Best SerpApi alternatives: 6 Google search APIs compared on price

SerpApi is a popular Google search API, but it is not the cheapest. The main SerpApi alternatives are DataForSEO, Serper, SearchApi.io, Bright Data, Zenserp and Serplify. Each returns Google results as JSON, and each beats SerpApi’s price for at least some jobs.

We make Serplify, one of the six. So every price below links to that company’s own pricing page. We checked them all on October 9, 2026. Where another API costs less than ours, the tables say so.

SerpApi alternatives at a glance

A SERP API is a service that searches Google for you and returns the results page as data. The table shows the price of 1,000 requests, from the smallest plan to the largest.

Most of these APIs charge per request. That hides a catch. One request is usually one Google page, and a page now holds about 10 results.

Why depth changes the math

Depth is how many results you ask for per keyword. Page one is about 10 results. A rank tracker that needs to find you at position 60 needs a depth of 100.

Until September 2025, an API could ask Google for 100 results on one page with a setting called num=100. Google then stopped honoring it. Now a top-100 pull takes about 10 pages. SerpApi’s own blog says the same job takes 10 searches. DataForSEO bills each extra 10 results as one more page.

Here is what 1,000 keywords cost on the three APIs that publish how depth is billed:

The table cuts both ways. For page-one checks, DataForSEO’s queue costs about one eighth of our price. For top-100 checks, Serplify costs 4 times less than DataForSEO live and about 18 times less than SerpApi’s Big Data plan.

For the other APIs, ask how deeper results are billed before you compare. If you track rankings past page one, our guide to tracking rankings for thousands of keywords shows the setup and the monthly math.

The SerpApi alternatives, one by one

DataForSEO

DataForSEO sells SEO data by the request, with no subscription. Its Google Organic API has three speeds. A page of 10 results costs $0.0006 in the standard queue, $0.0012 in the priority queue and $0.002 in live mode. Each extra 10 results costs the same again.

You prepay at least $50, and the balance never expires. Queries with search operators such as site: cost five times the base price.

Good fit: page-one checks at high volume, and teams that also want keyword or backlink data from one vendor. Watch for: deep pulls multiply the bill. Our list of DataForSEO alternatives covers it in more detail.

Serper

Serper sells prepaid credit packs. A query costs $1.00 per 1,000 on the $50 pack and $0.30 per 1,000 on the largest pack. Credits last six months. New accounts get 2,500 free queries with no card.

Good fit: cheap page-one lookups, such as search results for an AI app. Watch for: credits expire after six months, so do not buy far ahead.

SearchApi.io

SearchApi.io sells monthly plans. The smallest is $40 for 10,000 searches, or $4 per 1,000. The largest listed is $5,000 for 5 million, or $1 per 1,000. It charges only for searches that return a 200 status code.

Good fit: steady monthly volume that fills a plan. Watch for: a monthly plan only pays off if you use most of it.

Bright Data SERP API

Bright Data is a large proxy and web data company. Its SERP API costs $1.50 per 1,000 requests, pay as you go. A $499 monthly plan includes 380,000 requests. Its pricing page says you pay only for successful requests.

Good fit: teams that already buy proxies or data from Bright Data. Watch for: the price is per request, so ask how deeper results are billed.

Zenserp

Zenserp has a free plan with 50 searches a month. Paid plans start at $49.99 for 25,000 searches, or $2 per 1,000. The largest, $899 for 1 million, works out to about $0.90 per 1,000. Yearly billing is 20% cheaper.

Good fit: small projects with steady volume. Watch for: plan sizes jump from 25,000 to 100,000 searches, so check where your volume falls.

Serplify

Serplify is the API we build, so weigh this entry with that in mind. One SERP costs $0.005, live or queued, for up to 100 results. The price is the same at 10 results. So for page-one checks, most APIs above cost less.

A live request is billed only when the SERP comes back. A queued task is billed when you submit it. Retries after a Google block cost you nothing. The balance never expires, and new accounts get $1 of free credit, about 200 SERPs. Top-up sizes and bonuses are on the pricing page.

Nine block types come back with fully typed fields, such as organic results, ads, AI Overviews and the local pack. Over 40 more, such as videos and top stories, come back in a simpler shared shape. SERP features explained covers what each block is.

Good fit: rank tracking past page one, and teams leaving DataForSEO, since Serplify copies its Google Organic endpoints. Watch for: it covers Google web search only, not Maps, Shopping or other engines. The SerpApi-shape adapter is on request, not self-serve.

Also on most lists

Oxylabs and ScraperAPI also sell Google search as part of larger scraping APIs. We could not confirm a Google-only price on their public pages in October 2026. So they are not in the tables. Ask them for a quote before you compare.

The official search APIs are going away. Google’s Custom Search JSON API is closed to new customers and ends on January 1, 2027. Our guide to the Custom Search API shutdown covers what Google suggests instead. Microsoft retired the Bing Search APIs on August 11, 2025, and our list of Bing Search API alternatives compares what replaced them.

What SerpApi still does well

SerpApi covers far more than Google web search. It has separate APIs for products such as Google Maps, Google Shopping and Google Scholar, plus other search engines. If you need those, check that an alternative covers them before you switch.

Its paid plans include the U.S. Legal Shield. SerpApi says it provides up to $2 million in coverage for scraping and parsing search data. Only successful searches count toward your monthly total, and cached searches are free.

The catch is the plan model. Your searches reset each billing cycle, so a quiet month still costs the full plan price.

How to choose a SerpApi alternative

1. Decide your depth. Page one only, or the top 100? This one choice changes which API is cheapest.
2. Price a real month. Multiply your keywords by checks per month and pages per check. Use each provider’s own price list.
3. Check what you pay for. Ask whether failed requests are billed and whether unused credit expires.
4. Check the blocks you need. If you track AI Overviews or the local pack, make sure they come back as fields, not raw HTML.
5. Run a side-by-side test. Send the same 50 keywords through both APIs from the same location and device. Compare the results before you switch.

How to switch from SerpApi

Most APIs on this list name their fields their own way, so a switch means two code changes. Serplify is the exception if you ask: it can give you an adapter that returns SerpApi’s response shape.

• The request. SerpApi takes the query as q and the place as location text. Serplify takes keyword, plus a location as a code or a name.
• The parser. Results come back in a new shape. Map each new field to the one your database expects.

Run both for a week and compare the numbers before you turn the old one off. If you pick Serplify, our first request, step by step covers the key, the call and the response. The Serplify SERP API page lists every endpoint.

For the two biggest names side by side with ours, read Serplify vs SerpApi vs DataForSEO.