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Cheapest SERP API in 2026: 10 SERP APIs Compared by Price per 1,000 Searches
The short answer: Among the 10 on-demand SERP APIs compared here, PrismCrawl has the lowest price per 1,000 Google searches at every budget we compared, from $5 to $5,000 a month. It costs $0.27 per 1,000 at $10, $0.21 at $100, and $0.15 at $1,000 and above. The next lowest rates are Searlo ($0.30 at $74.99 and $0.20 at $799) and Scrapingdog's Google SERP Light API ($0.45 on its $90/month plan). For a steady workload, 1 million searches a month costs about $170 with PrismCrawl and 5 million costs about $750.
This comparison is published by PrismCrawl, which is one of the providers compared. All prices and rate limits were checked against each provider's public pricing page on November 2, 2026. They are list prices, not negotiated quotes, and we have not benchmarked latency, success rate, or result quality across providers.
What this comparison includes
This comparison covers self-serve SERP APIs that run each search on demand, using published plans up to $5,000 a month. Enterprise contracts above that are usually negotiated and are not public. DataForSEO's standard queue is included because each task is still collected on demand, just delivered after a delay; its live mode is listed alongside it. We left out cached results and stored datasets. A cached or pre-collected SERP can be cheaper to serve, but it answers a different question: what a page looked like at some earlier time, not what it shows now. For rank tracking, AI agents, and monitoring, that difference decides whether the data is usable, so a lower price on cached results is not a like-for-like comparison. For the same reason we left out bulk export jobs such as OpenSERP's Cloud Scraping, which runs an uploaded keyword file in the background for $0.10 per 1,000 queries and returns URLs, titles, and snippets as a file download instead of a full SERP response per request.
SERP API prices at a glance
Prices are for one standard Google search request, in USD. Providers define a billable request differently, so read the notes before comparing rates.
| Provider | Billing | Smallest paid purchase | Rate at that purchase | Lowest public rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PrismCrawl | One-time prepaid credits | $5 | $0.30/1K | $0.15/1K with a $1,000 purchase | Only successful searches are billed. Credits valid for 90 days. 100 free credits. |
| Searlo | One-time prepaid credits | $3.99 | $0.80/1K | $0.20/1K with a $799 purchase | $0.30/1K at $74.99. 3,000 free credits, valid for 1 year. |
| Serper | Prepaid credits | $50 | $1.00/1K | $0.30/1K with a $3,750 purchase | $0.75/1K at $375 and $0.50/1K at $1,250. Credits expire after 6 months. 2,500 free queries. |
| Scrapingdog | Monthly plans | $40/month | $1.00/1K Light; $2.00/1K Advance | Light: about $0.21/1K on the $5,000/month plan. Advance: about $0.42/1K on the same plan | Google SERP Light uses 5 credits per request and Advance uses 10. |
| OpenSERP | Prepaid balance | Not listed | $0.50/1K | $0.50/1K at any volume | Only successful calls are billed. Balance expires after 12 months without paid usage. |
| DataForSEO | Prepaid balance | $50 | $0.60/1K queued; $1.20/1K priority queue; $2.00/1K live | $0.60/1K queued | Standard queue averages about five minutes. Each extra 10 results adds the base price again. Funds do not expire. |
| SearchCans | One-time prepaid credits | $18 | $0.90/1K | $0.56/1K with a $1,680 purchase | $0.75/1K at $99. Only successful requests are billed. Credits expire after 6 months. 100 free credits. |
| SearchApi | Monthly plans | $40/month | $4.00/1K | $1.00/1K on a $5,000/month plan | $2.50/1K at $250/month. 100 free requests. |
| Bright Data | Pay-as-you-go or monthly plans | Pay-as-you-go | $1.50/1K | $1.30/1K above the 380,000 requests included in the $499/month Scale plan | Only successful requests are billed. 5,000 free requests a month. |
| SerpApi | Monthly plans | $25/month | $25.00/1K | $3.75/1K on the $3,750/month plan for 1 million searches | $7.25/1K at $725/month. Only successful searches count. 250 free searches a month. |
What each budget buys
The table below shows how many standard Google searches each provider's public pricing delivers at three spend levels. For each provider we use the largest single purchase or monthly plan that fits within that budget. Monthly plans reset each month; prepaid balances carry over until they expire.
| Provider | About $10 | About $100 | About $1,000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| PrismCrawl | 37,038 ($10 Lite, $0.27/1K) | 476,191 ($100 Growth, $0.21/1K) | 6,666,667 ($1,000 Volume, $0.15/1K) |
| Searlo | 20,000 ($9.99 Starter, $0.50/1K) | 250,000 ($74.99 Scale, $0.30/1K) | 4,000,000 ($799 Enterprise, $0.20/1K) |
| Scrapingdog | Not available; smallest plan is $40/month | 200,000 Light or 100,000 Advance ($90/month) | 3,800,000 Light or 1,900,000 Advance ($1,000/month) |
| OpenSERP | 20,000 | 200,000 | 2,000,000 |
| DataForSEO | Not available; minimum top-up is $50 | 166,667 queued or 50,000 live | 1,666,667 queued or 500,000 live |
| Serper | Not available; smallest package is $50 | 50,000 ($50 package) | 500,000 ($375 package) |
| SearchCans | Not available; smallest pack is $18 | 132,000 ($99 Starter) | 995,000 ($597 Pro) |
| SearchApi | Not available; smallest plan is $40/month | 35,000 ($100/month) | 500,000 ($900/month) |
| Bright Data | 6,667 (pay-as-you-go) | 66,667 (pay-as-you-go) | About 765,000 ($499/month Scale plus overage at $1.30/1K) |
| SerpApi | Not available at $10; 1,000 for $25/month | 5,000 ($75/month) | 100,000 ($725/month) |
At about $10, PrismCrawl delivers 37,038 searches, nearly twice the 20,000 from Searlo or OpenSERP. Serper, Scrapingdog, DataForSEO, SearchCans, SearchApi, and SerpApi need a larger first purchase.
At about $100, PrismCrawl delivers 476,191 searches, almost twice Searlo's 250,000 and more than twice the 200,000 from OpenSERP or Scrapingdog's Light API.
At about $1,000, PrismCrawl delivers 6,666,667 searches at $0.15 per 1,000. Searlo's best rate is $0.20 and Scrapingdog's Light API is about $0.26.
The cheapest SERP API at scale
PrismCrawl's $0.15 per 1,000 rate is a one-time $1,000 purchase with no monthly commitment. Of the other providers' lowest public rates:
- Searlo bottoms out at $0.20 per 1,000 with a $799 purchase.
- Serper bottoms out at $0.30 per 1,000 with a $3,750 purchase.
- Scrapingdog's Google SERP Light API reaches about $0.21 per 1,000 on its $5,000/month plan, and its full Advance API about $0.42.
- OpenSERP charges a flat $0.50 per 1,000 at any volume. Its open-source edition can be self-hosted instead; see what self-hosting OpenSERP costs.
- DataForSEO's lowest rate is $0.60 per 1,000 in the standard queue; its live mode is $2.00.
- SearchCans bottoms out at $0.56 per 1,000 with a $1,680 purchase.
- SearchApi reaches $1.00 per 1,000 on its $5,000/month plan, and Bright Data $1.30 per 1,000 on overage above its $499/month Scale plan.
- SerpApi reaches $3.75 per 1,000 on its $3,750/month plan.
On published plans up to $5,000 a month, no provider in this comparison has a lower rate than PrismCrawl, and none of them reaches $0.15 per 1,000 with a one-time purchase.
What 1 million and 5 million searches a month cost
Monthly cost depends on how long prepaid credits last as much as on the headline rate. A $1,000 PrismCrawl package holds 6.7 million searches, but at 1 million a month most of it would expire after 90 days, so a buyer at that volume uses the $500 Scale package instead. The table below prices each provider at the best rate a steady monthly workload can use before credits expire or the plan resets.
| Provider | 1 million searches a month | 5 million searches a month |
|---|---|---|
| PrismCrawl | About $170 ($500 Scale package every 3 months, $0.17/1K) | About $750 ($1,000 Volume packages, $0.15/1K) |
| Searlo | About $200 ($799 Enterprise, $0.20/1K) | About $1,000 ($799 Enterprise, $0.20/1K) |
| Scrapingdog | $350/month Light or $1,000/month Advance | $1,500/month Light or $2,500/month Advance |
| Serper | About $500 ($1,250 package, $0.50/1K) | About $1,500 ($3,750 package, $0.30/1K) |
| OpenSERP | $500 | $2,500 |
| SearchCans | About $560 ($1,680 Ultimate, $0.56/1K) | About $2,800 ($1,680 Ultimate, $0.56/1K) |
| DataForSEO | $600 queued or $2,000 live | $3,000 queued or $10,000 live |
| Bright Data | About $1,305 ($499/month Scale plus overage) | About $6,505 ($499/month Scale plus overage) |
| SearchApi | $1,500/month (Octo 1M) | $5,000/month (Octo 5M) |
| SerpApi | $3,750/month (Cloud 1M) | $11,475/month (Cloud 5M) |
Credit lifetimes used above: PrismCrawl 90 days, Serper and SearchCans 6 months, Searlo 12 months. Scrapingdog, SearchApi, Bright Data, and SerpApi are monthly plans. OpenSERP and DataForSEO charge a flat rate from a prepaid balance.
Rate limits on cheap SERP API plans
A cheap plan with a low throughput cap can stretch a large job over days. These are the published limits on each provider's smallest and largest self-serve plans.
| Provider | Limit on the smallest plan | Limit on the largest self-serve plan |
|---|---|---|
| PrismCrawl | 5 requests per second ($5 package) | 100 requests per second ($1,000 package); custom plans at 1,000 or more |
| Serper | 50 queries per second ($50 package) | 300 queries per second ($3,750 package) |
| Scrapingdog | 5 concurrent requests ($40/month) | 600 concurrent requests ($5,000/month) |
| Bright Data | No published concurrency limit | No published concurrency limit |
| DataForSEO | 2,000 API calls per minute | 2,000 API calls per minute, up to 100 queued tasks per call |
| SearchCans | 2 parallel lanes, about 2,400 searches an hour ($18) | 113 parallel lanes, about 135,600 searches an hour ($1,680) |
| SearchApi | 20% of monthly credits per hour (2,000/hour at $40) | 20% of monthly credits per hour (1,000,000/hour at $5,000) |
| SerpApi | 200 searches per hour ($25/month) | 110,000 searches per hour ($3,750/month Cloud 1M) |
| Searlo | Not published; the same on every pack | Not published |
| OpenSERP | Not published | Not published |
At 100 requests per second, PrismCrawl's $1,000 package can run 360,000 searches an hour, so 5 million searches finish in about 14 hours. For the full throughput comparison, including concurrency and how to size a pipeline, see the scalable SERP API comparison.
Why the per-1,000 price is not the whole cost
A low headline rate can cost more than a higher one if it doesn't match your workload. Check these before buying:
- What counts as one request. Some providers bill one unit per results page, others per request regardless of depth, and some charge extra credits for advanced endpoints or features. Scrapingdog's Light and Advance Google APIs cost 5 and 10 credits respectively. DataForSEO charges the base price again for each extra 10 results, and SearchCans adds a credit for each extra page. Searlo's 1 credit rate covers its web search endpoint; a full results page costs 3 credits, or 8 when the AI Overview has to be rendered in a browser.
- AI Overviews and AI Mode. AI results can cost more than a standard search. Scrapingdog's Google AI Mode API uses 10 credits per request, twice its Light search. PrismCrawl's AI Overview and AI Mode endpoints use one credit, the same as any other search.
- Live, queued, or cached. DataForSEO's queued rate is less than a third of its live rate. Queued results suit batch rank tracking, but not an agent waiting on an answer. Cached results are cheaper still, but they may not show today's rankings.
- Failed requests. PrismCrawl, SerpApi, Bright Data, SearchCans, and OpenSERP bill only successful requests. If a provider bills failures, its effective rate rises with its error rate.
- Expiry and resets. Monthly plans reset unused searches, and prepaid credits can expire. PrismCrawl credits are valid for 90 days, and Serper's and SearchCans' for 6 months. DataForSEO funds do not expire, and an OpenSERP balance expires after 12 months without paid usage. A cheap rate on credits you cannot use in time is not cheap.
- Minimum purchase. The lowest rates require larger purchases: $799 for Searlo's lowest rate, $1,000 for PrismCrawl's Volume package, $1,680 for SearchCans', and $3,750 for Serper's. DataForSEO requires a $50 minimum top-up.
- Throughput. Lower plans often come with lower request-per-second or hourly limits. If your job must finish in a fixed window, check the limit attached to the plan you can afford. The rate limits table above lists each provider's published limits.
To estimate your own volume, multiply keywords × engines × locations × devices × checks per period × pages per check. The SERP API cost calculator runs this against PrismCrawl's current packages.
PrismCrawl pricing
PrismCrawl sells one-time prepaid credit packages with no subscription. Every search runs live, one successful search uses one credit, failed requests are free, and every package includes the same endpoints and SERP features.
| Package | Purchase | Searches | Per 1,000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Micro | $5 | 16,667 | $0.30 |
| Lite | $10 | 37,038 | $0.27 |
| Starter | $25 | 100,000 | $0.25 |
| Basic | $50 | 217,392 | $0.23 |
| Growth | $100 | 476,191 | $0.21 |
| Pro | $200 | 1,052,632 | $0.19 |
| Scale | $500 | 2,941,177 | $0.17 |
| Volume | $1,000 | 6,666,667 | $0.15 |
Credits are valid for 90 days, and new accounts get 100 free credits with no card required. The same balance covers Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Amazon, Maps, reviews, and app store endpoints. See SERP API pricing for rate limits per package, or try a request in the playground.
A small commitment before a larger workload
A low unit rate is useful only if the API returns the data you need. PrismCrawl lets you test that fit with 100 free credits and paid purchases from $5, without a subscription. The financial commitment is small: buy a sample-sized package, validate your required fields and endpoints, and add credits when you need them. Paid credits are valid for 90 days.
How to choose
- Estimate a month of successful searches, including extra pages, devices, and locations.
- Decide how fresh the results must be. If queued results are acceptable, DataForSEO's standard queue is worth pricing. If you need the current page during a request, compare live prices only.
- Price the purchase you would actually make, not the provider's lowest rate. Include expiry or monthly resets.
- Run the same 50 to 100 real queries on your shortlist with the free tiers. Check that the fields you need are present and that failures are handled the way you expect.
- Recheck prices before buying. Rates in this market change often.
For a feature-by-feature comparison beyond price, read the best Google SERP API buyer's guide. If you are replacing a specific provider, see the SerpApi alternatives, Serper alternatives, and DataForSEO alternatives guides, which price each option at that provider's typical volumes. For every SerpApi plan and its cost per 1,000, see SerpApi pricing, and for free allowances before you buy, see free SERP APIs.
Low unit cost for production workloads
PrismCrawl serves enterprise and production customers across more than 100 search and data endpoints. Its pricing applies across the API catalog, including shopping, maps, travel, reviews, and app stores. CAPTCHA solving and JavaScript challenges are automatic and are not exposed to customers. For sustained traffic, self-serve packages support up to 100 requests per second and custom plans support 1,000 or more.
Frequently asked questions
What is the cheapest SERP API in 2026?
Among the 10 on-demand SERP APIs compared here, PrismCrawl has the lowest price per 1,000 Google searches at every budget we compared, from $5 to $5,000 a month: $0.27 at $10, $0.21 at $100, and $0.15 at $1,000 and above. The next lowest rates are Searlo ($0.30 at $74.99, $0.20 at $799) and Scrapingdog's Google SERP Light API ($0.45 at $90/month).
What is the cheapest SERP API at scale?
PrismCrawl's $1,000 package costs $0.15 per 1,000 successful searches, the lowest rate in this comparison at that spend. On self-serve plans up to $5,000 a month, Searlo's lowest public rate is $0.20, Scrapingdog's Google SERP Light API is about $0.21, and Serper's is $0.30.
What is the cheapest SERP API without a subscription?
PrismCrawl, Searlo, Serper, DataForSEO, SearchCans, and OpenSERP sell prepaid balances instead of monthly plans, and Bright Data offers pay-as-you-go. Of these, PrismCrawl has the lowest rate at every budget from $5: $0.30 per 1,000 successful searches from a one-time $5 purchase, falling to $0.15 per 1,000 on the $1,000 package.
How much does a SERP API cost for 1 million searches a month?
In this comparison, 1 million Google searches a month costs about $170 with PrismCrawl ($0.17 per 1,000 on the $500 package), about $200 with Searlo, $350 on Scrapingdog's Light API, about $500 with Serper or OpenSERP, and $3,750 a month on SerpApi's Cloud 1M plan. At 5 million a month, PrismCrawl costs about $750 at $0.15 per 1,000.
Which cheap SERP API has the highest rate limits?
Among low cost providers, PrismCrawl allows 100 requests per second on its $1,000 package and runs custom plans at 1,000 or more, while Serper allows 300 queries per second on its $3,750 package. Bright Data publishes no concurrency limit but costs $1.30 to $1.50 per 1,000.
How much does PrismCrawl cost?
PrismCrawl sells one-time prepaid credit packages from $5 ($0.30 per 1,000 successful searches) to $1,000 ($0.15 per 1,000). One successful search uses one credit, failed requests are free, credits are valid for 90 days, and new accounts get 100 free credits.