SerpApi vs Serper vs DataForSEO (2026): Pricing and Limits
Of these three, Serper is the cheapest way to get live Google results: $1.00 per 1,000 searches on its smallest pack, down to $0.30 on its largest, with no subscription. DataForSEO is cheaper again if your jobs can wait in a queue, at $0.60 per 1,000 results pages, and $2.00 when you need the answer live. SerpApi costs the most per search on all but its largest plans, from $25 per 1,000 on its Starter plan to about $1.96 on its largest, and in return covers far more engines and Google verticals than the other two, with a legal shield on bigger plans.
Prices checked 3 October 2026 on serpapi.com/pricing, serper.dev and DataForSEO's Google Organic pricing. All three sell the same basic thing: a search engine results page, parsed into JSON. The differences are in how you pay, how fast you can go, and what else comes with it.
At a glance
| SerpApi | Serper | DataForSEO | |
|---|---|---|---|
| How you pay | Monthly plan, month to month | Prepaid credit packs, no subscription | Pay as you go balance, $50 minimum payment |
| Entry price, per 1,000 | $25.00 (Starter, $25 a month for 1,000) | $1.00 ($50 for 50,000 credits) | $0.60 queued, $2.00 live |
| Lowest published, per 1,000 | About $1.96 (Cloud 54M plan) | $0.30 ($3,750 for 12.5M credits) | Same as entry |
| Free tier | 250 searches a month | 2,500 free queries, no card | $1 credit on signup, no card |
| Rate limit | 50 to 640,000 successful searches an hour, by plan | 50 to 300 queries a second, by pack | 2,000 API calls a minute, up to 100 tasks per call |
| How results arrive | One request, one response | One request, one response | Queue (post a task, collect it later) or Live |
| Engines | Google plus Bing, Baidu, Yandex, DuckDuckGo, YouTube, Amazon, Walmart, Naver and more | Google: Search, Images, News, Maps, Places, Videos, Shopping, Scholar, Patents, Autocomplete | Google, Bing, YouTube, Yahoo, Baidu, Naver, Seznam |
| Output | JSON | JSON | Parsed JSON or raw HTML |
SerpApi: plans and what they cost per search
SerpApi sells monthly plans. Each plan gives a number of searches a month and a guaranteed throughput per hour.
| Plan | Per month | Searches | Per 1,000 | Throughput per hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 250 | 50 | |
| Starter | $25 | 1,000 | $25.00 | 200 |
| Developer | $75 | 5,000 | $15.00 | 1,000 |
| Production | $150 | 15,000 | $10.00 | 3,000 |
| Big Data | $275 | 30,000 | $9.17 | 6,000 |
| Searcher | $725 | 100,000 | $7.25 | 20,000 |
| Volume | $1,475 | 250,000 | $5.90 | 50,000 |
| Infrastructure | $2,750 | 500,000 | $5.50 | 100,000 |
| Cloud 1M | $3,750 | 1,000,000 | $3.75 | 110,000 |
| Cloud 54M | $106,050 | 54,000,000 | $1.96 | 640,000 |
A few rules on the pricing page change the real number:
- "Only successful searches are counted toward your monthly searches. Cached, errored, and failed searches are not." The number of results in a response doesn't change the cost either.
- Faster speed modes cost more. Ludicrous Speed doubles the plan price and Ludicrous Speed Max quadruples it, so Starter becomes $50 or $100 a month for the same 1,000 searches.
- From Production up, plans include U.S. Legal Shield, which "provides up to $2 million in coverage for the scraping and parsing of search engine data, as long as your use of the data or service is not illegal." Cloud plans add ZeroTrace Mode, which stops SerpApi storing your search data.
SerpApi does better than the other two on breadth. If you need Google Flights, Hotels, Scholar or Shopping, plus Amazon, Walmart, YouTube or Yandex results, from one account and one response format, it's the obvious pick. The legal shield also matters to some legal teams more than the price per search.
Serper: prepaid packs for live Google results
Serper sells credit packs. Bigger packs cost less per query and come with a higher rate limit.
| Pack | Price | Credits | Per 1,000 | Rate limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $50 | 50,000 | $1.00 | 50 queries a second |
| Standard | $375 | 500,000 | $0.75 | 100 queries a second |
| Scale | $1,250 | 2,500,000 | $0.50 | 200 queries a second |
| Ultimate | $3,750 | 12,500,000 | $0.30 | 300 queries a second |
Three details from the page are worth knowing before you buy:
- Credits are valid for 6 months. The $0.30 rate only works out if you use 12.5 million queries in that time, which is about 2.1 million a month. Below that, some of the pack expires.
- Credits are deducted "every time you receive successful responses to queries." Prices exclude sales tax, VAT and GST.
- Refunds: "a full refund within 7 days of your initial credit purchase unless you have used more than 20% of your credits."
Serper does better than SerpApi on price at every volume, and better than DataForSEO's Live mode too. It only covers Google, so if you need other engines it isn't an option.
DataForSEO: cheapest per page if you can wait
DataForSEO prices each results page by how fast you want it. One page here means 10 results.
| Mode | Per page | Per 1,000 pages | Average turnaround, as DataForSEO states it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard Queue | $0.0006 | $0.60 | 5 minutes |
| Priority Queue | $0.0012 | $1.20 | Up to 1 minute |
| Live | $0.002 | $2.00 | Up to 6 seconds |
The queue modes work in two steps: you post tasks (up to 100 per call), then collect the results when they're ready, or have DataForSEO call your server back. That's more code than one request and one response, and it's why the price is lower.
Two multipliers can change the bill a lot:
- Depth. Results are priced per 10. Ask for 100 results per keyword with the
depthparameter and you pay for 10 pages. SerpApi, by contrast, says the number of results doesn't change what a search costs. - Search operators. Using
site:,inurl:,intitle:,filetype:and similar operators is priced at "Multiply by 5 for each parameter used".
There's no subscription. The minimum payment is $50, and new accounts get a $1 credit with no card. The rate limit is 2,000 API calls a minute.
DataForSEO does better than both others when you run large batches overnight, for example a rank tracker refreshing thousands of keywords a day. It also offers raw HTML if you'd rather parse the page yourself.
What a month actually costs
Three monthly volumes, cheapest valid option for each. Serper packs are bought upfront and expire after 6 months, so the monthly figure is the pack price spread over the months it lasts.
| Searches a month | SerpApi | Serper | DataForSEO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10,000 | $150 (Production) | $10 of a $50 Starter pack, which lasts 5 months | $6 queued, $20 live (from a $50 minimum payment) |
| 100,000 | $725 (Searcher) | $75 (a $375 Standard pack lasts 5 months) | $60 queued, $200 live |
| 1,000,000 | $3,750 (Cloud 1M) | $500 (a $1,250 Scale pack lasts 2.5 months) | $600 queued, $2,000 live |
This assumes one page of results per search and no operators. If you need 100 results per keyword or site: queries, redo the DataForSEO column with its multipliers.
Which one fits
- You need many engines or Google verticals from one API: SerpApi. You pay more per search, and you get breadth, a legal shield from Production up, and plans that are easy to budget.
- You need live Google results at the lowest price: Serper. Prepaid, high rate limits, and $0.30 to $1.00 per 1,000. Plan your pack size around the 6 month expiry.
- You run large batches and can wait minutes for results: DataForSEO's Standard Queue at $0.60 per 1,000 pages. Use Live at $2.00 when a user is waiting.
- You need raw HTML: DataForSEO.
Where Serpex fits, and where it doesn't
All three are SERP APIs: they give you a copy of a search engine's results page, ads and SERP features included. That's what rank trackers, SEO tools and ad monitors need, and Serpex is the wrong tool for it. It doesn't return any search engine's results page, ads or rankings by location.
Serpex is our own search engine, built for AI agents and RAG. One call returns ranked web results, and with include_content it returns the page text of the top 5 or 10 results as markdown in the same response. It costs $0.80, $0.65 or $0.50 per 1,000 searches depending on how much you top up, with no subscription and 200 free credits to start. If your agent needs "what does the web say about this" rather than "what does Google show for this keyword", it's worth a look. The difference between the two kinds of API is laid out in SERP API vs Search API, the wider price table is in Search API Pricing in 2026, and the short comparison with SerpApi is on SerpApi alternative.
FAQ
Which is cheapest: SerpApi, Serper or DataForSEO?
DataForSEO's Standard Queue at $0.60 per 1,000 pages, if you can wait for results. For live results, Serper at $0.30 to $1.00 per 1,000. SerpApi is the most expensive per search on every plan up to Cloud 1M ($3.75 per 1,000). Only its largest Cloud plans, tens of millions of searches a month, dip just under DataForSEO's $2.00 Live price.
Do failed searches cost anything?
SerpApi counts only successful searches; cached, errored and failed searches aren't counted. Serper deducts credits when you receive a successful response.
Does DataForSEO need a subscription?
No. It's pay as you go with a $50 minimum payment, and new accounts start with a $1 credit.
Do Serper credits expire?
Yes, after 6 months. Buy the pack you'll use up in that time, not the one with the lowest rate.
How were these prices checked?
Every figure comes from the vendor's own pricing page, fetched on 3 October 2026. Per-1,000 figures for plans are the plan price divided by the searches it includes. Prices in this category change often, so check the vendor's page before you commit.