SERP API Pricing, Five Providers Side by Side
Per-1,000 rates for every major SERP API, checked August 2026.
How much does a SERP API cost?
If you are new to the category, start with what a SERP API is. The short version: query in, parsed Google results out, and since Google retired its own search API, these five are how rank trackers, lead tools, and AI agents buy SEO data. Here is what each one charges.
| Provider | Model | Per 1,000 searches | Free tier | Do credits expire? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CrustAPI | Prepaid credits, billed only on success | $1.96 entry, down to $0.65 ($49 for 25k, $6,500 for 10M) | 3,000 searches every month, no card | Never |
| serper.dev | Prepaid credits | $1.00 entry, down to $0.30 ($50 for 50k, $3,750 for 12.5M) | 2,500 queries, one time, no card | Yes, after 6 months |
| DataForSEO | Pay-as-you-go deposit, $50 minimum | $0.60 queued (about 5 min), $1.20 priority, $2.00 live; covers 10 results per query | None | Not stated on the pricing page |
| Bright Data | Pay as you go or monthly plan | $1.50 pay-as-you-go, about $1.31 on the $499/mo Scale plan (380k included) | 5,000 records a month, no card | Billed as used |
| SerpApi | Monthly subscription | $25.00 entry, down to about $9.17 ($25 for 1k/mo, $275 for 30k/mo) | 250 searches a month | Reset monthly, no rollover |
Two things jump out. First, the spread is enormous: the same 1,000 Google searches cost $0.30 on serper's largest pack and $25.00 on SerpApi's entry plan, an 83x difference.
Second, the model matters as much as the rate: prepaid credits, pay-as-you-go, and monthly subscriptions behave very differently once usage turns spiky. That is the next section.
serper.dev: credits expire after 6 months. The $1.00 entry rate is the lowest real-time sticker with no commitment, but buy ahead of demand that never arrives and the unused credits are gone. More in SerpApi vs Serper.
SerpApi: unused searches vanish monthly. Plans are subscriptions with no rollover, so a $150 month where you run 7,000 of your 15,000 searches works out to $21.43 per 1,000. The plan-by-plan breakdown is on our SerpApi pricing page.
DataForSEO: the $0.60 covers 10 results, delivered in about 5 minutes. Real-time delivery is $2.00 per 1,000, each extra 10 results multiplies the price, and some search operators cost 5x. Cheap for patient page-one batches; the math changes fast for live, deep pulls.
Bright Data: clean pay-as-you-go, higher rate. $1.50 per 1,000 with success-only billing and no prepayment to strand; the discount to about $1.31 requires the $499/mo Scale plan. The wider platforms are compared on our Bright Data alternative page.
CrustAPI: higher entry sticker, nothing stranded. $1.96 per 1,000 at the $49 pack is not the lowest number in the table. What the price buys: credits that never expire, billing only when a search succeeds, and a rate that falls to $0.80 at the 2.5M pack and $0.65 at 10M.
What do you really pay?
A cheap SERP API is only cheap if you consume what you paid for. One line of arithmetic changes the ranking.
Say you buy serper's entry pack: $50 for 50,000 credits at $1.00 per 1,000. Your project runs 30,000 searches, then pauses.
Month 7 arrives, the remaining 20,000 credits expire, and your real rate was $1.67 per 1,000. On a monthly plan it is faster: run 7,000 of SerpApi's 15,000 Production searches and the real rate is $21.43 per 1,000.
This is why "cheapest SERP API" has no single answer. Steady volume rewards the lowest sticker; spiky, project-based, or agent-driven usage rewards whichever provider lets paid searches wait for you.
On CrustAPI the $49 pack from last quarter is still worth exactly 25,000 searches this quarter, so the sticker rate and the effective rate are the same number.
What data do you get?
Numbers in a table are easy to type. Here is a call we ran against the live API while writing this page: one Maps search for SEO agencies in Austin. It returned 20 businesses in 459 ms. The first five rows, as CSV:
Billing on that call: Maps is the one surface priced per result, so 20 businesses cost 20 credits, and a search that finds nothing costs nothing.
Every other surface, including web search, news, shopping, images, videos, scholar, and patents, bills a flat 1 credit per search. The API returns JSON, the CSV view is a playground feature, and the rows are yours to keep.
How much does CrustAPI cost?
Prepaid packs, one flat credit per successful search, and a free tier that renews monthly.
| What you run | Credits | You pay |
|---|---|---|
| 3,000 searches a month | 3,000 free | $0, no card |
| 25,000 searches | 25,000 | $49 ($1.96 per 1,000) |
| 100,000 searches | 100,000 | $149 ($1.49 per 1,000) |
| 500,000 searches | 500,000 | $549 ($1.10 per 1,000) |
| 2.5 million searches | 2,500,000 | $1,999 ($0.80 per 1,000) |
Packs continue up to 250 million credits for $100,000, which is $0.40 per 1,000. Prices ex-tax.
Credits never expire, there is no subscription to cancel, and a failed search is never billed. The free 3,000 credits renew monthly, enough to run a real evaluation against any provider on this page.
How do you get started?
No sales call and no deposit. From zero to your first result set in about two minutes:
- 1
Create a free account. You get 3,000 credits a month, no card needed.
- 2
Type a search in the playground. Pick any surface: web, Maps, news, shopping. Results land in a table.
- 3
Export the CSV, or copy your key from the dashboard and run the curl above for JSON.
When another provider is the right call
We would rather you pick the right tool than the loudest page. Two cases where the answer is not us.
Huge, steady, committed volume: if you reliably burn through 12.5M searches inside 6 months, serper's $0.30 per 1,000 Ultimate pack is the lowest real-time rate on this page, below our $0.65 at the 10M pack. Patient batch jobs that only need page one: if a 5 minute queue is fine and 10 results per query is enough, DataForSEO's $0.60 per 1,000 standard queue is the cheapest way to buy SEO data in bulk.
Related: What is a SERP API · SerpApi vs Serper · SerpApi pricing · Bright Data alternative · Google Search API
Common questions
On sticker price alone, DataForSEO's standard queue is the lowest at $0.60 per 1,000 searches, if you can wait around 5 minutes per batch and 10 results per query is enough. For real-time results with no monthly plan, serper.dev's $1.00 per 1,000 entry rate is the lowest, though those credits expire after 6 months. CrustAPI starts at $1.96 per 1,000 and falls to $0.65 at volume, with credits that never expire and billing only on successful searches.
As of August 2026, published rates run from $0.30 per 1,000 (serper.dev's 12.5M pack) to $25.00 per 1,000 (SerpApi's entry plan). The pay-as-you-go middle sits between $1 and $2: Bright Data at $1.50, CrustAPI at $1.96 falling to $0.65 with pack size, and DataForSEO's live mode at $2.00.
It varies by provider. serper.dev credits are valid for 6 months. SerpApi searches reset every month with no rollover. Bright Data's pay-as-you-go bills as you use it, so there is nothing to strand. CrustAPI prepaid credits never expire, so a pack bought this quarter is worth the same number of searches next year.
Mostly no, but check each provider. CrustAPI bills only on successful searches, SerpApi states that cached, errored, and failed searches are not counted, and Bright Data advertises pay-only-for-success. The bigger cost leak is not failures, it is monthly plans where searches you never run still bill in full.
CrustAPI's free tier renews: 3,000 searches every month with no card. Bright Data lists 5,000 records a month on its free tier. serper.dev gives 2,500 free queries as a one-time allowance, and SerpApi gives 250 searches a month. DataForSEO has no free tier and a $50 minimum deposit.
The $0.60 per 1,000 price is the queued mode, which averages about 5 minutes per task and covers one SERP of 10 results per query. Real-time delivery costs $2.00 per 1,000, pulling more than 10 results multiplies the price for each additional 10, and certain search operators multiply the cost by 5. For deep or real-time pulls the effective rate can pass the flat-rate providers.
Clay
Pay for searches, not for a subscription
Every provider above sells the same Google results page. The difference is what happens to money you have already spent. CrustAPI credits never expire, failed searches never bill, and 3,000 free credits renew monthly with no card.
Get 3,000 free credits