) | 250 searches per month, 50 per hour |
 Bright Data SERP API | Enterprises already buying Bright Data proxies | Pay as you go at $1.50 per 1,000 requests, no monthly fee | 5,000 SERP requests per month free |
 Oxylabs SERP Scraper API | High volume rank tracking with scheduling | $49 per month (Micro plan) | 2,000-result free trial, no card required |
 ScraperAPI | Teams scraping Google and many other sites | $49 per month for 100,000 credits (Hobby plan) | 7-day trial with 5,000 credits, no card required |
 Zyte API | Teams running their own crawlers | Pay as you go from $0.13 per 1,000 successful responses, no monthly fee | $5 of free credit for 30 days, no card required |
 Apify | Teams wanting scheduled SERP scraping with storage | $19 per month (Starter plan, includes $19 of usage) | $5 of platform usage per month, no card required |
 Serper | Developers needing fast, cheap Google results | $50 for a Starter pack of 50,000 credits ($1.00 per 1,000 searches) | 2,500 free queries on signup, no card required |
 ValueSERP | Developers wanting cheap Google only SERP data | $50 per month billed annually for 25,000 credits | 100 free searches on signup, no card required |
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We review this list regularly. Vendors can request a listing, send updated pricing or ask about featured placement.
The 8 best search engine scraping API alternatives to Google
#1
SerpAPI
Best for: Teams needing the widest engine and vertical coverage
Visit serpapi.com
Starting price$25 per month for 1,000 searches (Starter plan)
Free plan250 searches per month, 50 per hour
SerpAPI is the oldest and most complete SERP API in this list. The API returns organic results, ads, knowledge panels, local packs, and People Also Ask data as clean JSON, with endpoints for Maps, Images, News, Shopping, and Trends. Plans run from 25 dollars for 1,000 searches to 275 dollars for 30,000, with the Searcher plan at 725 dollars for 100,000 searches. Speed tiers double or quadruple the price, so check your plan speed. The legal shield on larger plans helps agencies that resell SERP data.
What we like- Covers 80 plus engines and Google verticals
- Only successful searches count
- Legal shield on Production plans and above
Watch out for- Highest per search price here at 25 dollars per 1,000 on entry
- Unused searches do not roll over
#2
Bright Data SERP API
Best for: Enterprises already buying Bright Data proxies
Visit brightdata.com
Starting pricePay as you go at $1.50 per 1,000 requests, no monthly fee
Free plan5,000 SERP requests per month free
Bright Data runs its SERP API on the same infrastructure as its proxy network, one of the largest in the world. Pay as you go costs 1.50 dollars per 1,000 requests with no subscription, and the Scale plan at 499 dollars a month includes 380,000 requests with overage at 1.30 dollars per 1,000. Results come back as raw HTML or parsed JSON, with Google endpoints for Shopping, Maps, Hotels, Flights, Trends, and Jobs. Price conflict: an older February 2026 comparison listed pay as you go at 3.50 dollars per 1,000, while every source checked in October and November 2026 lists 1.50 dollars per 1,000.
What we like- Largest free tier here at 5,000 requests a month
- Only successful requests billed
- Covers Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yandex, Baidu, Yahoo, Naver
Watch out for- Dashboard is built for proxy buyers and takes time to learn
- Account verification can take days
#3
Oxylabs SERP Scraper API
Best for: High volume rank tracking with scheduling
Visit oxylabs.io
Starting price$49 per month (Micro plan)
Free plan2,000-result free trial, no card required
Oxylabs folds SERP scraping into its Web Scraper API, with dedicated sources for Google Search, Ads, Images, News, Scholar, and Local results, plus Bing, Baidu, and Yandex. Google results cost 1 dollar per 1,000 on the 49 dollar Micro plan, 0.90 dollars per 1,000 on the 99 dollar Starter plan, and 0.60 dollars per 1,000 on the 999 dollar Business plan. JavaScript rendering costs 1.35 dollars per 1,000 on Micro. Price conflict: sources checked in October 2026 list a 30 dollar Starter plan, while sources from July through September 2026 list Micro at 49 dollars a month. The 49 dollar figure is used here because more sources confirm it.
What we like- Lowest per result price among big vendors at 0.60 dollars per 1,000 on Business
- Built in scheduling and a testing playground
Watch out for- Per target pricing is hard to budget from, and the company has faced legal pressure over scraping
#4ScraperAPI
Best for: Teams scraping Google and many other sites4.3/5 on
G2 (15 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit scraperapi.com
Starting price$49 per month for 100,000 credits (Hobby plan)
Free plan7-day trial with 5,000 credits, no card required
ScraperAPI puts proxies, retries, rendering, and geo routing behind a single endpoint, which makes it easy to add to an existing codebase. Hobby costs 49 dollars a month for 100,000 credits, Startup costs 149 dollars for 1 million, and Business costs 299 dollars for 3 million. A normal request costs 1 credit, but Google and Bing searches cost 25 credits each, and rendering adds 10 more. That credit math is the key fact: 100,000 Google searches need 2.5 million credits, so you need the 299 dollar Business plan.
What we like- One endpoint covers Google, Bing, Amazon, and web pages
- Plans up to 21.5 million credits
- 10 percent off annual billing
Watch out for- Google searches cost 25 credits each, so SERP work burns credits 25 times faster
- Two cheapest plans limit geo targeting to the US and EU
Starting pricePay as you go from $0.13 per 1,000 successful responses, no monthly fee
Free plan$5 of free credit for 30 days, no card required
Zyte API prices each request by how hard the target site is, across five difficulty tiers from simple to advanced. Pay as you go runs from 0.13 dollars per 1,000 plain responses to 1.27 dollars per 1,000, and from 1.01 to 16.08 dollars per 1,000 with browser rendering. Monthly commitments of 100, 200, and 500 dollars cut those rates by about 25, 40, and 52 percent. Google search results pages sit near the middle of the scale at about 0.63 dollars per 1,000 on pay as you go, third-party reported. The API also offers AI extraction and a dedicated SERP endpoint.
What we like- Transparent per tier pricing, no overage penalty
- Bills only successful responses
- Automatic proxy rotation and ban detection
Watch out for- Pay as you go has no spending cap by default, so a runaway job can surprise you
- Pricing uses a five tier difficulty scale
#6Apify
Best for: Teams wanting scheduled SERP scraping with storage4.7/5 on
G2 (669 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit apify.com
Starting price$19 per month (Starter plan, includes $19 of usage)
Free plan$5 of platform usage per month, no card required
Apify is a cloud platform for running scraping programs called Actors, and its Google Search Results Scraper is one of the most used Actors in its store. The Actor charges per result page: 4.50 dollars per 1,000 pages on Free, 2.50 dollars on Starter, 1.95 dollars on Scale, and 1.80 dollars on Business. Plans cost 0 dollars for Free with 5 dollars of usage, 19 dollars for Starter, 199 dollars for Scale, and 999 dollars for Business, with each fee returned as the same amount of prepaid usage. Price conflict: a source from 29 August 2026 listed Starter at 29 dollars, while sources from September and October 2026 list 19 dollars.
What we like- Marketplace of 86,000 plus ready to run Actors
- Scheduling, storage, and proxy rotation built in
- Official Google Search Results Scraper
Watch out for- Three pricing layers stack up: plan fee, Actor fee per result page, and proxy costs
- Prepaid usage expires each month
#7
Serper
Best for: Developers needing fast, cheap Google results
Visit serper.dev
Starting price$50 for a Starter pack of 50,000 credits ($1.00 per 1,000 searches)
Free plan2,500 free queries on signup, no card required
Serper sells prepaid credit packs instead of a monthly subscription, which is its main strength and its main trap. Starter costs 50 dollars for 50,000 credits, Standard costs 375 dollars for 500,000, Scale costs 1,250 dollars for 2.5 million, and Ultimate costs 3,750 dollars for 12.5 million. The rate falls from 1 dollar per 1,000 on Starter to 0.30 dollars per 1,000 on Ultimate. One credit buys one search with up to 10 results, but 11 to 100 results costs 2 credits, so heavy pagination doubles the bill. Credits expire after 6 months.
What we like- Simplest pricing here, one credit per search up to 10 results
- Credits last 6 months
- Latency of 1 to 2 seconds
Watch out for- Google only, with no Bing or Yandex coverage
- 11 to 100 results costs 2 credits per search
Starting price$50 per month billed annually for 25,000 credits
Free plan100 free searches on signup, no card required
ValueSERP is a Google only SERP API now sold under Traject Data, and it keeps the model simple: buy a monthly credit plan and spend it on searches. The 25,000 credit plan costs 50 dollars a month on annual billing or 56 dollars a month on monthly billing, and larger plans go up to 1 million credits. The plan table states 1.60 dollars per 1,000 credits, which does not match the plan price divided by its credits, so price the plan and not the per credit rate. Price conflict: sources checked in November 2026 list pay as you go at 2.50 dollars per 1,000, while older listings show 1.50 dollars per 1,000.
What we like- Low entry price for Google only work
- Real time JSON, HTML, or CSV results
- Batches up to 15,000 scheduled searches
Watch out for- Vendor pricing page has shown different pay as you go rates in different sections
- Unused searches reset each month
Search engine scraping API comparison table
| Tool | Starting price | Billing unit | Free plan | Google only or multi engine | Best for |
| SerpAPI | $25 per month | Per search | 250 per month | Multi engine, 80 plus | Widest coverage |
| Bright Data SERP API | $1.50 per 1,000 pay as you go | Per request | 5,000 per month | Multi engine | Enterprise scale |
| Oxylabs SERP Scraper API | $49 per month | Per result | 2,000-result trial | Multi engine | Rank tracking volume |
| ScraperAPI | $49 per month | Per credit, 25 per Google search | 5,000-credit trial | Multi engine | Mixed scraping jobs |
| Zyte API | $0.13 per 1,000 pay as you go | Per successful response | $5 credit for 30 days | Multi engine | Hard sites and SERP data |
| Apify | $19 per month | Per result page | $5 usage per month | Multi engine via Actors | Scheduled scraping |
| Serper | $50 per 50,000 credits | Per credit | 2,500 queries once | Google only | Cheap Google results |
| ValueSERP | $50 per month annual billing | Per credit | 100 searches once | Google only | Cheap Google plans |
Frequently asked questions
Which SERP API is the cheapest for Google searches
Serper is the cheapest simple option for Google only work, at 1 dollar per 1,000 searches on its 50 dollar Starter pack and 0.30 dollars per 1,000 on its largest pack. Zyte is cheaper still on pay as you go at about 0.63 dollars per 1,000 search pages, third-party reported, but its price depends on the difficulty tier of the target. Oxylabs is the cheapest at high volume among the subscription tools, at 0.60 dollars per 1,000 results on Business.
Can I use these tools instead of Google Custom Search
Yes, and for most buyers you should, because Google closed Custom Search to new customers and ends the service on 1 January 2027. The tools in this guide return the same kind of data, including rankings, ads, local packs, and snippets, as structured JSON. They are not official Google products, so check their terms before you resell the data.
Do I pay for failed searches on a SERP API
Most tools in this guide only bill successful searches, including SerpAPI, Bright Data, Oxylabs, Zyte, and ValueSERP. Serper does not deduct credits for failed responses, and ScraperAPI charges for successful requests plus some cancelled ones. Always confirm the rule on the vendor pricing page before you buy, because a tool that bills failed requests can cost far more than its headline rate when Google blocks a query.
How many searches do I need for rank tracking
A rank tracker that checks 1,000 keywords weekly needs about 4,000 searches a month. That volume fits SerpAPI Developer at 75 dollars, Oxylabs Micro at 49 dollars, or a single Serper Starter pack spread over months. A tracker that checks 10,000 keywords daily needs about 300,000 searches a month, which pushes you toward Oxylabs Business, Bright Data Scale, or Serper Scale pricing.
Which tool is best for local SEO results
SerpAPI is the best pick for local SEO because it has dedicated Google Maps and local endpoints. Bright Data and Oxylabs also offer local endpoints, and Apify adds scheduling so the same local queries run on a fixed timetable. Serper and ValueSERP cover Google Maps results but are Google only, so they suit local work in one engine but not multi engine reporting.
Sources we checked (11)
- https://serpapi.com/pricing
- https://brightdata.com
- https://oxylabs.io
- https://scraperapi.com/pricing
- https://zyte.com
- https://apify.com/pricing
- https://serper.dev
- https://valueserp.com;
- https://thatmarketingbuddy.com/software/valueserp
- https://trendsmcp.ai/blog/serper-vs-serpapi
- https://prismcrawl.com/blog/cheapest-serp-api
Is your product missing or out of date?
We review this list regularly. Vendors can request a listing, send updated pricing or ask about featured placement.
Shihab Mia · Founder, Rankite
Shihab has 5+ years in B2B and SaaS SEO. He writes Rankite's software buying guides from pricing pages, documentation and public user reviews. More about Shihab.