Google Custom Search API pricing
$5 per 1,000 until January 1, 2027.
The Custom Search JSON API gives 100 queries a day free, then costs $5 per 1,000 queries, up to 10,000 a day. Google says this pricing applies only to existing customers, until the service ends on January 1, 2027.
The same call costs $5 per 1,000 searches at https://api.specstream.ai/customsearch/v1, with no cap of 10,000 a day. Change the base address and the key; the path, the parameters and the JSON stay.
It scores 97.9 F-score on all 1,000 SimpleQA Verified questions and 64.0 item F1 on all 200 WideSearch tasks (benchmarks). A new account gets $10 of credit, which covers 2,000 searches.
New accounts get $10 of credit, no card. It covers 2,000 searches.
What a Custom Search call costs, and what it costs elsewhere
| SpecStream | Custom Search JSON API | Vertex AI Search | Grounding with Google Search | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price per 1,000 | $5 per 1,000 searches of up to 10 results, $0.005 a call | $5 per 1,000 queries after the free 100 a day | $1.50 per 1,000 queries on Standard and $4.00 on Enterprise, plus data storage | $14 per 1,000 search requests on Gemini 3 and newer models, and $35 per 1,000 grounded prompts on Gemini 2.5 |
| Free use | $10 of credit on a new account, no card. It covers 2,000 searches, and credit you buy never expires | 100 queries a day | A free trial of 10,000 queries per account a month | 5,000 search requests a month on Gemini 3 and newer, and 1,500 prompts a day on Gemini 2.5 |
| Limit | Up to 8,800 searches a minute on one account. A call over that gets a 429 and is not charged | 10,000 queries a day | 50 domains | 1,500 requests a day per project by default on the paid tier |
| 10,000 searches a day | $50 a day | $49.50 a day, with the first 100 free, and 10,000 is the most it answers | $15 on Standard or $40 on Enterprise a day, plus data storage, on 50 domains at most | Over the default limit of 1,500 requests a day |
| What you pay for | Each call, priced by the results it asks for. Each started block of 10 more results adds $0.006 | Each successful request | Each query, direct by API or through an integration or the console | Each search query the model decides to run on Gemini 3 and newer, and each prompt on Gemini 2.5 |
| What comes back | Google's JSON: kind customsearch#search, items[] with title, link, snippet and displayLink, searchInformation.totalResults and queries.nextPage | items[] with the URL, title and text snippets of each result | The reply of the Agent Search servingConfigs.search method | A final answer grounded in the search results, with search suggestions HTML |
| Open to new customers | Yes. The Custom Search route is live at https://api.specstream.ai/customsearch/v1 | No. The pricing applies to existing customers until January 1, 2027 | Google's named alternative for up to 50 domains | A tool of the Gemini API |
Why the same $5 goes further on SpecStream
Keep the call, change the address
The price stays at $5 per 1,000. The code stays too: the path, the parameters and the JSON reply are Google's.
# Before
curl "https://www.googleapis.com/customsearch/v1?key=$GOOGLE_KEY&cx=$CX&q=open+source+vector+databases"
# After
curl "https://api.specstream.ai/customsearch/v1?key=$SPECSTREAM_KEY&cx=$CX&q=open+source+vector+databases"No cap of 10,000 a day
Google stops at 10,000 queries a day. On SpecStream 10,000 searches a day cost $50 and search 10,001 is answered like the first, up to 8,800 searches a minute on one account. Calls spend from your balance, inside the spending limit you set on the key.
More than 10 results in one call
Google returns 1 to 10 results a call and never more than 100 for a query. On the same key, GET https://api.specstream.ai/v1/web-search returns up to 100 results for one search, set with num: num=50 is $0.029 and num=100 is $0.059. The reply's price_usd says what the call cost.
What a failed call costs
Google's terms say you may be charged for each successful request and that Google can change fees with 90 days notice. On SpecStream a call stopped by a 429 charges nothing, an Idempotency-Key makes a retried call charge once, and credit you buy never expires.
The most accurate web search API in the world
On SimpleQA Verified the SpecStream Search API scores 97.9 F-score on all 1,000 official questions, 978 of them correct. On WideSearch it scores 64.0 item F1 and 43.4 row F1 on all 200 official tasks. The Extract API scores 0.908 F1 on WCXB. Every score and its method is on the benchmarks page.
About one second a search, measured under load
The Custom Search route runs on the fast search. On November 9, 2026 production took 1, 5, 10 and 20 searches a second through it and answered 718 of 720. The median was 0.82 s at 1 search a second and 1.07 s at 20 a second, and the 95th percentile stayed between 1.09 and 1.73 s. One account can send up to 8,800 searches a minute; a call over that gets a 429 with Retry-After and is not charged.
You decide what is kept, on each key
Create a key with zero_retention and a search made with it keeps no request text and no answer after the reply. It is not in the history and its log lines carry neither. The charge keeps the account, the key, the request ID, the price and the time. spend_cap_cents is the most the key can spend.
curl -X POST https://api.specstream.ai/v1/account/keys \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $SPECSTREAM_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"name": "production", "scopes": ["account:read", "finds:spend"], "spend_cap_cents": 500000, "zero_retention": true}'Search, pages and rows on one key
The same key reads up to 20 pages or documents a call with the Extract API at $0.80 per 1,000 pages, and a page with no text is not charged. Deep Search takes a request in plain words and returns every match on the live web as structured rows, at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a row, plus 5¢ for an email and 15¢ for a phone. The most a run can cost is quoted before it starts, and a saved request reruns hourly to yearly.
What other search APIs cost per 1,000
Vertex AI Search (Agent Search)
$1.50 per 1,000 queries on Standard and $4.00 on Enterprise, plus data storage, on up to 50 domains. SpecStream searches the whole live web at $5 per 1,000, on the Custom Search path. See Vertex AI Search next to Custom Search.
Grounding with Google Search
$14 per 1,000 search requests on Gemini 3 and newer models, after 5,000 free a month, and the model decides how many searches a prompt runs. SpecStream bills the searches your code sends, at $5 per 1,000.
Brave Search API
$5 per 1,000 requests, up to 50 queries a second, with $5 in free credits every month. Brave's own guide says moving to it means updating how you read the response. SpecStream charges the same $5 and answers in Google's JSON.
Exa
$4 per 1,000 requests for lite search and $7 for auto and fast. SpecStream is $5 per 1,000 for every search on the Custom Search route, which runs the fast search.
OpenAI web search
$10 per 1,000 calls, plus search content tokens at the model's rates. A SpecStream search costs $0.005 with no tokens on top.
How SpecStream scores
The same numbers as the benchmarks page, from the official tasks and scorers.
| SpecStream |  Parallel |  Exa |  Tavily |  Perplexity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Web researchWideSearch, GPT-5.6 Luna | 60.9 | 45.5 | 53.0 | 47.9 | 47.0 |
| Factual accuracySimpleQA Verified, GPT-5.6 Luna | 96 | 94 | 91 | 94 | 94 |
| Factual accuracySimpleQA Verified, GPT-5.6 Sol | 99 | 97 | 91 | 92 | 95 |
How to keep paying $5 per 1,000 after January 1, 2027
1. Create a key under Agents & API in the workspace. A new account gets $10 of credit, no card, which covers 2,000 searches.
2. Set the base address to https://api.specstream.ai in place of https://www.googleapis.com or https://customsearch.googleapis.com, and send the SpecStream key in key=, in X-Goog-Api-Key or as a Bearer token.
import requests
BASE = "https://api.specstream.ai" # was https://www.googleapis.com
reply = requests.get(
f"{BASE}/customsearch/v1",
params={"key": SPECSTREAM_KEY, "cx": CX, "q": "open source vector databases", "num": 10},
).json()
for item in reply["items"]:
print(item["title"], item["link"], item["snippet"])3. Give the key a spending limit with spend_cap_cents. Each call is billed as one search, and cx is accepted and not used.
Frequently asked questions
Something we didn't answer? Talk to a human
How much does the Google Custom Search API cost?
Is the Google Custom Search JSON API free?
What is the Custom Search JSON API daily limit?
What does 10,000 searches a day cost?
What is the cheapest replacement for the Custom Search JSON API?
Does a failed call cost money?
429 charges nothing, and an Idempotency-Key makes a retried call charge once. Google's terms say you may be charged for each successful request.Does SpecStream credit expire?
Sources
SpecStream wrote this page. Each figure about Google and other providers comes from that company's own page.
- Google Custom Search JSON API overviewdevelopers.google.com/custom-search/v1/overview, read Nov 10, 2026
- Google Custom Search JSON API reference, cse.listdevelopers.google.com/custom-search/v1/reference/rest/v1/cse/list, read Nov 10, 2026
- Google Custom Search JSON API, using RESTdevelopers.google.com/custom-search/v1/using_rest, read Nov 10, 2026
- Google Custom Search terms of servicedevelopers.google.com/custom-search/terms, read Nov 10, 2026
- Google Cloud, Agent Search pricingcloud.google.com/generative-ai-app-builder/pricing, read Nov 10, 2026
- Google Cloud, servingConfigs.search referencecloud.google.com/generative-ai-app-builder/docs/reference/rest/v1/projects.locations.collections.engines.servingConfigs/search, read Nov 10, 2026
- Gemini API, Grounding with Google Searchai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/google-search, read Nov 10, 2026
- Gemini API pricingai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing, read Nov 10, 2026
- Google AI Studio pricingaistudio.google.com/docs/pricing, read Nov 10, 2026
- Brave Search APIbrave.com/search/api/, read Nov 10, 2026
- Brave, alternatives to the Google Search APIbrave.com/learn/google-api-shutdown/, read Nov 10, 2026
- Exa pricingexa.ai/pricing, read Nov 10, 2026
- OpenAI API pricingdevelopers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing, read Nov 10, 2026
- SpecStream benchmarksspecstream.ai/benchmarks, read Nov 10, 2026
- SpecStream pricingspecstream.ai/pricing, read Nov 10, 2026
- SpecStream for agentsspecstream.ai/agents.md, read Nov 10, 2026