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.
Best SERP API Alternatives in 2026: Our Top Pick
SerpApi is the top pick for most buyers because it covers the widest set of search engines and result types with clear monthly plans and structured JSON output. DataForSEO is the best alternative for high volume buyers because its standard queue costs 0.60 dollars per 1,000 SERPs.
Key takeaways:
- SerpApi starts at 25 dollars per month for 1,000 searches and includes 250 free searches per month.
- DataForSEO is the cheapest per search at scale, at 0.60 dollars per 1,000 SERPs on its standard queue, but that queue takes about five minutes.
- Bright Data and Oxylabs use pay per successful result pricing, which suits uneven workloads better than a fixed monthly allowance.
- Serpstack and Zenserp are simple monthly plans for smaller projects, while ScraperAPI suits teams that also scrape pages beyond search results.
- A credit, a search, and a result are not the same unit, so compare prices on the same workload before you buy.
What is a SERP API?
A SERP API is a service that returns search engine results pages as structured data, usually JSON, instead of raw HTML. You send a query, a location, a device type, and a language, and the API returns organic results, ads, and local results in a parsed format. This saves you from running your own proxies and writing parsers for each search engine. Most providers in this guide cover Google first, then add Bing, Yandex, Baidu, and DuckDuckGo.
How much does a SERP API cost?
A SERP API costs between 0.60 dollars and 25 dollars per 1,000 searches at entry level, depending on the billing model and the speed you need. Monthly plans start at 25 dollars for SerpApi, 29.99 dollars for Serpstack, 40 dollars for ScrapingDog, and 49 dollars for ScraperAPI and Zenserp. Pay as you go providers charge per 1,000 results, with DataForSEO at 0.60 dollars on its standard queue and Bright Data at 1.50 dollars per 1,000 successful requests. Check whether failed requests count and whether unused allowance rolls over.
Which SERP API is best for rank tracking?
SerpApi is the best SERP API for rank tracking for most teams because it returns structured results for many engines, supports city level location and device targeting, and counts only successful searches. DataForSEO is the best pick for large rank tracking jobs because its standard queue costs 0.60 dollars per 1,000 SERPs, as long as you can wait about five minutes per batch. Bright Data is a strong pick when you need a top 100 check in one call, since that call bills one request regardless of page depth.
How do I choose a SERP API for my workload?
Choose a SERP API by matching its billing unit to your workload, then checking engine coverage, speed, and location precision. Start with your monthly search count and your latency limit. If you need results in seconds, a live plan is required. If you run scheduled batches overnight, a queued plan can cut your cost by half or more. List the engines and result types you need, such as Google Maps, shopping, news, and AI Overviews, and confirm each one is parsed rather than returned as raw HTML. Then test the free tier with your real queries.
SERP API Comparison Table
| Tool | Best for | Starting price | Free plan |
| SerpApi | Widest engine coverage | 25 dollars per month for 1,000 searches | 250 searches per month |
| ScrapingDog | Low cost Google SERP searches | 40 dollars per month for 200,000 credits | 100 credits, about 20 Google searches |
| Oxylabs SERP API | High volume Google scraping | 49 dollars per month, Micro plan | 2,000 result trial, no standing free plan |
| Bright Data SERP API | Enterprise scale and pay per success | 1.50 dollars per 1,000 successful requests | 5,000 credits per month |
| Zenserp | Simple monthly plans for small projects | 49.99 dollars per month for 25,000 searches | 50 searches per month |
| Serpstack | Simple Google only SERP API | 29.99 dollars per month for 5,000 searches | 100 searches per month |
| DataForSEO | Cheapest per search at volume | 0.60 dollars per 1,000 SERPs, standard queue | 1 dollar signup credit and sandbox |
| ScraperAPI | Scraping SERPs and other pages | 49 dollars per month for 100,000 credits | 7 day trial with 5,000 credits |
Quick comparison
| Tool | Best for | Starting price | Free plan |
|---|
 SerpApi | Teams that want the widest engine and result type coverage with a simple monthly plan | 25 dollars per month for 1,000 searches, Starter plan, checked 11 Nov 2026 | 250 searches per month, 50 searches per hour |
 ScrapingDog | Small teams that want low cost Google SERP searches on a credit plan | 40 dollars per month for 200,000 credits, Lite plan, checked 11 Nov 2026 | 100 credits on signup, no card required, about 20 Google SERP Light requests |
 Oxylabs SERP API | High volume Google scraping with scheduling and enterprise support | 49 dollars per month, Micro plan for the Web Scraper API, checked 11 Nov 2026 | 2,000 result free trial, no standing free plan |
 Bright Data SERP API | Enterprise teams that need global coverage, compliance controls, and pay per success billing | 1.50 dollars per 1,000 successful requests, pay as you go, checked 11 Nov 2026 | 5,000 credits per month, shared across Bright Data scraping APIs |
 Zenserp | Small projects that want a simple monthly SERP plan with EU hosting | 49.99 dollars per month for 25,000 searches, Small plan, checked 11 Nov 2026 | 50 searches per month |
 Serpstack | Side projects and small tools that need Google results only | 29.99 dollars per month for 5,000 searches, Basic plan, checked 11 Nov 2026 | 100 searches per month, free forever, JSON output only, non commercial use only |
 DataForSEO | High volume rank tracking and SEO platforms that can use a queued API | 0.60 dollars per 1,000 SERPs on the standard queue, pay as you go, checked 11 Nov 2026 | 1 dollar signup credit and a free sandbox, then a 50 dollar minimum top up |
 ScraperAPI | Teams that scrape Google SERPs and other web pages through one endpoint | 49 dollars per month for 100,000 credits, Hobby plan, checked 11 Nov 2026 | 7 day trial with 5,000 credits, no card required |
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.
The 8 Best SERP API Providers Compared
#1
SerpApi
Best for: Teams that want the widest engine and result type coverage with a simple monthly plan
Visit serpapi.com
Starting price25 dollars per month for 1,000 searches, Starter plan, checked 11 Nov 2026
Free plan250 searches per month, 50 searches per hour
SerpApi is the most established name in this category, and its coverage is the reason it leads this guide. It returns structured JSON for Google, Bing, Baidu, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, and Yandex, plus Google Maps, shopping, images, news, and local results. Location targeting supports city, coordinates, and device type. The pricing page lists Developer at 75 dollars for 5,000 searches, Production at 150 dollars for 15,000, and Big Data at 275 dollars for 30,000. Only successful searches count. The main cost risk is the flat monthly model, since a team with uneven volume either wastes allowance or pays overage.
What we like- Covers more than 80 engines and many Google verticals, only successful searches count toward the allowance, clear monthly plans with hourly throughput limits
Watch out for- No pay as you go option, so a light month still costs the full plan price, and unused searches do not roll over to the next month
#2
ScrapingDog
Best for: Small teams that want low cost Google SERP searches on a credit plan
Visit scrapingdog.com
Starting price40 dollars per month for 200,000 credits, Lite plan, checked 11 Nov 2026
Free plan100 credits on signup, no card required, about 20 Google SERP Light requests
ScrapingDog sells credits rather than searches. The Lite plan costs 40 dollars per month for 200,000 credits, Standard costs 90 dollars for 1,000,000 credits, Pro costs 200 dollars for 3,000,000, and Premium costs 350 dollars for 6,000,000. A Google SERP Light request costs 5 credits, so Lite covers 40,000 Light searches, or 1.00 dollar per 1,000 searches at full use. The API returns raw HTML and parsed JSON for Google results, plus site specific scrapers for e-commerce pages. Credits on Standard and higher plans roll over. ScrapingDog fits basic SERP and e-commerce work better than hard targets.
What we like- Low entry price for the credit volume, credits on higher plans roll over, simple credit model with a published per endpoint cost table
Watch out for- A Google SERP Light request costs 5 credits, so the headline credit count buys far fewer searches than it first appears, and advanced requests cost 10 credits each
#3
Oxylabs SERP API
Best for: High volume Google scraping with scheduling and enterprise support
Visit oxylabs.io
Starting price49 dollars per month, Micro plan for the Web Scraper API, checked 11 Nov 2026
Free plan2,000 result free trial, no standing free plan
Oxylabs folds its SERP scraping into its Web Scraper API, which covers Google Search, Ads, Images, News, Scholar, and Local results, plus Bing, Baidu, and Yandex. Google results cost 1.00 dollar per 1,000 on the 49 dollar Micro plan, improving to 0.90 dollars per 1,000 on the 99 dollar Starter plan, based on vendor pricing checks in 2026. The API supports city level geo targeting, scheduling, and asynchronous jobs. Failed requests are not billed under the pay per success model.
What we like- Pay per successful result pricing, Google results from 1.00 dollar per 1,000 on the entry plan, built in scheduling and proxy infrastructure
Watch out for- The SERP product is now sold inside the unified Web Scraper API, so plan names change often, and some sources list a 30 dollar unified Starter plan instead of the 49 dollar Micro plan, so confirm the current plan at checkout
#4
Bright Data SERP API
Best for: Enterprise teams that need global coverage, compliance controls, and pay per success billing
Visit brightdata.com
Starting price1.50 dollars per 1,000 successful requests, pay as you go, checked 11 Nov 2026
Free plan5,000 credits per month, shared across Bright Data scraping APIs
Bright Data runs a dedicated SERP API on top of its proxy network, covering Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yandex, Baidu, Yahoo, and Naver. It returns structured JSON, HTML, or Markdown, with real time results and city level targeting across 195 countries. Pay as you go pricing is 1.50 dollars per 1,000 successful requests, dropping to 1.30 dollars per 1,000 on the 499 dollar per month Scale plan with 380,000 included requests, and to 1.00 dollar per 1,000 at 2 million requests. The top 100 Google results call bills one request regardless of page depth. You must set up a SERP zone and API key before your first request.
What we like- One of the largest proxy networks behind the API, only successful requests are billed, city level geo targeting at no extra cost
Watch out for- The product catalog is large and onboarding takes time, and the monthly Scale plan starts at 499 dollars per month, so small teams should stay on pay as you go
#5
Zenserp
Best for: Small projects that want a simple monthly SERP plan with EU hosting
Visit zenserp.com
Starting price49.99 dollars per month for 25,000 searches, Small plan, checked 11 Nov 2026
Free plan50 searches per month
Zenserp is an APILayer product built and hosted in the EU, and it keeps its pricing model simple. The pricing page lists Small at 49.99 dollars for 25,000 searches, Medium at 149.99 dollars for 100,000, Large at 299.99 dollars for 250,000, Premium at 499.99 dollars for 500,000, and Enterprise at 899 dollars for 1,000,000 searches. Only successful requests count toward usage, and invalid requests do not use quota. It covers Google organic, image, maps, news, shopping, and trends results, plus Bing, Yandex, and YouTube on paid plans. It also parses AI Overviews. The main weakness is cost per search, at 2.00 dollars per 1,000 on the Small plan.
What we like- Simple monthly tiers with no credit maths, only successful requests are billed, annual billing saves 20 percent
Watch out for- The free plan is only 50 searches per month, which is too small for a real test, and the per search cost is higher than DataForSEO and Oxylabs at the same volume
#6
Serpstack
Best for: Side projects and small tools that need Google results only
Visit serpstack.com
Starting price29.99 dollars per month for 5,000 searches, Basic plan, checked 11 Nov 2026
Free plan100 searches per month, free forever, JSON output only, non commercial use only
Serpstack is built by APILayer and does one thing: it returns Google search results as JSON, quickly, with no learning curve. The pricing page lists Basic at 29.99 dollars for 5,000 searches, Business at 99.99 dollars for 20,000, and Business Pro at 199.99 dollars for 50,000, with annual billing at 26.99, 87.99, and 169.99 dollars per month. Overage costs 0.023992 dollars per extra search on Basic, 0.019998 dollars on Business, and 0.0159992 dollars on Business Pro. The response includes organic results, paid ads, knowledge graphs, local listings, and featured snippets. The main limit is scope, since Serpstack covers Google only.
What we like- No credit system to learn, just a search count, free tier never expires, overage is billed per extra search at a published rate
Watch out for- Google only, so Bing, Yandex, and other engines are not covered, and the free plan is limited to JSON output with no support
#7
DataForSEO
Best for: High volume rank tracking and SEO platforms that can use a queued API
Visit dataforseo.com
Starting price0.60 dollars per 1,000 SERPs on the standard queue, pay as you go, checked 11 Nov 2026
Free plan1 dollar signup credit and a free sandbox, then a 50 dollar minimum top up
DataForSEO is a pay as you go data provider, not a monthly subscription, and that is why it wins on cost. Google organic SERP pricing is 0.60 dollars per 1,000 SERPs on the standard queue, 1.20 dollars on the priority queue, and 2.00 dollars in live mode. The standard queue takes about five minutes, the priority queue about one minute, and live mode about six seconds. New accounts get 1 dollar of credit and a sandbox, then the minimum top up is 50 dollars, and the balance never expires. Each result includes rank group and rank absolute fields, which are built for rank tracking. The main cost traps are multipliers, since each search operator such as site costs five times the base price.
What we like- Cheapest per search in this guide at ordinary volume, three speed tiers so you can trade latency for cost, balance never expires
Watch out for- The cheapest tier takes about five minutes per batch, so it does not suit live lookups, and search operators and extra result pages multiply the base price
#8ScraperAPI
Best for: Teams that scrape Google SERPs and other web pages through one endpoint4.3/5 on
G2 (15 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit scraperapi.com
Starting price49 dollars per month for 100,000 credits, Hobby plan, checked 11 Nov 2026
Free plan7 day trial with 5,000 credits, no card required
ScraperAPI is a general web scraping API rather than a SERP only provider, and that is its appeal for mixed workloads. The pricing page lists Hobby at 49 dollars per month for 100,000 credits and 20 concurrent threads, Startup at 149 dollars for 1,000,000 credits, Business at 299 dollars for 3,000,000, and Scaling at 475 dollars for 5,000,000. A normal page costs 1 credit, while Google and Bing cost 25 credits, Amazon, Walmart, and eBay cost 5, and LinkedIn costs 30. On the Hobby plan, 100,000 credits cover 4,000 Google SERP requests at 25 credits each, which is 12.25 dollars per 1,000 SERP requests at full use.
What we like- One simple endpoint with proxy rotation, rendering, and geo targeting handled for you, large tutorial base and clear credit rules
Watch out for- Google and Bing requests cost 25 credits each, so the headline credit count buys far fewer SERP requests than general page requests, and exceeding your plan can trigger an automatic upgrade unless you set a spending cap
How we picked
We picked providers that sell a live SERP API in 2026, return structured results as JSON, and publish a starting price on their own pricing page or in a pricing check dated October or November 2026. We ranked SerpApi first for coverage, DataForSEO first for cost at volume, and Bright Data first for enterprise scale. We did not run live accuracy tests or measure response times ourselves. Prices change often, so confirm the current price on the vendor pricing page before you buy. Last verified: 11 Nov 2026.
Frequently asked questions
What is the cheapest SERP API in 2026?
DataForSEO is the cheapest SERP API in this guide, at 0.60 dollars per 1,000 SERPs on its standard queue. Bright Data costs 1.50 dollars per 1,000 successful requests on pay as you go, and Oxylabs costs about 1.00 dollar per 1,000 Google results on its entry plan. SerpApi costs 25 dollars per 1,000 searches on its Starter plan.
Do SERP APIs charge for failed requests?
It depends on the provider, and you should check the billing rule before you buy. SerpApi, Zenserp, and Serpstack charge only for successful requests, so cached, errored, and failed searches do not count. Bright Data and Oxylabs use pay per success pricing, so failed requests are not billed. ScrapingDog and ScraperAPI use credits, and the credit cost depends on the endpoint and options, so a failed request can still cost credits in some cases.
Which SERP API has the best free plan?
Bright Data has the most generous free allowance in this guide, with 5,000 credits per month shared across its scraping APIs. SerpApi gives 250 searches per month, which is enough to test real queries and response fields. DataForSEO gives 1 dollar of signup credit and a free sandbox. Serpstack gives 100 searches per month and Zenserp gives 50. Oxylabs offers a 2,000 result trial rather than a standing free plan.
Can I use a SERP API for rank tracking?
Yes, you can use a SERP API for rank tracking by sending one request per keyword, location, and device, then storing the rank, URL, and title for each result. SerpApi and DataForSEO are the strongest picks because they return rank fields and support location and device targeting. Bright Data has a top 100 call that bills one request per keyword. Schedule checks daily or weekly and compare ranks over time.
What is the difference between a SERP API and a scraping API?
A SERP API returns search engine results pages as structured JSON, with organic results, ads, and local blocks already parsed. A general scraping API returns the HTML of any web page you request, and you must parse it yourself. ScraperAPI is a general scraping API that also handles Google SERPs, while SerpApi, Zenserp, and Serpstack are SERP focused. Pick a SERP API when search data is the main workload.
Sources we checked (8)
- https://serpapi.com/pricing
- https://scrapingdog.com/pricing
- https://oxylabs.io/products/scraper-api
- https://brightdata.com/pricing/serp-api
- https://zenserp.com/pricing-plans/
- https://serpstack.com/pricing
- https://dataforseo.com/apis/serp-api
- https://scraperapi.com/pricing
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.