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# Google SERP API prices in 2026, and the same JSON at $1 per 1,000

Compared on Nov 12, 2026. The page: https://specstream.ai/google-serp-api

Google sells no SERP API to a new customer: its Custom Search JSON API is closed to them and ends on January 1, 2027. Every Google SERP API on sale is a third party, from Serper at $0.30 to SerpApi at $25 per 1,000.

SpecStream answers the calls those APIs take. Point SerpApi, Serper, SearchApi or DataForSEO code at `https://api.specstream.ai`, keep the parser, and a search of up to 10 results costs $0.001, $1 per 1,000, from SpecStream's own live web search.

97.9 F-score on all 1,000 SimpleQA Verified questions and 64.0 item F1 on all 200 WideSearch tasks, the top published scores of a search API, on the [benchmarks](https://specstream.ai/benchmarks?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=google-serp-api) page.

[Get an API key](https://specstream.ai/signup?src=alternatives-google-serp-api&utm_source=alternatives-md&utm_campaign=google-serp-api&returnTo=%2Fworkspace%2Fsearch%3Froute%3Dgoogle) New accounts get $10 of credit, no card. It covers 10,000 searches.

## Google SERP APIs in 2026, priced from their own pages

| | SpecStream | SerpApi | Serper | DataForSEO | SearchApi |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price per 1,000 searches | $1 for up to 10 results, on every drop-in address | $25 on Starter ($25 a month for 1,000), $10 on Production ($150 for 15,000), $3.75 on Cloud 1M | $1.00 on the 50k pack, down to $0.30 on the 12.5M pack | $0.60 in Standard Queue, $1.20 in Priority Queue, $2 in Live Mode, per results page of up to 10 | $4 on Developer (10,000 searches), down to $1.5 on Octo 1M |
| How you pay | Credit, no plan. Top-ups start at $10, and credit you buy never expires | A monthly plan | Prepaid credit packs, valid for 6 months | A prepaid balance with no expiry, after a $50 minimum top-up | A monthly plan |
| Free to start | $10 of credit, no card, which covers 10,000 searches | 250 searches a month | 2,500 free queries | A $1 credit on sign-up | 100 free requests |
| Speed and volume | A median of 0.82 s at 1 search a second and 1.07 s at 20 a second. No limit per key and no daily limit | 200 successful searches an hour on Starter, 3,000 on Production | 50 queries a second on the smallest pack, 300 on the largest | Live Mode up to 6 seconds on average, Standard Queue 5 minutes on average | Up to 20% of the plan's credits in any hour |
| The call | Each of the four calls at `https://api.specstream.ai`, on one key, or `GET /v1/web-search` | `GET https://serpapi.com/search?engine=google` | `POST https://google.serper.dev/search` with `X-API-KEY` | `POST /v3/serp/google/organic/live/advanced`, one task a Live call | `GET /api/v1/search?engine=google` |
| What comes back | The JSON of the API you called. On `/v1/web-search`, the answer with its page and read time, rows and every source read | `organic_results[]` and the other blocks of the page | `organic`, `knowledgeGraph`, `peopleAlsoAsk` and `relatedSearches` | Regular: top 10 organic and paid results. Advanced: the full results page | `organic_results`, `knowledge_graph`, `ai_overview` and more |
| What is billed | A call that returns results. A `429` or a call with no results costs nothing | Successful searches. Cached, errored and failed ones are not counted | Each successful response | Each results page of up to 10 results | Searches with a 200 status code |

## Why teams send their SERP calls to SpecStream

### Your SerpApi or Serper code, with one address changed

```
# SerpApi: before
curl --get https://serpapi.com/search.json -d engine=google --data-urlencode "q=who founded anthropic" -d api_key=$SERPAPI_KEY

# SerpApi: after
curl --get https://api.specstream.ai/serpapi/search.json -d engine=google --data-urlencode "q=who founded anthropic" -d api_key=$SPECSTREAM_KEY

# Serper: before, then after
curl https://google.serper.dev/search -H "X-API-KEY: $SERPER_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"q": "who founded anthropic"}'
curl https://api.specstream.ai/serper/search -H "X-API-KEY: $SPECSTREAM_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"q": "who founded anthropic"}'
```

The SerpApi path answers with `organic_results[]` (`position`, `title`, `link`, `displayed_link`, `snippet`), `search_metadata`, `search_parameters` and `serpapi_pagination.next`. The Serper path answers with `organic[]` (`title`, `link`, `snippet`, `position`). SearchApi answers at `https://api.specstream.ai/searchapi` and DataForSEO at `https://api.specstream.ai/dataforseo`, each in its own JSON.

### Run the test yourself

Send the same five queries from your logs to your provider and to SpecStream, then compare the links. The test below needs `jq` and costs $0.005 on SpecStream, inside the $10 of credit a new account gets.

```
for q in "who founded anthropic" "postgres 17 release date" "best vector database" "eu ai act fines" "stripe api rate limit"; do
  echo "== $q"
  curl -s --get https://serpapi.com/search.json -d engine=google --data-urlencode "q=$q" -d api_key=$SERPAPI_KEY | jq -r '.organic_results[:5][].link'
  curl -s --get https://api.specstream.ai/serpapi/search.json -d engine=google --data-urlencode "q=$q" -d api_key=$SPECSTREAM_KEY | jq -r '.organic_results[:5][].link'
done
```

`GET https://api.specstream.ai/v1/search-dialects` lists every drop-in API with its base address and one curl line, with no key.

### $1 per 1,000, with no plan to outgrow

15,000 searches a month cost $150 on SerpApi's Production plan and $15 on SpecStream. Serper's 50k pack costs the same $1 per 1,000, and its credits end after 6 months; SpecStream credit you buy never expires. DataForSEO's $0.60 per 1,000 is its Standard Queue, at 5 minutes on average; a live call there costs $2 per 1,000. On SpecStream every call is live, at $0.001.

### 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](https://specstream.ai/benchmarks?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=google-serp-api) page.

### About one second a search, measured under load

Every drop-in address 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. A busy call gets a `429` in the API's own error form with `Retry-After`, and is not charged.

### Live results, from SpecStream's own search

Each search is read from the live web at the moment of the call and ranked by SpecStream, then written in the JSON of the API your code calls. One search returns up to 100 results with `num`; each started block of 10 more adds $0.0012, so 100 results cost $0.0118.

### Pages and full datasets on the same key

The same key reads up to 20 pages a call with the [Extract API](https://specstream.ai/extract-api?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=google-serp-api) at $0.80 per 1,000 pages, and a page with no text is not charged. [Deep Search](https://specstream.ai/deep-search?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=google-serp-api) returns every match on the live web as structured rows at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a row, with the most a run can cost approved before it starts. Agents connect to `https://api.specstream.ai/mcp`.

## Other Google SERP APIs buyers price

### ScraperAPI

A scraping API with a structured Google endpoint. A Google request costs 25 credits, so the Hobby plan's 100,000 credits for $49 a month are 4,000 searches, $12.25 per 1,000. SpecStream answers ScraperAPI's page call at `https://api.specstream.ai/scraperapi` and searches at $1 per 1,000.

### Scrapfly

A scraping API whose $30 Discovery plan includes 200,000 credits, which Scrapfly's own blog puts at roughly 98,000 Google requests, about $0.31 per 1,000. SpecStream charges $0.001 for each search, with no plan to buy.

### HasData

A scraping company that lists its Google SERP API at $0.83 per 1,000 requests on its pricing page. SpecStream sells searches with no plan, at $1 per 1,000, and its credit never expires.

### Google Custom Search JSON API

Google's own API, at $5 per 1,000 queries after 100 free a day, up to 10,000 a day. It is closed to new customers and ends on January 1, 2027. SpecStream answers its `GET /customsearch/v1` call too, at $1 per 1,000 ([the move](https://specstream.ai/migrate/google-custom-search?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=google-serp-api)).

## How to move a Google SERP API to SpecStream

1. Create a key under Agents & API in the workspace. A new account gets $10 of credit, no card, which covers 10,000 searches.

2. Change the base address and the key. SerpApi: `https://serpapi.com` becomes `https://api.specstream.ai/serpapi`, key in `api_key`. Serper: `https://google.serper.dev` becomes `https://api.specstream.ai/serper`, key in `X-API-KEY`. SearchApi: `https://www.searchapi.io` becomes `https://api.specstream.ai/searchapi`. DataForSEO: `https://api.dataforseo.com` becomes `https://api.specstream.ai/dataforseo`, key as the Basic auth password.

```
import serpapi

client = serpapi.Client(api_key=SPECSTREAM_KEY)
client.BASE_DOMAIN = "https://api.specstream.ai/serpapi"  # was https://serpapi.com

results = client.search({"engine": "google", "q": "who founded anthropic"})
for r in results["organic_results"]:
    print(r["position"], r["title"], r["link"])
```

3. Leave the parser. Each call is one search at $0.001 for up to 10 results. Each provider has its own guide: [SerpApi](https://specstream.ai/migrate/serpapi?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=google-serp-api), [Serper](https://specstream.ai/migrate/serper?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=google-serp-api), [SearchApi](https://specstream.ai/migrate/searchapi?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=google-serp-api) and [DataForSEO](https://specstream.ai/migrate/dataforseo?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=google-serp-api).

## Frequently asked questions

### Does Google have an official SERP API?

No. Google's one web search API, the Custom Search JSON API, is closed to new customers and ends on January 1, 2027, and it returns results from a search engine you configure, not the results page. Every Google SERP API on sale today is a third party.

### How much does a Google SERP API cost?

From $0.30 to $25 per 1,000 searches on list prices read Nov 12, 2026: Serper $1.00 to $0.30, DataForSEO $0.60 to $2, SearchApi $4 to $1.5 and SerpApi $25 to $3.75. SpecStream costs $1 per 1,000 live searches, with no plan, and credit you buy never expires.

### How much does SerpApi cost?

$25 a month for 1,000 searches on Starter, $75 for 5,000 on Developer and $150 for 15,000 on Production, with 250 free searches a month. SpecStream answers SerpApi's call at $1 per 1,000.

### Can I keep my SerpApi or Serper code?

Yes. Change the base address to `https://api.specstream.ai/serpapi` or `https://api.specstream.ai/serper` and use a SpecStream key; the reply keeps `organic_results[]` or `organic[]`. In serpapi-python, set `client.BASE_DOMAIN`.

### Does SpecStream copy Google's results page?

No. Each search is read from the live web at the moment of the call and ranked by SpecStream, then returned in the JSON of the API your code calls. Its accuracy is 97.9 F-score on all 1,000 SimpleQA Verified questions.

### How fast is it?

A median of 0.82 s at 1 search a second and 1.07 s at 20 a second, measured on production on November 9, 2026. DataForSEO's Live Mode takes up to 6 seconds on average.

### Is there a free Google SERP API?

SpecStream gives $10 of credit on a new account, no card, which covers 10,000 searches. Serper gives 2,500 free queries and SerpApi 250 searches a month.

## Sources

SpecStream wrote this page. Each figure for another company comes from that company's own page, read on the date shown.

- [Google Custom Search JSON API overview](https://developers.google.com/custom-search/v1/overview), read Nov 12, 2026
- [SerpApi pricing](https://serpapi.com/pricing.md), read Nov 12, 2026
- [SerpApi Google Search API](https://serpapi.com/search-api), read Nov 12, 2026
- [Serper](https://serper.dev/), read Nov 12, 2026
- [DataForSEO SERP API](https://dataforseo.com/apis/serp-api), read Nov 12, 2026
- [DataForSEO pricing](https://dataforseo.com/pricing), read Nov 12, 2026
- [DataForSEO Google SERP API overview](https://docs.dataforseo.com/v3/serp-google-overview/), read Nov 12, 2026
- [DataForSEO Google organic live advanced](https://docs.dataforseo.com/v3/serp/google/organic/live/advanced/), read Nov 12, 2026
- [SearchApi pricing](https://www.searchapi.io/pricing), read Nov 12, 2026
- [SearchApi Google Search API docs](https://www.searchapi.io/docs/google), read Nov 12, 2026
- [ScraperAPI pricing](https://scraperapi.com/pricing.md), read Nov 12, 2026
- [ScraperAPI Google SERP API docs](https://docs.scraperapi.com/structured-data-endpoints/search-and-insights/google/google-serp-api), read Nov 12, 2026
- [Scrapfly pricing](https://scrapfly.io/pricing), read Nov 12, 2026
- [Scrapfly, Google SERP API and alternatives](https://scrapfly.io/blog/posts/google-serp-api-and-alternatives), read Nov 12, 2026
- [HasData pricing](https://hasdata.com/prices), read Nov 12, 2026