Is Google Custom Search API shutting down

The whole move is one line

Your code keeps its path, its parameters and its parser. The address changes, and the key.

# 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"

The reply has Google's shape, field for field: kind, queries with request and nextPage, searchInformation and items. There is no table of fields to map by hand.

25,024 files on GitHub still hold the call

On November 10, 2026, GitHub code search found 25,024 public files that contain googleapis.com/customsearch/v1 and 5,992 that contain customsearch.googleapis.com. They are files that hold the address, not confirmed live calls. Among them are the serp_goog function of the SEO library advertools and Google's own PHP client library.

Bing shows what happens next. Microsoft retired its search API on August 11, 2025, and 15 months later 6,048 public files still hold api.bing.microsoft.com/v7.0/search. Code outlives the service it calls, and each of those files needs one changed address.

What stays the same

q, num (1 to 10) and start work as before, and queries.nextPage gives the next start. exactTerms, orTerms, siteSearch and hq shape the search as they do on Google. cx is accepted and not used. The key goes in key=, in the X-Goog-Api-Key header or as a Bearer token.

$1 per 1,000, with no cap of 10,000 a day

Google charges existing customers $5 per 1,000 queries after 100 free a day and stops at 10,000 a day. SpecStream charges $1 per 1,000 searches of up to 10 results: 10,000 searches a day cost $10, and search 10,001 is answered like the first. A call stopped by a 429 charges nothing, and a top-up 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 fast searches a second 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. There is no limit per key and no daily limit; a busy call 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.

Vertex AI Search (Agent Search)

Google's named alternative, for up to 50 domains, at $1.50 per 1,000 queries on Standard and $4.00 on Enterprise, plus data storage. It answers a different endpoint in a Google Cloud project. SpecStream searches the whole live web on the path your code already calls.

Grounding with Google Search

A Gemini API tool at $14 per 1,000 search requests on Gemini 3 and newer models. It returns the model's grounded answer, not the result list your code reads today. SpecStream returns the list, at $1 per 1,000, for any model. See the comparison.

Brave Search API

A search API on Brave's own index at $5 per 1,000 requests, up to 50 queries a second, with $5 in free credits every month. Brave's own guide says the move means swapping the endpoint and updating how you read the response. On SpecStream the reply is Google's JSON, so your parser stays.

Exa

A search API at $4 per 1,000 requests for lite search and $7 for auto and fast, with its own request and reply. SpecStream costs $1 per 1,000 and answers the Custom Search call you send today.