2026-09-17, SERP API · Google · Fundamentals

Cheapest SERP API per 1,000 Google searches (2026)

On list prices checked 2026-09-17, the lowest per-1,000 figure for Google results is DataForSEO’s standard queue at $0.60, with results in minutes rather than seconds. For live results, Serper’s credit packs ($1.00 down to $0.30 per 1,000) and Scrape.do’s monthly plans ($0.70 to $1.16 per 1,000 searches) are the low end. Those figures assume one results page, no rendering, no add-ons and a plan you fill. Below, 12 vendors are normalized to a monthly bill at 10,000, 100,000 and 1,000,000 Google searches, followed by the fees the headline rates leave out.

Every competitor price comes from that vendor’s own pricing or documentation page, linked and checked 2026-09-17.

Comparison table

Normalized monthly cost at 10k, 100k and 1M searches

Method:

1. One Google web search, first results page only, no JavaScript rendering, no add-ons, a live request unless noted.
2. For each volume, the cheapest published plan or pack that covers it. Credit vendors are converted with their documented per-Google-request cost.
3. Prepaid packs with an expiry are spread over the months you can use them before expiry.
4. Where the volume exceeds every published plan, the cell says “custom”.
5. Taxes, annual discounts and promotions are excluded.

Notes on specific cells:

• Serper at 1M. The 12.5M-credit pack has the lowest rate ($0.30 per 1,000), but at 1M searches a month you use only 6M before the six-month expiry, which works out to $625 a month. The 2.5M pack at $0.50 is cheaper at that volume.
• Oxylabs. Google result counts per plan come from its billing help page. At 1M, Venture ($499) covers about 713,000 results, so Business ($999) is the first plan that fits.
• ScraperAPI. Its costs doc lists Google at 25 credits per request, which turns Hobby’s 100,000 credits into 4,000 searches ($12.25 per 1,000). Pay as you go exists on Scaling and above, but the rate is not published.
• ScrapingBee. Its tooltip says a search costs “10 credits with Light Request enabled, 15 otherwise”. If you need AI Overviews, use the regular rate: $49, $249 and custom.
• Apify. The per-event price falls with plan tier: $2.50 per 1,000 pages on Starter, $1.95 on Scale, $1.80 on Business. The figures assume usage above the included amount is billed at those rates, and ignore the $0.001 per-run start fee.
• Bright Data at 10k. Its free tier covers 5K requests a month, so the bill could be lower. Free tiers are otherwise excluded.

Per 1,000 searches at each volume

At 10,000 searches a month plan minimums dominate, so pay-as-you-go and small packs win. At 1M the per-unit rate dominates and the spread narrows.

Costs the headline rate leaves out

Billing on failure

“Pay only for successful requests” is defined differently by each vendor:

• SearchApi: “Only successful searches with a 200 status code incur charges.”
• SerpApi: “Cached, errored, and failed searches are not” counted.
• Scrape.do: charged for 2xx, 400, 404 and 410 (docs).
• ScraperAPI: charged for 200 and 404, and for requests you cancel before 70 seconds (credit costs).
• Oxylabs: attempts returning 2xx or 4xx count as successful; 5xx and 6xx are free.
• DataForSEO: funds for a failed request are “immediately returned”.
• AnswerLine: a failed request is not charged and its reservation is released (credits).

A vendor that bills 4xx charges for your own malformed requests. A bug in a query builder can burn a month of credits in an afternoon, so validate requests before a large run.

Add-ons and multipliers

• Depth: DataForSEO multiplies the price for each additional 10 results. AnswerLine charges 2 credits for each Google page after the first.
• Search operators: DataForSEO multiplies by 5 for operators such as site:.
• Rendering: Oxylabs charges $1.35 instead of $1.00 per 1,000 on Micro when JavaScript is rendered. ScraperAPI adds 10 credits for render=true. ScrapingBee’s regular request costs 15 credits instead of 10.
• Speed tiers: SerpApi’s pricing page lists 2× and 4× speed modes. SearchApi’s “enhanced speed” doubles plan prices.
• Synchronous calls: AnswerLine adds 2 credits to a synchronous call; async tasks pay the base price.

AI Overview surcharges

If AI Overview matters, the cheapest vendor above may not stay cheapest:

• DataForSEO: load_async_ai_overview adds one base price, so $0.60 becomes $1.20 per 1,000 in the standard queue.
• ScrapingBee: AI Overviews need JavaScript rendering, so only 15-credit regular requests return them (docs).
• Oxylabs: render: "html" is required, so the rendered rate applies.
• Scrape.do: included when complete; a deferred overview costs a 5-credit follow-up within 90 seconds.
• Apify: a separate event, $2.00 per 1,000 captured overviews on Starter and $1.00 on Business.
• SerpApi and SearchApi: sometimes a follow-up request with a short-lived token. Neither page says whether it is billed.
• AnswerLine: include.aioverview adds 2 credits once per request.

Throughput and concurrency

• Hourly caps: SerpApi (under 1M searches a month) and SearchApi cap usage at 20% of plan volume per hour.
• Queries per second: Serper gives 50 QPS on its smallest pack and 300 on its largest. Oxylabs allows 50 requests per second on most plans.
• Concurrent threads: ScraperAPI runs 20 threads on Hobby and 500 on Advanced, ScrapingBee 25 to 400, Scrape.do 10 to 200.
• No stated ceiling: Bright Data says there is no limit on concurrent requests.
• AnswerLine: concurrency depends on the plan (rate limits); async tasks wait in a queue for a slot instead of failing.

Check the ceiling against your daily job. 20,000 synchronous searches at a few seconds each take hours at 20 threads and minutes at 200.

Expiry and rollover

• Serper credits expire six months after purchase.
• ScrapingBee credits are valid for one month and do not roll over.
• ScraperAPI credits do not roll over.
• Apify’s prepaid platform usage does not roll over.
• AnswerLine’s monthly credits do not roll over.
• DataForSEO draws from a deposited balance, and its pricing page mentions a 30-day refund of unused funds.

For seasonal volume, a monthly plan sized for the peak wastes money the rest of the year.

Geo and plan gating

ScraperAPI’s Hobby and Startup plans are “US & EU only” for geotargeting. Zenserp batches with webhooks start at Medium. Geo targeting carries no surcharge at most SERP APIs; DataForSEO states that “the cost of the task doesn’t depend on the location parameter”.

Example: 100,000 searches a month with AI Overview on every query

A rank tracker recording AI Overview citations, 100,000 queries a month, first page only. Prices checked 2026-09-17.

Once AI Overview is required, rendering-based vendors roughly double their Google price and the order changes. The “up to” and “not stated” cells are open questions: run 500 of your own keywords through a free tier and read the billing log before committing.

Choosing on price

1. Fix the request: depth, device, geo, rendering and SERP features. Cost only that request.
2. Estimate monthly volume and its shape. Steady volume favours subscriptions; spiky volume favours pay as you go or long-lived credits.
3. Pick the latency tier. If a nightly job can wait minutes, queued pricing is the cheapest line on this page.
4. Check the failure rule and the throughput cap against your job size.
5. Count engineering time. Without webhooks or batching you build a worker pool and retries; see sync, async and webhooks and errors and retries.
6. Trial with your own keywords. Every vendor here has a free tier; use it to measure the credits charged per request.

If you also report what AI assistants say about a brand, budget those requests in the same exercise with AI monitoring cost planning. AnswerLine’s Google credit costs are on the Google Search engine page.

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