Bing Search API alternatives: what developers and AI agents use now

Microsoft retired the Bing Search APIs on August 11, 2025. Every existing key was switched off, and new sign-ups closed. Microsoft’s replacement is Grounding with Bing Search, a tool for AI agents that returns a written answer with citations, not a list of results.

That left every app built on it without a search feed. Below is what changed, what Microsoft offers now, and the alternatives that return results you can use.

What happened to the Bing Search API?

The Bing Search API was a Microsoft service that returned Bing results as JSON. Microsoft shut it down on August 11, 2025. The retirement notice, posted in May 2025, says existing instances “will be decommissioned completely.”

The cut was wide. The archived docs now open with one line: public Bing Search and Bing Custom Search APIs were retired. The same archived page lists the nine APIs in that family:

• Web Search, Image Search, News Search and Video Search
• Visual Search, Entity Search and Custom Search
• Spell Check and Autosuggest

So if your app used any of these, it stopped working on that date.

What is Grounding with Bing Search?

Grounding with Bing Search is a tool you attach to an AI agent in Microsoft Foundry (formerly Azure AI Agents). When a user asks a question, your model writes a Bing query. Bing sends results back to the model, and the model writes the answer.

Here is the catch. Microsoft’s Grounding with Bing guide says developers and end users “don’t have access to raw content returned” by the tool. You get the model’s answer, links to the cited sites, and a link to the Bing query. You must show those links the way Microsoft requires.

Other facts worth knowing before you build on it:

• Price. $14 per 1,000 transactions, says Microsoft’s pricing page. A transaction is one tool call. Model costs are extra.
• Limits. 150 transactions per second and 1 million per day.
• Accounts. Only paid Azure subscriptions qualify. Free-credit and sponsored subscriptions do not.
• Data. Your queries leave the Azure compliance boundary and fall under Bing’s own terms.

Microsoft also offers a newer Web Search tool in Foundry. Its web grounding overview recommends it for new agents. It also sends queries to Bing, and the agent replies with a cited answer.

When the official replacement does not fit

Grounding with Bing works if you build on Azure and want answers. It does not fit these common jobs:

1. Showing a results list in your own app, like a search box.
2. Storing results, for example to track rankings or watch a brand.
3. Feeding raw text to your own model outside Microsoft Foundry.
4. Seeing the real results page, with ads, maps and question boxes. Our explainer on what a SERP is shows what that page holds today.

For those, you need an API that returns results, not answers.

Bing Search API alternatives compared

Prices come from each provider’s own page, checked on October 9, 2026.

One row needs a plain note. Serplify, which publishes this blog, is in the “Google SERP APIs” group. It returns Google results only. It does not offer Bing.

Which alternative fits your use case?

You need Bing results specifically

Use a SERP API with a Bing engine. SerpApi and DataForSEO both read Bing’s public results page and return it as JSON. This is not Microsoft’s old official feed, so field names differ. But the results come from the same page a person sees on bing.com.

You are building an AI agent

Brave, Exa and Tavily all sell plans aimed at AI apps. They return short, clean text that fits in a model’s context. Brave runs its own index of over 40 billion pages, its pricing page says. If you already run agents in Microsoft Foundry, Grounding with Bing is the simplest path.

If your agent must answer from Google, see how to give an AI agent live Google search through a small MCP server.

You need Google results

Google’s own path is closing. The Custom Search JSON API stopped taking new customers, and Google lists January 1, 2027 as its end date. Our post on the Custom Search API shutdown has the details and a code example.

The practical option is a Google SERP API. It returns the full results page as JSON, including organic links, ads, People Also Ask and AI Overviews. For a price comparison across providers, see our list of DataForSEO alternatives.

You used Bing Custom Search for site search

Microsoft’s Grounding with Bing Custom Search covers this for agents, though it is still in preview. For a plain search box on your site, Google’s free site search box handles up to 50 domains.

How to switch without breaking your app

1. List every call. Note which Bing API it used and which fields you read. Many apps only read name, url and snippet from webPages.value.
2. Decide: results or answers. If a person reads the output, you probably need results. If a model reads it, either can work.
3. Pick the engine. Bing, Google or an independent index. Each one ranks the web differently.
4. Test with 50 real queries from your logs. Compare the top results with what users expect.
5. Map the fields to the new response and add retry logic for timeouts.
6. Check the display rules. Some providers, Microsoft included, require you to show source links.

The Bing Search API is not coming back. Pick its replacement by the engine you need and by what your code reads: a list of results, or a written answer.