SerpApi Google Images compatible

The call, before and after

# Before
curl "https://serpapi.com/search.json?engine=google_images&q=lighthouse+at+dusk&api_key=$SERPAPI_API_KEY"

# After
curl "https://api.specstream.ai/serpapi/search.json?engine=google_images&q=lighthouse+at+dusk&api_key=$SPECSTREAM_API_KEY"

The path, the parameters and the parser stay as they are. Google's Images tab form works the same way: engine=google&tbm=isch&q=lighthouse+at+dusk at the same address.

What the route reads, and what it refuses

Read and applied: q, gl for the country, hl for the language, safe, num from 1 to 100 and ijn for the page. search_parameters echoes google_domain, gl, hl, ijn, safe and tbs as you sent them.

Refused, in SerpApi's error form: another engine, such as engine=bing, gets 400 with the engines this address answers; a call with no api_key gets 401; a num outside 1 to 100 or an ijn outside 0 to 99 gets 400 naming the range.

Every field that comes back

search_metadata carries id, status, created_at, processed_at and total_time_taken. search_parameters carries engine, q, tbm on the Images tab form, and the fields above. Each of images_results[] has position, source, title, link for the page the image is on and original for the image itself. thumbnail, original_width and original_height are there when the search engines give them, and absent otherwise; the route never fills them in.

serpapi_pagination has current, and next when there is another page. A search with no images answers 200 with SerpApi's own error line, "Google hasn't returned any results for this query." One field is added, specstream, with the call's price.

Left out of each reply: related_content_id, serpapi_related_content_link, source_logo, is_product, in_stock, tag and suggested_searches.

One price a search, the same as the web

On SerpApi the plan sets the searches a month and the searches an hour. On SpecStream an image search of up to 10 results is $0.005, the same as a web search. num asks for up to 100, and each started block of 10 more adds $0.006, so num=100 costs $0.059. There is no plan to renew and no daily limit, and credit you buy never expires. A busy call gets 429 in SerpApi's form with Retry-After and charges nothing.

What is kept, set on the key

A key made with zero_retention keeps no request text and no answer once the reply is sent, on image searches as on every other call. spend_cap_cents sets the most that key can spend, so a loop in a SerpApi client cannot run past it.

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}'

Images, web, news and pages on one key

The results come from the image search of several engines at once, one result for each image address. The same key answers SerpApi's Google web search at the same address (the SerpApi migration has every field), Google News with engine=google_news, and Google Custom Search with searchType=image (see the Google image search migration).

The Extract API reads the page behind each link, up to 20 pages a call at $0.80 per 1,000 pages, and a page with no text is not charged. Deep Search returns every match for a request in plain words as structured rows, at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a row, with a source URL on every value.

On SimpleQA Verified the SpecStream Search API scores 97.9 F-score on all 1,000 official questions, 978 of them correct, and on WideSearch 64.0 item F1 and 43.4 row F1 on all 200 official tasks. The Extract API scores 0.908 F1 on WCXB. Each score and its method is on the benchmarks page.

Serper

Google results sold in credit packs from $1.00 per 1,000 for 50,000 credits, valid for 6 months, with 2,500 free queries. SpecStream credit never expires, and the same key answers Serper's /images call at /serper/images (Serper images migration).

SearchApi

A plan per month: Developer is $40 for 10,000 searches, $4 per 1,000, after 100 free requests. SpecStream has no plan, and the same key answers SearchApi's engine=google_images call (SearchApi Google Images migration).

Brave Search API

$5 per 1,000 requests, images included, up to 50 queries per second, with $5 in free credits every month. SpecStream answers Brave's /res/v1/images/search at the same address (Brave image search migration).