SerpApi vs Serper
A side-by-side look at 2 AI & ML tools for 2026 — the verdict, pricing, ratings, features, and what readers think.
serpapi.com
Best for Developers and SEO teams that need structured Google and search-engine results through a stable API.
A real-time Google Search API that handles proxies and CAPTCHAs and returns structured results.
Visit SerpApi
serper.dev
Best for Developers who want cheap, fast Google results as a search tool for agents, RAG pipelines and SEO scripts.
A fast, low-cost Google Search API that gives AI agents and apps structured SERP data in one to two seconds.
Visit SerperPricing compared
SerpApi
$25/mo
Serper
$0.3/1k queries
Head to head
| SerpApi | Serper | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $25/mo | $0.3/1k queries |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Free plan with 250 searches per month | 2,500 free queries, no credit card required |
| Platforms | API · Web | API · Web |
Pros & cons
SerpApi
Pros
- Handles proxies, CAPTCHAs and parsing so you do not run that infrastructure.
- Structured data for organic, Maps, Local, Shopping and Knowledge Graph results.
- Location parameter returns results as users in specific places see them.
- Only successful searches count toward your plan.
- Month-to-month plans with a free tier and SOC 2 Type II certification.
Cons
- Entry paid plan of $25 a month includes only 1,000 searches.
- U.S. Legal Shield starts at the Production plan.
- Focused on search results rather than full-page content scraping.
- Free plan throughput is limited to 50 searches per hour.
Serper
Pros
- Google-quality results (organic, knowledge graph, answer box, PAA) through a simple JSON API.
- Among the cheapest per-query pricing in the category, from $0.30 per 1,000 queries at volume.
- 2,500 free queries with no credit card make evaluation risk-free.
- Covers Search, Images, News, Maps, Places, Videos, Shopping, Scholar, Patents and Autocomplete.
- Ships as a ready-made tool in LangChain, so wiring it into an agent takes minutes.
Cons
- Returns snippets and links only; you still need a scraper or extraction API for full page content.
- Not an agent-native or semantic index, so results are not pre-chunked or token-optimised for LLMs.
- Depends on Google results, which makes it a wrapper rather than an independent search index.
- The homepage does not publish rate limits, credit expiry or company details such as HQ and founding year.
Features compared
| SerpApi | Serper | |
|---|---|---|
| Plans & pricing | ||
| Free tier | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Pricing model | Monthly plans by search volume | Per usage |
| Integrations & extensibility | ||
| Public API | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Security & compliance | ||
| SOC 2 | ✓ Yes | — |