The cheapest Google Search API in 2026: 9 SERP APIs priced at real volumes
Short answer: SerpWiz costs less than each of the 8 other Google Search APIs we priced, at every volume: $0.15 per 1,000 searches on monthly plans and $0.1125 with a year prepaid. The one exception is a tie: at 10,000 searches a month, our monthly plan costs the same as Serper's pack price prorated, although Serper's smallest pack costs $50 upfront. We're SerpWiz, so don't take our word for it. Every competitor price links to its public pricing page, and we last checked them on 15 Oct 2026.
Price isn't the only thing that matters, so the end of this post covers where other providers are a better fit.
Why the sticker price misleads
Most SERP APIs advertise a price per "credit" or per plan, and the real cost per Google search hides behind four things:
- Credit multipliers. Some providers charge several credits for one Google search, for example 5 or 25. A plan with "100,000 credits" may cover only 4,000 searches.
- Monthly resets. Subscription plans usually expire unused searches at the end of each month. If you buy 15,000 and use 9,000, you paid for 15,000.
- Plan steps. With fixed tiers, needing 10,001 searches means paying for the next plan up, which can be several times the price.
- Pages. Google returns 10 organic results per page. Since September 2025 it no longer honours the old
num=100parameter, so the top 100 results take 10 requests at any provider. Price your volume in pages, not keywords.
Entry prices
The cheapest way to start with each provider, and what that works out to per 1,000 Google searches (after credit multipliers):
| Provider | Pricing model | Cheapest way in | Entry price per 1,000 searches |
|---|---|---|---|
| SerpWiz | monthly or annual plan · queries roll over 12 months | $10/mo · 66,667 queries | $0.15 ($0.1125 annual) |
| Serper | prepaid credit packs | $50 pack · 50,000 credits | $1.00 |
| Scrapingdog | subscription · 5 credits/search | $40/mo · 40,000 searches | $1.00 |
| Bright Data | pay as you go | no minimum | $1.50 |
| Zenserp | monthly subscription | $49.99/mo · 25,000 searches | $2.00 |
| DataForSEO | pay as you go · Live mode | $50 minimum deposit | $2.00 |
| SearchApi | monthly subscription | $40/mo · 10,000 searches | $4.00 |
| ScraperAPI | subscription · 25 credits/search | $49/mo · 4,000 searches | $12.25 |
| SerpApi | monthly subscription | $25/mo · 1,000 searches | $25.00 |
Entry prices favour providers with small packs. Most real projects run tens or hundreds of thousands of searches a month, so the next table matters more.
What a month actually costs
Monthly cost at three volumes, using the cheapest published plan or pack that covers it:
| Provider | 10,000 / mo | 100,000 / mo | 1,000,000 / mo |
|---|---|---|---|
| SerpWiz (annual) | $7.50 | $15 | $113 |
| SerpWiz (monthly) | $10 | $20 | $150 |
| Serper | $10 | $75 | $500 |
| Bright Data | $15 | $150 | $1,305 |
| DataForSEO | $20 | $200 | $2,000 |
| SearchApi | $40 | $250 | $1,500 |
| Scrapingdog | $40 | $90 | $350 |
| Zenserp | $49.99 | $150 | $899 |
| ScraperAPI | $149 | $299 | $2,297 |
| SerpApi | $150 | $725 | $3,750 |
How we calculated this:
- Subscriptions use the smallest plan that covers the volume. Above the largest plan, we use that plan's per-search rate.
- Prepaid packs (Serper) are prorated at the pack's rate, although you buy the whole pack upfront.
- DataForSEO is shown in Live mode. Its Standard queue is cheaper but asynchronous: you submit tasks and collect results later.
- Bright Data is pay-as-you-go, or its Scale plan where that's cheaper.
- SerpWiz is the smallest plan that covers the volume. Annual is the yearly price divided by 12. Every $10 a month of plan includes 66,667 queries, and unused queries roll over for 12 months.
Each provider's page under /vs shows the full comparison, and the calculator prices any volume.
How SerpWiz is this cheap
What costs money to run is the rate of requests, not their count. So we sell throughput: every $10 a month buys 1 request per second plus 66,667 queries, and the $10 plan and the $1,000 plan pay the same rate per query. There are no credit multipliers: one Google search is one query, and the full page comes back in it, with organic results, ads, top stories, the knowledge panel, People Also Ask and related searches. Failed requests are free.
When another provider is a better fit
Being cheapest isn't the same as being right for every project. Choose another provider if you need:
- Engines other than Google. SerpWiz covers Google Search and Google Maps. If you need Bing, YouTube, Amazon or Baidu, providers such as SerpApi cover dozens of engines.
- City-level location. SerpWiz targets results by country. Local rank tracking by city or ZIP code needs a provider that supports it.
- Very small, occasional volume. If you only run a few hundred searches a month, our 1,000 free queries a month may cover you. If not, a small pay-as-you-go balance elsewhere can cost less than a plan.
Is there a free Google Search API?
Most providers have a free tier: a one-time trial or a small monthly allowance. SerpWiz includes 1,000 free queries every month with no card. Google's own Custom Search JSON API has stopped accepting new customers, and it searches a custom search engine you configure, so its results don't match google.com.
The bottom line
If Google results are what you need, compare providers on cost per 1,000 searches at the volume you'll really run, not on cost per credit. At $0.15 per 1,000 ($0.1125 annually), with no multipliers and queries that roll over, SerpWiz comes out cheapest or tied in every column above. Try it with 1,000 free queries, or check the numbers yourself on the pricing comparison pages.
More from the blog
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