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Best SerpApi Alternatives in 2026, Ranked

Quick answer: Serper is the best SerpApi alternative for most developers in 2026: 2,500 free queries and $50 for 50,000 Google searches. Pick SearchApi for the easiest swap, Brave Search API if you want results from an independent index instead of a scraped Google page, and DataForSEO for bulk rank tracking at $0.0006 per SERP.

SerpApi's entry plans are where the search starts. The free plan covers 250 searches a month, Starter is $25 for 1,000, and Developer is $75 for 5,000. Several competitors sell Google results for a fraction of that per search.

Most pages ranking for this query are written by a scraping vendor that concludes you should buy its product. Public APIs sells no search API, and our directory lists SerpApi beside six of the eight providers ranked here, so this ranking has no product of its own in it. One disclosure: SerpApi advertises on Public APIs, which changes nothing below. Every price below comes from each vendor's pricing page, read on 16 October 2026.

Why do developers look for a SerpApi alternative?

Three reasons come up again and again:

  1. Price per search. On Developer, SerpApi works out to $75 for 5,000 searches. Serper and Autom both charge $1.00 per 1,000, and ScrapingDog's Google SERP Light endpoint costs $1 per 1,000 on its Lite plan.
  2. A small free tier. 250 searches a month is enough to test an integration and not enough to run a side project that checks rankings daily.
  3. Legal risk. Google sued SerpApi in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in December 2025, with two claims under Section 1201 of the DMCA (reported by Search Engine Journal on 20 December 2025). SerpApi's answer for customers is its U.S. Legal Shield, which its pricing page says provides up to $2 million in coverage.

How do the free tiers and prices compare?

The units differ: some vendors sell searches, some sell credits, one sells dollars of usage.

| Provider | Free allowance | Entry price | Data source | |---|---|---|---| | SerpApi | 250 searches/month | $25/month for 1,000 | Scraped results, many engines | | Serper | 2,500 queries, once | $50 for 50,000 | Scraped Google results | | SearchApi | 100 requests, once | $40/month for 10,000 | Scraped results, many engines | | Brave Search API | $5 of credit/month | $5 per 1,000 requests | Brave's own index | | DataForSEO | None stated | $0.0006 per SERP, queued | Scraped results, many engines | | Autom | 1,000 requests, once | $50 for 50,000 | Google, Bing, Brave, Perplexity | | ScrapingDog | 20 Light searches | $40/month (40K Light searches) | Scraped Google results | | HasData | 1,000 credits/month | $49/month for 200,000 credits | Scraped results |

Two things fall out of that table. Serper and Autom sell credits that are not tied to a monthly subscription, which suits uneven usage. And Brave is the only provider on the list that answers from an index it built itself, so its results are not Google's, and neither is the legal question.

What are the best SerpApi alternatives?

Ranked for a developer replacing SerpApi to get Google results as JSON: rank tracking, enrichment, or grounding an AI agent.

  1. Serper. The cheapest well-known Google results API: 2,500 free queries with no card, then $50 for 50,000 credits, which is $1.00 per 1,000. Search, images, news, maps, places, shopping and scholar endpoints cover what most apps need. Not in our directory yet. Verdict: best overall on price for Google results.
  2. SearchApi. The nearest drop-in for SerpApi code: a long list of engines and Google verticals in the same shape of JSON. 100 free requests on sign-up, then the Developer Plan at $40 a month for 10,000 searches, or $4 per 1,000. Listed as SearchApi. Verdict: easiest migration from a SerpApi integration.
  3. Brave Search API. Results from Brave's own web index, not a parsed Google page. The Search plan costs $5 per 1,000 requests and includes $5 in free credits every month, so the first 1,000 requests each month cost nothing. Listed as Brave Search API. Verdict: best for AI agents and for anyone who needs to stay out of the scraping question.
  4. DataForSEO. Pay-as-you-go from $0.0006 per SERP in the Standard Queue to $0.002 in Live mode. Queued tasks are slower, which does not matter for a nightly rank check across thousands of keywords. Verdict: cheapest at volume, if results can wait.
  5. Autom. $1.00 per 1,000 on the $50 Starter pack, the same price whether the request goes to Google, Bing, Brave or Perplexity, and only successful responses consume credits. 1,000 free requests to start. Verdict: best for cheap multi-engine results.
  6. ScrapingDog. A general scraping API with Google endpoints. The Lite plan is $40 a month for 200,000 credits, and the Google SERP Light API costs 5 credits a request, so roughly 40,000 searches. Listed as ScrapingDog. Verdict: best if you also scrape ordinary web pages.
  7. HasData. The only recurring free plan here besides Brave's: 1,000 credits every month. Named APIs cost 5 or 10 credits a call, so that is 100 to 200 Google searches. Startup is $49 a month for 200,000 credits. Verdict: best free monthly allowance for low-volume jobs.
  8. OpenSERP. An open-source, self-hosted SERP API (MIT) that renders Google, Bing, Yandex, Baidu, DuckDuckGo and Ecosia in a browser. On GitHub it had 1,480 stars and a last push on 28 September 2026 when we read it on 16 October 2026. A managed version is listed as OpenSERP Cloud. Verdict: best if you would rather run the scraper than rent it.

When is SerpApi still the better pick?

Stay with SerpApi when you need breadth or cover. Its catalog runs from Google Flights and Google Scholar to Walmart, Yelp and the App Store, so few apps outgrow it. Its plans state guaranteed hourly throughput, and the U.S. Legal Shield is a contractual answer to the lawsuit that cheaper vendors do not offer. If your legal team asks who carries the risk, that line on the pricing page matters more than the price per search.

What our directory shows about search APIs

Our directory has no search category. On 16 October 2026, 10 published listings returned search-engine results, and 8 of them sit in the development category, with OpenSERP Cloud under open-source projects and HasData under news.

All 10 authenticate with an API key. 6 of the 10 are recorded as blocking browser requests (no CORS), 3 allow them, and 1 is unknown. That matches how these APIs are billed: a SERP key spends real money per call, so it belongs on your server, never in front-end code. Our guide to API authentication methods covers how to store and rotate one.

Two of the 10 listings advertise on Public APIs: SerpApi and Thordata. Advertising buys placement on the site, not a place in this ranking. If you are feeding search results into a language model, our ranking of OpenAI API alternatives covers the models on the other side of that call.

Which one should you pick?

| If this is you | Pick | |---|---| | Want Google results as cheaply as possible | Serper or Autom | | Migrating a SerpApi integration with least change | SearchApi | | Grounding an AI agent, or avoiding scraped data | Brave Search API | | Tracking thousands of keywords overnight | DataForSEO | | Need a free allowance that renews every month | HasData or Brave Search API | | Want to own the scraper | OpenSERP, self-hosted | | Need many engines plus legal cover | Stay on SerpApi |

Frequently asked questions

Is SerpApi illegal?

Using SerpApi is not illegal in itself, but Google sued SerpApi in December 2025 under the anti-circumvention part of the DMCA, so the legal question is open. SerpApi offers a U.S. Legal Shield of up to $2 million in coverage. If that risk matters to you, Brave Search API serves its own index and sidesteps it.

Which API is better, SearchApi or SerpApi?

For price, SearchApi: its Developer Plan is $40 a month for 10,000 searches, against $75 for 5,000 on SerpApi's Developer plan. The two cover a similar range of engines. SerpApi is better if you want its Legal Shield and throughput guarantees.

Is SerpApi the cheapest?

No. Serper and Autom both sell Google results at $1.00 per 1,000, and DataForSEO starts at $0.0006 per SERP in its queued mode. SerpApi's free plan of 250 searches a month is smaller than most of the alternatives above.

What is the best free search API?

For a renewing free tier, Brave Search API includes $5 in free credits every month, which covers 1,000 requests, and HasData gives 1,000 credits a month. For a one-time allowance, Serper's 2,500 free queries is the largest on this list.