Serper images compatible

The call, before and after

# Before
curl https://google.serper.dev/images \
  -H "X-API-KEY: $SERPER_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"q": "sushi platter", "num": 10}'

# After
curl https://api.specstream.ai/serper/images \
  -H "X-API-KEY: $SPECSTREAM_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"q": "sushi platter", "num": 10}'

The body, the header name and the parser stay. A client that cannot set headers can send GET https://api.specstream.ai/serper/images?q=sushi+platter&apiKey=$SPECSTREAM_API_KEY.

What the route reads, and what it refuses

Read and applied: q, gl for the country, hl for the language, num from 1 to 100 and page from 1. location, tbs and autocorrect are accepted, and searchParameters echoes each one you sent.

Refused, in Serper's {"message", "statusCode"} form: a call with no key gets 401, and a num outside 1 to 100 or a page below 1 gets 400 naming the range.

Every field that comes back

searchParameters carries q, the gl, hl, location, tbs and autocorrect you sent, type set to images, num, page and engine. Each of images[] has title, imageUrl for the image, source, domain, link for the page the image is on and position, counted across pages. imageWidth, imageHeight, thumbnailUrl, thumbnailWidth and thumbnailHeight are there when the search engines give them, and absent otherwise; the route never fills them in.

credits is 1 on every call, as one call is one image search. One field is added, specstream, with the call's price. Left out of each image: googleUrl.

One price a search, and credit that stays

On Serper a pack sets the price and the date the credits end. 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. Credit you buy never expires, and there is no daily limit. A busy call gets 429 in Serper'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 Serper 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 Serper's /search and /news at the same base address (the Serper migration has every web field), and SerpApi's and Google Custom Search's image calls too (see the SerpApi Google Images migration and 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.

SerpApi

A plan per month: Starter is $25 for 1,000 searches, 200 an hour, and the free plan has 250 searches a month. SpecStream answers SerpApi's engine=google_images call at /serpapi/search.json at $0.005, with no plan (SerpApi 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 price, (Brave image search migration).

SearchApi

Developer is $40 a month for 10,000 searches, $4 per 1,000, after 100 free requests. SpecStream answers SearchApi's engine=google_images call with no plan to renew (SearchApi Google Images migration).