Best SerpApi alternative for Google results as JSON (2026)

SerpApi is the incumbent search-results API. Send it a query and it returns the Google results page as JSON: organic results, ads, the knowledge panel, "people also ask", the local pack, shopping, everything. It does the same for Bing, YouTube, Google Maps, Amazon, Walmart, eBay, Yelp, Baidu, Yandex, and dozens more. The docs are the best in the category, it doesn't count failed or cached searches against you, and on the bigger plans it takes on the legal liability of scraping search engines with $2 million of coverage.

It's also priced for companies. The cheapest plan is $25 a month for 1,000 searches, which is 2.5 cents a search, and the plan resets every month whether you searched or not. If what you want is a rank check for a keyword list, or the top ten results for a query your agent just asked, that's a lot of platform to rent. Here's where SerpApi is worth it, where paying per request wins, and what each costs.

Where SerpApi is strong

SerpApi is the right call when search data is a core dependency and you need all of it.

• Every field, every surface. An organic result on SerpApi comes with sitelinks, rich snippets, and the position, and the same response carries the ads, the knowledge graph, related questions, and the local pack. If you're building an SEO product, that completeness is the product.
• Engines beyond Google. SerpApi lists over 80 engines: Bing, DuckDuckGo, Baidu, Yandex, Naver, YouTube, Apple's App Store, Yelp, Zillow, Walmart, and more. One search costs one search regardless of engine.
• Failed and cached searches are free. Only successful searches count. A cached result, valid for an hour, doesn't count either.
• It'll stand behind you legally. On Production ($150 a month) and up, SerpApi's U.S. Legal Shield assumes the liability of scraping and parsing search results, with coverage up to $2 million. No one else in the category offers that.
• It keeps shipping. A weekly changelog, MCP bundle support added September 9, 2026, a 99.95% SLA in the terms, and a throughput guarantee per plan.

If you need those, stay on SerpApi. The rest of this post is for the case where you need the ten blue links.

Where AnyAPI wins

Most search-API calls are a query in and a ranked list out. For that job the plan is the expensive part.

No monthly plan, and no searches that expire

SerpApi's pricing is monthly and it goes a long way up: Starter is $25 for 1,000 searches, Developer $75 for 5,000, Production $150 for 15,000, Big Data $275 for 30,000, and it continues past $2,750 a month to cloud plans priced at over $100,000. Enterprise reserved capacity is $2.75 per 1,000 and starts at $3,750 a month.

Per search, that's 2.5 cents on Starter, a cent on Production, and 0.92 cents on Big Data. There's no overage rate. When you run out, SerpApi's "automatic early renewal" bills the whole plan again and resets the counter, and the searches you didn't use in a slow month are gone.

Paying per request is $0.90 per 1,000 searches. Five thousand searches in a month, which is what SerpApi's $75 Developer plan buys, is $4.50. A month with no searches is $0.

About as fast, and you can see it

SerpApi's status page shows a 1.23 second average response over the last 30 days. AnyAPI's Google search endpoint page shows a 1.1 second median over 6,970 calls in the same window, and the 40-call test below landed at 2.8. Neither is slow enough to matter for a keyword list; SerpApi sells faster tiers at twice and four times the base price if an agent is waiting.

One shape across the Google surfaces

SerpApi's response is different for every engine, which is right for SerpApi, because it's exposing everything Google shows. AnyAPI covers the Google surfaces most people actually query, each as its own endpoint with the same envelope: web search at $0.90 per 1,000, the full top 100 for a keyword at $1.80, news at $0.99, images at $1.98, autocomplete at $0.99, AI Mode answers at $0.70, AI Overviews at $1.80, and Scholar and Patents at $0.99. YouTube search is $0.50, Amazon search $0.50.

One call, and what it cost

Here's the search and what came back: ten results for $0.0009 in 1.5 seconds on September 11, 2026. The first result was a Reddit thread titled "We should look for another option besides SerpAPI, right?", which wasn't planned.

curl https://api.getanyapi.com/v1/run/google.search \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ANYAPI_KEY" \
  -d '{"query": "serpapi alternatives"}'

import os, requests

r = requests.post(
    "https://api.getanyapi.com/v1/run/google.search",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['ANYAPI_KEY']}"},
    json={"query": "serpapi alternatives"},
)
body = r.json()
print(body["costUsd"], body["output"]["data"]["results"][0]["title"])
# 0.0009 We should look for another option besides SerpAPI, right?

const r = await fetch("https://api.getanyapi.com/v1/run/google.search", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.ANYAPI_KEY}` },
  body: JSON.stringify({ query: "serpapi alternatives" }),
});
const { costUsd, output } = await r.json();
console.log(costUsd, output.data.results.length); // 0.0009 10

Each result has a position, title, link, and snippet, and the response carries a cursor for the next page. Change the endpoint name and the same call returns news, images, or a Google Maps listing.

The same 20 searches through three APIs

Twenty queries, from "rank tracking api" to "how to cook risotto", ran twice through AnyAPI's google.search and through Serper, and once through SearchApi.io, on September 13, 2026. SerpApi issues a key only after phone verification, so its row is its own published status page rather than a measurement.

All 100 calls came back with results. Three things in the numbers matter more than the price.

Fewer than ten results is normal now. AnyAPI returned fewer than ten organic results on 36 of its 40 calls, Serper on 32 of 40, and SearchApi.io on all 20. Google's first page holds an AI overview, a "people also ask" block, videos, and a shopping row, and the organic list is what's left. An API that promises ten results per page is either padding from page two or counting non-organic blocks. If you need a fixed count, AnyAPI's google.search_100 returns the top 100 for a keyword at $1.80 per 1,000.

What a result carries. SerpApi's response is the whole page: ads, knowledge panel, related questions, the lot. Serper adds a date and sitelinks to the four basic fields. SearchApi.io adds the domain, favicon, and the words Google bolded. AnyAPI returns position, title, link, and snippet, which is what a rank check or an agent's lookup reads, and nothing to strip. If you'll use the extra fields, they're worth paying for; if you won't, you're paying for parsing you throw away.

Speed, in passing. Serper answered in 1.1 seconds at the median and SerpApi's status page says 1.23; AnyAPI was 2.8 on this run with a longer tail, and SearchApi.io 4.4. For a nightly keyword list none of that matters. For an agent waiting on the answer, Serper is the quick one and SerpApi sells faster tiers at two and four times the price.

Other SerpApi alternatives worth a look

SerpApi's price is the reason people search for an alternative, and there are more than two answers. These are the ones that publish a usable number, read from their pricing pages on September 13, 2026, priced per 1,000 Google searches.

Serper is the closest thing to SerpApi for a tenth of the price. It's Google only, it was the fastest API in the test above, and 2,500 free queries need no card. The catch is the model: $50 buys 50,000 credits that expire in six months, so a light user is buying months of searches up front.

SearchApi.io is the SerpApi clone: the same JSON shape, more than 70 engines, and a monthly plan. At $4.00 per 1,000 on its $40 plan it's cheaper than SerpApi's $25 and dearer than everyone else, and it was the slowest API in the test. Pick it if you need Bing or Baidu and SerpApi's price is the only problem.

Scrapingdog hides its Google price behind a credit count: a search costs 5 credits, so the $40 plan's 200,000 credits are 40,000 searches, and the free tier's 200 credits are 40. That's $1.00 per 1,000, the same as Serper, with subscription credits that expire monthly and a pay-as-you-go pack that doesn't.

DataForSEO is the cheapest real number in the table if you can wait. Its standard queue is $0.60 per 1,000 with a target turnaround of 45 minutes; the live mode that actually competes with the rest is $2.00. Search operators like site: multiply the price by five, which rank tracking uses constantly. The $50 minimum never expires.

Bright Data's SERP API charges $1.50 per 1,000 with no plan and no minimum, and gives away 5,000 requests a month, so under that volume it's free and nobody in this table beats it. Above it, the per-search price is among the highest here. Seven engines at one price.

Zenserp and Oxylabs are monthly plans with a wide spread: Zenserp from $2.00 per 1,000 on its $49.99 plan down to $0.90 at $900 a month, Oxylabs from $1.00 pay as you go down to $0.30 on a $999 plan. Both are fine if you'll fill the plan; neither publishes what happens to unused searches.

The short version: the fastest cheap Google-only API is Serper. The cheapest if you can queue is DataForSEO. The cheapest at low volume is Bright Data's free 5,000. The full page across every engine is still SerpApi. Organic results as JSON with no plan and no expiry, $0.90 per 1,000, is AnyAPI. The rank tracking API roundup runs most of these on one keyword list.

SerpApi vs paying per request, at a glance

Limitations and tradeoffs

Building an SEO product or need Bing? Stay on SerpApi. Nothing else returns the whole results page across that many engines, and the Legal Shield matters if search data is your business.

Need the ranked results and a price you can budget? Pay per request. Rank checks, an agent's web lookups, a nightly keyword list, a research crawl. You get the organic results as JSON at $0.90 per 1,000 and never think about a quota.

Two limits on AnyAPI's side. google.search returns organic results, so if you need the ads or the knowledge panel from the same page you'll want SerpApi. And there's no Bing, Baidu, or Yandex endpoint.

If it's rank tracking specifically, the rank tracking API roundup compares Serper, SerpApi, DataForSEO, and the rest on one job. For proxy-scale infrastructure there's the best Bright Data alternative, and for a raw-HTML scraping API, the best ScraperAPI alternative.

Use data responsibly and follow AnyAPI's Acceptable Use Policy.