--- source_url: "https://cloro.dev/blog/best_serp_apis/" title: "Best SERP APIs 2026: 12 Tested on Cost, AI and Tracking" mirrored_at: 2026-09-01T13:04:10.707Z host: cloro.dev cited_in_42a: true mirror_canonical: "https://index.42a.ai/cloro.dev/blog/best_serp_apis/index" --- > **Original source:** https://cloro.dev/blog/best_serp_apis/ **Every team running on Google’s official Custom Search JSON API has until January 1, 2027 to migrate.** Per [Google’s developer docs](https://developers.google.com/custom-search/v1/overview), the API is [closed to new customers](https://blog.expertrec.com/google-custom-search-json-api-simplified/), leaving existing customers on a 13-month sunset clock. It was never a real SERP product: 10 results per request, no ads, no AI Overview, no People Also Ask. But it was cheap enough that thousands of teams built on it, and every one of them needs a migration plan. That is the single biggest forcing function for SERP API adoption in 2026. Three other pressures set the baseline. **AI Overviews are now a majority-of-SERP feature**, appearing on 87% of US results in cloro’s [SERP feature census](https://cloro.dev/research/serp-feature-census/) and [roughly 48% of BrightEdge’s broader tracking](https://www.brightedge.com/resources/weekly-ai-search-insights/ai-overviews-one-year-presence-size-citing), with [475% YoY mobile growth](https://www.seoclarity.net/blog/ai-overview-presence-mobile-search) per seoClarity, so an API that skips the generative block returns a partial page. **Citation is decoupling from rank**: position-1 organic CTR fell 58% under AIO per [Ahrefs](https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-overviews-reduce-clicks-update/), and only 38% of AIO-cited pages still rank in the organic top 10, down from 76%, per [Ahrefs’ 4M-URL study](https://almcorp.com/blog/google-ai-overview-citations-drop-top-ranking-pages-2026/). **Multi-engine is now a requirement**, since ChatGPT drives [87.4% of AI referral traffic](https://www.conductor.com/academy/aeo-geo-benchmarks-report/) per Conductor and Gemini’s [750M+ MAU](https://blog.google/company-news/inside-google/message-ceo/alphabet-earnings-q4-2025/) is a separate citation pool with its own signals. Underneath all of it, Google removed the `&num=100` parameter on September 11, 2025 per [Locomotive Agency](https://locomotive.agency/blog/google-removes-num100-parameter-what-this-means-for-your-website/), which roughly 10x’d infrastructure costs at top-100 depth and reset pricing across the category. To rank the best SERP APIs on evidence, we benchmarked 12 tools head to head against SerpApi, the category default. Every tool here returns structured search results as parsed JSON rather than raw HTML. Scope is multi-engine SERP APIs plus the proxy vendors (Oxylabs) that now layer SERP endpoints on their pools. Four categories are out of scope, each covered elsewhere. [Bright Data](https://cloro.dev/comparisons/brightdata-alternatives/) is a proxy business sold on committed volume, so it sits in [Best Google Scraper 2026](https://cloro.dev/blog/best-google-scraper/). General scrapers like ZenRows and ScrapingBee get our [ScrapingBee alternative](https://cloro.dev/comparisons/scrapingbee-alternatives/) breakdown. Apify reaches Google through community-built actors, and AI search APIs like Tavily and Exa return synthesized answers rather than a parsed results page. For pricing alone see [Cheapest SERP API 2026](https://cloro.dev/blog/cheapest-serp-api/); for the DIY route, [scraping Google with Python](https://cloro.dev/blog/scrape-google-search/). Every vendor named here also has a standalone head-to-head write-up in our [comparisons index](https://cloro.dev/comparisons/). ## How do the best SERP APIs compare on benchmark data? Measured head to head on the same 50 queries, the tools split cleanly: cloro leads on AI Overview parsing depth and AI-surface breadth, SerpApi on engine count, DataForSEO on bulk cost, and Serper on raw latency. A ”—” means the axis is not where that tool competes. Tool AI Overview parsing AI surfaces beyond Google Engines Starting price **[cloro](https://cloro.dev/serp-api/)** Deep: sources, citation positions, videos, ads AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, Grok Google Free 500 credits/mo, then from $30/mo SerpApi Parsed, cited sources — 80+ incl. Bing, Baidu, Yandex, eBay, YouTube $25/mo (1k searches) [Serpent API](https://apiserpent.com/) Parsed, included at base rate Citation tracking only: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Brave $0.60/1k, or $0.03/1k after a one-time $500 deposit DataForSEO Parsed, +$2/1k first page — Google, Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, Baidu, Naver $0.60/1k (Standard) SearchApi Parsed ChatGPT Search, Perplexity Google, Bing, YouTube $40/mo (10k searches) Serper Partial — Google, Bing $50 for 50k credits (2.5k free) SE Ranking Parsed via AI Search API ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Mode Google, Bing $129/mo (bundled) Scrapingdog Parsed, included — Google Search, Maps, Images $40/mo HasData Parsed, 15+ SERP features — (separate AI Mode API) Google $49/mo [ScrapeBadger](https://scrapebadger.com/) Parsed into text blocks with cited source URLs ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, AI Mode Google, Bing, Yahoo, Baidu, DuckDuckGo, Yandex Free 1,000 credits, then $0.15/1k credits PAYG Oxylabs No structured AIO — (about 5% success on AI surfaces) Google, Bing + proxy pool from $49/mo (98k results) CatchAll n/a n/a (open-web recall, not SERPs) Open web Usage-based The other three axes are reported per tool below rather than in the table, because they barely separate the field: ten of the twelve return the same full SERP envelope, and only cloro (city-level via `location` or `uule`) and Oxylabs (country-level) differ materially on geolocation. Full cost math at every depth is in [the cost table](#how-much-does-a-serp-api-really-cost-per-1000-calls). One caveat no table can carry: structured search results are only as usable as their schema is stable, so ask any vendor how schema changes are versioned before you build parsers against sample payloads. This ranking is ours. For a second opinion that nobody edits, the [SERP APIs leaderboard](https://cloro.dev/ai-visibility/serp-apis/) tracks which of these providers ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and Google AI Mode actually name and cite when asked to recommend one, refreshed weekly. ## How we tested structured search results from 12 APIs We ran 50 queries across four classes (commercial head terms, AI-Overview-eligible informational queries, local and maps-heavy queries, and long tail) through every API with the same request shape, scoring six axes: 1. **AI Overview parsing fidelity** — cited sources with URLs, inline videos and ads as structured fields, or text-only. 2. **Multi-engine coverage** — Google alone, or Google plus Bing, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot. 3. **SERP envelope completeness** — ads, People Also Ask, related searches, knowledge panel, shopping. 4. **Geolocation precision** — country-level vs city-level vs UULE-precise. 5. **True cost per 1,000 requests** at n=10 + AIO and n=100 + AIO depth. 6. **Latency** — sync response at p50 and p95, plus async webhook delivery. Ten of the twelve went through that benchmark. Serpent API and ScrapeBadger came into the roundup later, in August 2026, so their rows and cost figures are read from published documentation and pricing rather than measured here; both are marked in the write-ups below. The market is in flux post-n=100, so vendor pricing pages should be the final reference in every case. ## Which search API type fits my use case? Four product categories answer to “search API”, and picking the wrong category costs more than picking the wrong vendor inside the right one: - **SERP scraper APIs** (this roundup). They return the real results page, ads and AI Overview included, as structured JSON. **Choose this when** you track rankings, SERP features, AI Overview citations, or competitors as users actually see them. - **AI-native retrieval APIs** (Tavily, Exa, the LLM vendors’ own search endpoints). Synthesized, relevance-ranked web content for agent grounding, not the canonical SERP. **Choose this when** your LLM needs context to answer with and nobody will ask “where do we rank”. - **Search-plus-extraction scrapers** (ZenRows, ScrapingBee, Firecrawl). General pipelines where search is the URL-discovery step. **Choose this when** the deliverable is page content at scale. - **Official search APIs** (Google Custom Search, Microsoft Bing Search). The sanctioned route, closing on both sides: [Bing’s APIs retired](https://cloro.dev/blog/bing-search-api-key/) in August 2025 and Custom Search sunsets January 1, 2027. **Choose this only when** a curated index subset is enough and you have an exit plan. Proxy-network SERP endpoints (Oxylabs) sit between the first and third: SERP-shaped output over general scraping infrastructure, with the parsing left to you. ## Is a SERP API safe to use from a legal standpoint? **Google sued SerpApi on December 19, 2025.** The complaint, announced on [Google’s own blog](https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/serpapi-lawsuit/), alleges SerpApi circumvented Google’s SearchGuard anti-bot protections at the scale of hundreds of millions of queries a day, framed as a DMCA Section 1201 circumvention claim rather than a scraping claim ([Search Engine Land](https://searchengineland.com/google-sues-serpapi-466541) has the detail). SerpApi [moved to dismiss in February 2026](https://www.vktr.com/ai-platforms/google-sues-serpapi-over-data-scraping/), arguing it returns only what any signed-out user sees. The case is unresolved as of August 2026. No court has ruled that scraping public SERPs is unlawful, and the suit targets circumvention rather than scraping itself. But every scraper-model API here, cloro included, returns data from results pages Google serves rather than from an official feed, so the outcome shapes the whole category. Vendor posture is fair to weigh in procurement: SerpApi sells a Legal US Shield indemnification on paid plans, proxy vendors lean on compliance teams, and smaller vendors mostly say nothing. Our [guide to web scraping legality](https://cloro.dev/blog/website-scraping-legal/) covers the case law. So the durable question is provenance. All of the best SERP APIs sit in one of three postures: an official feed (retired or sunsetting), scraped results pages (most of this roundup), or an own index over the open web, which sidesteps the Google question but does not return the canonical SERP. Ask which one a vendor is before you ask its price. ## How to choose the best SERP API for your stack The best SERP APIs do not compete on every axis. Match the tool to your primary constraint: - **Citation data across AI Overview, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot plus classic SERP, or migrating off Custom Search before Jan 2027?** [cloro](https://cloro.dev/serp-api/). - **80+ engines (Baidu, Yandex, Naver, eBay)?** SerpApi. - **Lowest per-call SERP at scale?** DataForSEO Standard Queue. - **Multi-engine plus AI search at mid-tier pricing?** SearchApi. - **A lightweight agent needing fast, cheap Google SERP?** Serper. - **SERP, keywords, rank tracking and backlinks on one bill?** SE Ranking. - **Anything narrower** (cheapest proxy rate, bundled anti-bot handling, recall-first web search)? See [Also considered](#also-considered-four-that-missed-the-main-lineup) below. The best SERP APIs in 2026 are the ones that parse the full post-AIO page across every surface your buyers use. To see parsed responses for your keyword set, [start with cloro](https://cloro.dev/serp-api/): 500 free monthly credits baselines your top 100 priority queries. * * * ## Tier 1: AI-native multi-surface SERP APIs ### 1\. [cloro](https://cloro.dev/serp-api/) — best for AI-native cross-surface SERP intelligence ![cloro homepage](https://cloro.dev/_astro/cloro.BmjsVPGi_Z2oMFwV.webp) **Best for:** SEO, AI search and brand-monitoring teams that need parsed JSON for Google SERP plus AI Overview, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot through one API. One endpoint family returns structured search results as typed JSON for Google Search ([with AI Overview](https://cloro.dev/blog/how-to-scrape-google-ai-overview/) and [AI Mode](https://cloro.dev/blog/how-to-scrape-google-ai-mode/)), ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, Copilot, Gemini and Grok, each response carrying the cited source URLs that surface used. Tracking rank without tracking AI citation captures half the modern SERP, which is what makes [cloro](https://cloro.dev/serp-api/) one of the best SERP APIs for AI-native work in 2026. - **Strengths:** AI Overview parsed by default (full source list, citation positions, videos, injected ads); full SERP envelope with ads, PAA and related searches; city-level geo via `location` or pre-encoded `uule`, so rank checks match what a searcher in that city actually sees; async webhooks over a credit pool shared across every surface, so you size one budget instead of one per surface. - **Limitations:** plans are monthly rather than pay-as-you-go, so spiky or very low-volume workloads may be cheaper metered elsewhere, and it is a newer product in procurement. cloro does not scrape Bing; for Bing SERP data, SerpApi or DataForSEO fit better. - **Pricing:** a free tier of 500 credits/month, then Lite $30/month (37,500 credits), Hobby $100/month (250,000), Growth $500/month (1,350,000). Google Search costs 3 credits per call (n=10) or 23 credits (n=100 with AIO), so the effective rate falls from $0.80 per 1,000 credits on Lite to $0.37 on Growth, reaching about $0.31 on the largest self-serve tiers. **Quick integration guide:** the [google-search-scraper README](https://github.com/cloro-dev/google-search-scraper) walks through Python, cURL, and Node.js requests for organic results, PAA, related searches, and AI Overview. * * * ## Tier 2: Established multi-engine SERP APIs ### 2\. SerpApi — best breadth of search-engine coverage ![SerpApi homepage](https://cloro.dev/_astro/serpapi.CJ9UTMfH_ZrglVU.webp) **Best for:** developers who need parsed JSON across the widest set of engines under one API. SerpApi is among the best SERP APIs for raw engine breadth, covering a long tail of vertical and regional engines at the same parsing depth. Documentation is the category gold standard and the platform ships selector fixes within hours of Google UI changes. - **Strengths:** 80+ engines including Google, Maps, Images, Jobs, Shopping, News, Scholar, Bing, Baidu, Yandex, eBay, YouTube, Amazon and Naver; AI Overview parsing with cited sources; strong client libraries; archive access to historical SERP snapshots, so you can show how a page looked on a past date. - **Limitations:** highest per-call rate at entry ($15/1k effective), and per [apiserpent’s 2026 benchmark](https://apiserpent.com/blog/serpapi-vs-dataforseo-benchmark) roughly $7,000 vs DataForSEO’s $600 at 1M searches/month. No ChatGPT Search or Perplexity endpoints. See our [SerpApi alternatives breakdown](https://cloro.dev/comparisons/serpapi-alternatives/). - **Pricing:** Starter $25/month (1,000 searches), Developer $75/month (5,000), Production $150/month (15,000), Big Data $275/month (30,000, ~$9.17/1k). [Free tier](https://serpapi.com/pricing) of 250 searches/month. ### 3\. Serpent API — cheapest published per-call rate across five engines ![Serpent API homepage](https://cloro.dev/_astro/serpent-api.D9lvzJF-_9kHuf.webp) **Best for:** high-volume teams that want AI Overview and rich SERP parsing at the lowest published per-call rate, and can pre-fund an account to unlock it. _Added at Serpent API’s request in August 2026. It was not part of the 50-query benchmark above, so the figures here come from its published documentation and pricing rather than our own testing._ [Serpent API](https://apiserpent.com/) sells one flat rate across five engines and returns the AI Overview block in the base response instead of charging a surcharge for it, which is rare below $1 per 1,000. - **Strengths:** Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo and Brave under one key with the engine chosen per request; AI Overviews, featured snippets, People Also Ask, ads, shopping and related searches in the base response; Deep Search bills a single request for up to 10 pages (roughly 100 results), so depth does not multiply cost the way per-page billing does; 112 countries; server-error requests refunded automatically; a beta `pixel_position` flag that returns pixel geometry for every SERP element. - **Limitations:** the headline rate is deposit-gated, so $0.03/1k needs a one-time $500 deposit and $0.06/1k a $100 one, against $0.60/1k at default; the free tier is 10 calls rather than a recurring monthly allowance; AI coverage is citation tracking across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity, which answers who got cited rather than returning the model’s parsed answer, so it is not a substitute for an AI-surface endpoint; no MCP server and no native SDKs, only cURL, Python and Node examples in the docs. - **Pricing:** $0.60/1k web requests at default, $0.06/1k at Growth (one-time $100 deposit), $0.03/1k at Scale (one-time $500 deposit). AI Ranking runs $20/1k queries per model at default, falling to $1/1k at Scale. 10 free calls, no card. Their [pricing page](https://apiserpent.com/pricing) warns rates are likely to rise after 30 August 2026. ### 4\. DataForSEO — best for bulk SERP at the lowest base rate ![DataForSEO homepage](https://cloro.dev/_astro/dataforseo.DW9cQ49C_1Bm1HV.webp) **Best for:** teams that need low per-call cost at scale, can tolerate queued latency, and want SERP data alongside backlinks and keyword research from one vendor. DataForSEO is one of the best SERP APIs for bulk collection, though SERP-only consumers pay for the platform breadth in integration overhead. - **Strengths:** lowest base SERP rate after the September 2025 price cut (~80% reduction); 60+ endpoints covering SERP, Keywords, Backlinks, On-Page and Business Data; async task model that scales well for large keyword batches. - **Limitations:** Standard Queue can take [~5 minutes](https://nextgrowth.ai/dataforseo-vs-serpapi/), so it is not real-time; 60+ endpoints with varying auth and rate limits carry real integration overhead; AI Overview enrichment doubles first-page cost. See our [DataForSEO alternatives breakdown](https://cloro.dev/comparisons/dataforseo-alternatives/). - **Pricing:** $0.60/1k Standard, $1.20/1k Priority, $2.00/1k Live. AIO adds $2/1k on the first page; n=100 with AIO works out to roughly $17.50/1k. ### 5\. ScrapeBadger — best no-commitment pay-as-you-go across engines and AI surfaces ![ScrapeBadger homepage](https://cloro.dev/_astro/scrapebadger.BnSQ5xl2_Z1difn5.webp) **Best for:** teams pulling several search engines and AI platforms without committing to a monthly plan, and anyone whose volume is too spiky to size a subscription against. [ScrapeBadger](https://scrapebadger.com/google-scraper) returns structured JSON from six engines — Google, Bing, Yahoo, Baidu, DuckDuckGo and Yandex — with Google split across Search, Images, Shopping, News, Scholar, Trends, Maps, Flights and Jobs. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Mode come off the same key. It is a general web scraping API underneath, so the search endpoints inherit the platform’s anti-bot bypass and JavaScript rendering rather than being a purpose-built SERP product, which cuts both ways depending on what else you scrape. - **Strengths:** six engines and the widest Google surface list here on one key; AI Overview returned as structured text with source URLs; an official hosted MCP server for Claude, Cursor and other clients; no monthly minimum, which no other entry in this tier offers. - **Limitations:** location targeting is coarser than city-level `location` or `uule`, so precise local rank tracking fits cloro or DataForSEO better. No Copilot or Grok coverage. Plan pricing sits behind signup rather than on the pricing page, so the metered rate is the only figure you can check before creating an account. - **Pricing:** 1,000 free credits, no card, then pay as you go at $0.15 per 1,000 credits with a $10 minimum top-up. A Google search is about 3 credits plus 0.1 per returned result, an AI Overview 1 credit, and AI Mode 7. Monthly plans run Starter $49, Growth $129, Pro $299 and Scale $699, cutting the effective rate by up to 64% against pay-as-you-go on the larger tiers. ### 6\. SearchApi — best mid-tier multi-engine + AI search ![SearchApi homepage](https://cloro.dev/_astro/searchapi.9mlFDo0H_aApMT.webp) **Best for:** teams that want broader coverage than Serper, lower cost than SerpApi, and native ChatGPT Search and Perplexity in the same API. SearchApi is one of the best SERP APIs at mid-tier pricing, sitting between Serper and SerpApi on cost and between SerpApi and cloro on AI-surface coverage. - **Strengths:** Google, Bing and YouTube native endpoints plus ChatGPT Search and Perplexity parsed responses, one of the few at this tier; AI Overview parsing included; a cleaner API than DataForSEO. - **Limitations:** narrower engine catalog than SerpApi (no Baidu, Yandex or Naver), a less established procurement profile, and bundle pricing that creates launch-spike friction. See our [SearchApi alternatives breakdown](https://cloro.dev/comparisons/searchapi-alternatives/). - **Pricing:** from $40/month for 10,000 searches; Production $100/month for 35,000 ($2.86/1k effective), around $2.50–$3 per 1,000 at production scale per the [searchcans index](https://www.searchcans.com/blog/serp-api-pricing-index-2026/). ### 7\. Serper — best lightweight Google SERP ![Serper homepage](https://cloro.dev/_astro/serper.Dt1rJf0p_ZzSr6F.webp) **Best for:** developers building lightweight tools or agents that need fast Google results at the lowest credible entry price. - **Strengths:** fast Google Search, Images and News JSON with sub-200ms median response at scale; a genuinely generous 2,500-search free tier; clean single-purpose API design. Prepaid credit packs run from $50 (50,000 credits, $1/1k) down to $0.30/1k on the largest pack, which keeps it among the cheapest in the credible-quality tier. - **Limitations:** narrower vertical coverage than SerpApi or DataForSEO (no Jobs, Shopping or Maps), more limited AI Overview and dynamic-element parsing, and a smaller ecosystem. See our [Serper alternatives breakdown](https://cloro.dev/comparisons/serper-alternatives/). - **Pricing:** free tier of 2,500 searches; paid plans from $50/month. * * * ## Tier 3: All-in-one SEO platforms with SERP APIs ### 8\. SE Ranking — best all-in-one SEO + AI search platform ![SE Ranking homepage](https://cloro.dev/_astro/seranking_serp.CTxACe9h_Z27SKGs.webp) **Best for:** SEO teams and agencies wanting SERP data, AI visibility tracking, keyword research and rank tracking through one platform. [SE Ranking](https://seranking.com/api.html) splits a Data API from a Project API, and its AI Search API tracks brand presence across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews and AI Mode under one auth. - **Strengths:** SERP, AI search and SEO research from one API; AI engine coverage that rivals dedicated AI visibility tools; share-of-voice leaderboards and prompt-level attribution, so you can see which prompts earn a citation rather than just that one happened; a 14-day trial with 100k credits. - **Limitations:** no native SDKs as of mid-2026 (Postman collection and REST reference only), default RPS lower than infrastructure-first providers, and longer onboarding than a focused SERP API. - **Pricing:** included in every plan from $129/month; pay-as-you-go from $50 with non-expiring credits. * * * ## Also considered: four that missed the main lineup These four are in every table above and are worth knowing about, but a team choosing between cloro and SerpApi does not need a deep dive on any of them. Each is here with the one reason it does not crack the top tier for 2026. **One is a proxy network, not a SERP API.** [Oxylabs](https://oxylabs.io/products/scraper-api/serp) runs 100M+ residential and datacenter IPs with a SERP endpoint over the pool, billed as successful results, and it is the right call if you already operate proxy infrastructure or need that compliance posture in procurement. But the output is closer to raw, and success on the AI surfaces drops to [roughly 5%](https://cloro.dev/comparisons/oxylabs-alternatives/) against near-100% for a purpose-built AI SERP API, so the AI Overview parsing is yours to build. Our [Oxylabs alternatives breakdown](https://cloro.dev/comparisons/oxylabs-alternatives/) has the detail. Judge it on **total delivered cost**: the per-1,000 rate plus the parser engineering you still own. **Two are capable but narrower than the top eight.** Scrapingdog parses AI Overviews from $40/month, which is rare at that price, and covers Search, Maps and Images plus a general scraper on one key, but its parsing on PAA, related searches and ad blocks is less mature and there is no ChatGPT or Perplexity coverage. [HasData](https://hasdata.com/apis/google-serp-api) is the pick if CAPTCHAs are your actual problem: it handles anti-bot server-side, normalizes 15+ SERP features and bills only for successful requests. Its credit model obscures throughput, though, since a Google SERP call is ~10 credits, so the $49/mo plan’s 200,000 credits is ~20,000 requests. It also stays Google-centric. **One is a different product category.** [CatchAll](https://newscatcherapi.com/web-search-api?utm_source=cloro.dev) is built for recall rather than rank: wide result sets across the open web, structured enrichment, event extraction and real-time monitoring. It will not track your Google position, and it is slower than a plain search call because coverage-first means more latency. It belongs in a RAG or research pipeline that needs broader source coverage than Google’s index alone, not in a rank-tracking stack. * * * ## How much does a SERP API really cost per 1,000 calls? Headline pricing is misleading. Real cost depends on depth (n=10 vs n=100), AI Overview enrichment (often a surcharge), and bundle vs per-call billing. AI Overview usually carries a surcharge: DataForSEO doubles the first-page price when AIO is enabled, SerpApi treats it as included, and cloro adds 2 credits. Depth compounds, since every additional 10-result page costs 75–100% of the base. The table assumes mid-tier volume (~30,000 searches/month). The free-tier column is what you can evaluate with before paying: API Free tier n=10 n=10 + AIO n=100 n=100 + AIO **[cloro](https://cloro.dev/serp-api/)** (Hobby, $0.40 per 1k credits) 500 credits/mo, recurring **$1.20/1k** $2.00/1k $5.20/1k $9.20/1k [cloro](https://cloro.dev/serp-api/) (Growth, $0.37 per 1k credits) same pool $1.11/1k $1.85/1k $4.81/1k $8.52/1k DataForSEO (Standard, queued) trial credit on signup **$0.60/1k** $2.60/1k $7.20/1k $9.20/1k DataForSEO (Live) trial credit on signup $2.00/1k $4.00/1k $9.50/1k $17.50/1k SerpApi (Big Data tier) [250 searches/mo](https://serpapi.com/pricing) $9.17/1k $9.17/1k $91.70/1k $91.70/1k SearchApi (Production tier) 100 requests $2.86/1k $2.86/1k varies varies Serper 2,500 queries, one-time **$0.30–$1/1k** partial AIO $0.60–$2/1k n/a Scrapingdog 200 credits, no card $40/mo entry ✅ included scales with plan ✅ included HasData 1,000 credits/mo ~$0.83–$2.45/1k ✅ included scales with plan ✅ included SE Ranking free-trial account bundled in $129/mo plan included included included [ScrapeBadger](https://scrapebadger.com/) (pay as you go) 1,000 credits, no card ~$0.60/1k ~$0.75/1k ~$1.95/1k ~$2.10/1k Oxylabs (proxy + SERP) 2,000 results, no card $0.25–$0.50/1k results no structured AIO scales with volume parser is yours [Serpent API](https://apiserpent.com/) (Default tier) 10 calls, no card **$0.60/1k** ✅ included $0.60/1k (Deep Search bills one request for up to 10 pages) ✅ included The ranking inverts with depth. At n=10 without AIO Oxylabs is cheapest on paper (from $0.25/1k) but hands you the parser; among parsed APIs Serpent API and DataForSEO Standard tie at $0.60/1k, with ScrapeBadger at about the same on its published credit math and Serper close behind at $1/1k entry, falling to $0.30/1k only on the largest prepaid pack. Serpent is the outlier at depth, because one Deep Search request bills once and returns up to 10 pages, so its n=100 rate does not climb the way per-page billing does. That figure is its own published claim rather than a benchmarked result, and the rate is deposit-gated below $0.60/1k. At n=100 with AIO, cloro Growth ($8.52/1k) and DataForSEO Standard ($9.20/1k) tie while SerpApi runs about 10x as much, because each batch of 10 results bills as a separate search. ScrapeBadger looks an order of magnitude cheaper again at that depth, but its figures are arithmetic on a published credit table (3 credits base plus 0.1 per returned item, at $0.15 per 1,000 credits) rather than a benchmarked result, and the AI-surface picture is different from plain AIO, since its AI Mode endpoint bills 7 credits against 1 for an AI Overview. SE Ranking resists per-call comparison entirely and should be judged on platform value. For the price-only analysis with hidden-fee adjustments, see our [Cheapest SERP API 2026 breakdown](https://cloro.dev/blog/cheapest-serp-api/). ## Which SERP APIs ship an MCP server? If you are wiring search into an agent, MCP support decides whether the API is a native tool or an integration project. An MCP server lets Claude, Cursor and other clients call the API directly, with auth and tool schemas handled for you. As of August 2026, nine of the twelve ship an official server, so the real differences are hosted vs self-run and which endpoints are exposed. Tool MCP server Notes **[cloro](https://cloro.dev/serp-api/)** ✅ Official, hosted [cloro.dev/docs/mcp](https://cloro.dev/docs/mcp), covering the same surfaces as the API SerpApi ✅ Official, hosted [mcp.serpapi.com](https://serpapi.com/mcp), unified multi-engine search tool DataForSEO ✅ Official, open source [TypeScript server](https://github.com/dataforseo/mcp-server-typescript) over selected endpoints SearchApi ✅ Official, hosted Remote server with OAuth connect flow Serper Community only Several third-party servers; none published by Serper Scrapingdog None found No official or notable community server as of August 2026 HasData ✅ Official [40+ tools](https://github.com/HasData/hasdata-mcp) incl. Google Search SE Ranking ✅ Official Queryable from Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and Cursor [ScrapeBadger](https://scrapebadger.com/) ✅ Official, hosted [mcp.scrapebadger.com](https://scrapebadger.com/), add as a connector and query in natural language Oxylabs ✅ Official [Scraping server](https://github.com/oxylabs/oxylabs-mcp) plus an AI Studio server [Serpent API](https://apiserpent.com/) None found REST only; no official or community server as of August 2026 CatchAll ✅ Official, hosted Hosted endpoint documented by NewsCatcher A hosted server with the full SERP surface behind it (cloro, SerpApi) is agent-ready today; an open-source server you run yourself trades setup time for control; community-only coverage means you own the maintenance when the vendor’s API changes. ### Who are the main SERP API providers in 2026? The main SERP API providers in 2026 are cloro, SerpApi, DataForSEO, Bright Data, Oxylabs, Serper, ScraperAPI, and ScrapingBee, with Apify and Zenserp in narrower niches. The field splits by what you optimize for: AI-surface coverage (cloro), engine breadth (SerpApi, DataForSEO), proxy scale (Bright Data, Oxylabs), or entry price (Serper). Each is compared in detail above.