SerpApi Pricing: 2027 Guide to Plans and Costs

Key Takeaways

• SerpApi standard paid best effort plans range from $25 to $2,750. Free and cloud plans are also available. Enterprise plan starts at $3,750/month and the cost increases according to the requirements. 
• Pagination counts as separate searches and successful searches returning empty results still count toward your allowance, so usage can exceed your initial query count.
• Estimate monthly volume, calculate effective cost per search, and account for peak demand before choosing a plan.
• Proxidize offers bandwidth-priced residential and mobile proxies for teams running their own scraper instead of buying a managed SERP API.

SerpApi is an API that allows you to access search engine results programmatically without building your own SERP scraping infrastructure. It handles the process of sending search requests and returning structured results, which makes it useful for applications that need to collect search data at scale.

SerpApi has a free plan with 250 searches per month. The paid plan starts at $25/month for 1,000 searches. It offers different monthly search allowances based on the pricing plan, throughput limits, and three speed modes. The search allowance stays the same across speed modes, but the price increases as you move to faster processing.

It means the advertised monthly price is only part of the calculation. Your actual cost depends on:

• How many searches you need
• How much of your allowance you use
• Which speed mode your workload requires

In this guide, we analyze SerpApi pricing across its plans, speed modes, search volumes, and additional costs, and compare it with Proxidize to help you understand which approach makes more sense for your SERP data collection needs.

How Much Does SerpApi Cost?

SerpApi offers month-to-month pricing based on the number of searches included in your plan and the throughput available per hour. SerpApi supports a free plan at 250 searches per month. Public plans start at $25/month for 1,000 searches and go up to $2,750/month for 500,000 searches. Higher-volume Cloud plans are available for up to 54 million searches per month, while Enterprise plan is priced at $3,750/month and goes up according to the requirements.

SerpApi Pricing Plans

SerpApi offers three speed modes. The search allowance stays the same across speed modes, while the price and processing speed change:

1. Best effort
2. Ludicrous speed
3. Ludicrous speed max 

The number of searches included in each plan stays the same, but the monthly price increases with the selected speed mode.

The effective cost per search depends on both search volume and speed mode. For example, the Starter plan costs $0.025 per search at Best Effort, $0.05 at Ludicrous Speed, and $0.10 at Ludicrous Speed Max when the full 1,000-search allowance is used.

At higher volumes, the effective cost per search decreases within each speed tier. For example, the Infrastructure plan works out to $0.0055 per search at Best Effort, $0.011 at Ludicrous Speed, and $0.022 at Ludicrous Speed Max.

Note: Effective cost per search is calculated by dividing the monthly plan price by the number of included searches. It represents the cost per search if the full monthly search allowance is used. Speed mode affects the price, whereas the number of searches included in the plan remains the same. 

1. SerpApi Starter

The Starter plan includes 1,000 searches per month with throughput of up to 200 searches per hour. Pricing depends on the speed mode you select. The Starter plan is best suited for users testing SerpApi, building an initial integration, or handling relatively low monthly search volumes.

Plan details:

• Searches: 1,000/month
• Throughput: 200/hour
• Price: $25 - $100/month, depending on speed mode
• Effective cost: $0.025 - $0.10/search
• Best suited for: Testing and low-volume applications

2. SerpApi Developer

The Developer plan includes 5,000 searches per month, with throughput of up to 1,000 searches per hour. Pricing varies by speed mode. This plan is suited to developers and applications that need more capacity than the entry-level plan without moving into higher-volume production usage.

Plan details:

• Searches: 5,000/month
• Throughput: 1,000/hour
• Price: $75 - $300/month, depending on speed mode
• Effective cost:$0.015 - $0.06/search
• Best suited for: Developers and growing applications

3. SerpApi Production

The Production plan provides 15,000 searches per month, with throughput of up to 3,000 searches per hour. The monthly price depends on the selected speed mode. This plan is designed for production applications that require consistent SERP data collection and higher search volumes.

Plan details:

• Searches: 15,000/month
• Throughput: 3,000/hour
• Price: $150 - $600/month, depending on speed mode
• Effective cost: $0.01 - $0.04/search
• Best suited for: Production applications

4. SerpApi Big Data

The Big Data plan includes 30,000 searches per month, with throughput of up to 6,000 searches per hour. Pricing varies according to the selected speed mode. This plan is better suited to applications that need to collect larger amounts of search data on a regular basis.

Plan details:

• Searches: 30,000/month
• Throughput: 6,000/hour
• Price: $275 - $1,100/month, depending on speed mode
• Effective cost: ~$0.0092 - $0.0367/search
• Best suited for: Higher-volume data collection

Higher-Volume SerpApi Plans

For workloads above 30,000 searches per month, SerpApi offers additional tiers across its three speed modes. 

These plans offer a lower effective cost per search at higher volumes, particularly on the Best Effort tier. However, choosing a faster speed mode increases the effective cost per search, so the total cost depends on both search volume and the speed mode selected. 

SerpApi Cloud Plans

For workloads exceeding 500,000 searches per month, SerpApi offers Cloud plans ranging from 1 million to 54 million searches per month. 

The pricing starts at:

• 1 million searches: $3,750/month
• 2 million searches: $5,675/month
• 3 million searches: $7,600/month
• 5 million searches: $11,475/month
• 10 million searches: $21,125/month
• 20 million searches: $40,425/month
• 30 million searches: $59,725/month
• 40 million searches: $79,025/month
• 50 million searches: $98,325/month
• 54 million searches: $106,050/month

The Cloud tiers continue the same volume-based pricing model, with higher search allowances accompanied by higher hourly throughput.

Note: The Cloud prices listed above are for the Best Effort speed mode. Pricing for Ludicrous Speed and Ludicrous Speed Max is not included in this list. The price increases with each faster speed mode, with the 54 million-search Cloud plan reaching $424,200/month on Ludicrous Speed Max.

SerpApi Enterprise

SerpApi also offers Enterprise pricing for custom search volumes and throughput requirements. The Enterprise offering is intended for organizations with larger or more specialized requirements. It includes features such as:

• Custom searches per month
• Custom throughput per hour
• U.S. Legal Shield
• ZeroTrace Mode
• Priority support
• Flexible payment options
• Uptime SLAs of up to 99.97%

SerpApi states that its Enterprise plan starts with a $3,750/month base plan, which includes 100,000 complimentary searches per month. Additional searches are billed according to usage.

Enterprise customers can choose between on-demand searches, which are billed at $7.50 per 1,000 searches, or reserved searches, which are billed at $2.75 per 1,000 searches. The pricing increases to $15 and $5.50 respectively (On-demand and reserved searches) per 1,000 searches with Ludicrous Speed and $30 and $11 with Ludicrous Speed Max, respectively.

What Does a SerpApi Search Cost?

The cost of a SerpApi search depends on the plan you choose and how much of its monthly search allowance you use. At the lower end, the Starter plan costs $0.025 per included search when you use all 1,000 searches. Among the standard non-Cloud plans, the effective cost per search decreases with higher volumes, reaching approximately $0.0055 per search on the 500,000-search Infrastructure plan.

SerpApi's pricing therefore rewards higher-volume usage. However, the advertised cost per search assumes that you use the plan's entire monthly search allowance. If you use only a portion of your allowance, your effective cost per search is higher because you're still paying the full monthly subscription.

How SerpApi counts searches

SerpApi states that only fully successful searches are counted toward your allowance. Searches that are blocked, return an error, or receive a CAPTCHA are not counted. However, pagination queries count as separate searches, and successful queries returning empty results are also counted. Blank or errored queries don’t count. This means your actual search consumption can depend on how you use the API, instead of the number of initial queries your application sends.

What if you don't use all your searches?

The effective cost per search increases when you don't use your full monthly allowance.

For example, the $150 Production plan includes 15,000 searches. If you use all 15,000, your cost is:

$150 ÷ 15,000 = $0.01 per search

But if you use only 7,500 searches:

$150 ÷ 7,500 = $0.02 per search

And if you use only 3,000:

$150 ÷ 3,000 = $0.05 per search

So when comparing SerpApi plans, don't look only at the advertised cost per search. Your actual cost depends on how much of the included search volume you use.

Do different SerpApi APIs cost different amounts?

Based on the pricing information provided, SerpApi's plans are presented around search volume rather than a separate price for each API or search engine. The source does not indicate that Google Search API, Bing Search API, Google Maps API, or other APIs automatically consume different numbers of searches.

What does affect search consumption is how the request is executed. For example, pagination counts as a separate search, while blocked, errored, or CAPTCHA-affected searches aren't counted.

For high-volume users, the number of searches your application actually consumes can be different from the number of initial queries you expect to run.

What Are the Additional Costs of SerpApi?

The monthly subscription price does not cover the entire cost if your search volume changes or you need a custom setup. SerpApi's pricing varies depending on the plan, search volume, speed requirements, and whether you use its Enterprise pricing model.

1. Search Overages

SerpApi's public plans are structured around a fixed number of searches per month. For example, the Starter plan includes 1,000 searches for $25 per month, while the Production plan includes 15,000 searches for $150 per month.

If you run out of searches before your billing cycle ends, SerpApi supports both manual renewal and Automatic Early Renewal. Automatic Early Renewal can be enabled on your plan and triggers a renewal when you use all your included searches. You can also renew the plan manually. In either case, your searches are fully replenished, the renewal date is updated, and the searches reset at the start of the new billing cycle. 

Enterprise works differently. Its base plan is $3,750 per month and includes 100,000 searches. Additional searches are billed according to usage rather than simply adding another standard-plan tier.

2. Enterprise Search Costs

Enterprise customers can choose between on-demand and reserved search pricing.

Reserved searches have a lower per-search cost, but unused reserved search credits do not roll over from one month to the next.

This means the most cost-effective option depends partly on how predictable your search volume is. On-demand pricing provides more flexibility, while reserved searches offer lower unit costs when you can commit to a predictable volume.

3. Additional API Usage and Search Types

SerpApi's pricing is primarily organized around the number of searches rather than charging a separate subscription for each API. The pricing information does not indicate that different search APIs consume different numbers of credits.

However, some usage patterns affect how many searches are counted. Pagination queries count as separate searches, for example. Successful searches returning empty results count toward your allowance, while blank, blocked, errored, or CAPTCHA searches are not counted.

SerpApi also offers different speed modes, Best Effort, Ludicrous Speed, and Ludicrous Speed Max. For Enterprise customers, these modes have different per-search prices, as shown above.

SerpApi Pricing: How to Choose the Right Option

Use this checklist to evaluate which SerpApi pricing option makes sense for your workload:

• Estimate your monthly search volume: Compare your expected usage with the searches included in each plan, and consider how fluctuations in monthly usage could affect your effective cost per search.
• Identify the APIs and search types you need: Your requirements may affect which plan, throughput level, or speed configuration makes sense for your workload.
• Calculate your effective cost per search: A higher-priced plan can offer a lower cost per search when you use most of its allowance, while a cheaper plan may be less cost-effective if you use only a small portion of the allocation.
• Account for additional usage and peak demand: Standard plans are structured around fixed monthly search allowances, while Enterprise customers can use on-demand or reserved search pricing. Consider both your average and peak requirements.
• Compare the managed API cost with running your own infrastructure: SerpApi handles the search engine interaction, proxy infrastructure, and data retrieval for you. If you use a proxy-based approach such as Proxidize, you take on more of the scraping and data-collection infrastructure but get greater control over how requests are routed, rotated, and managed.

SerpApi vs Proxidize: Pricing and Use Case Comparison

SerpApi and Proxidize take different approaches to SERP and web data collection. SerpApi provides a managed API for collecting and returning search results, while Proxidize provides the proxy infrastructure that can be used underneath your own scraper, rank tracker, browser automation, or data pipeline.

SerpApi vs Proxidize

SerpApi's pricing is tied to the number of searches your application makes. Its public plans range from a free allowance to high-volume Cloud plans, while Enterprise customers can also use on-demand or reserved search pricing.

Proxidize uses a bandwidth-based pricing model, with separate residential and mobile proxy plans.

Residential proxy pricing starts at $25/month for 25 GB ($1/GB). Higher-volume plans include:

• 2 TB at $0.95/GB
• 5 TB at $0.95/GB
• 10 TB at $0.90/GB

Custom plans above 10 TB start at $0.50/GB. Unused bandwidth rolls over and does not expire.

Mobile proxy pricing starts at $50/month for 25GB($2/GB), with the same $2/GB rate across the standard volume tiers up to 10 TB. Mobile Per GB bandwidth expires after one month. Custom plans above 10 TB start at $0.50/GB.

The two proxy types also differ in their networks and targeting options. Proxidize residential proxies provide millions of residential IPs across 195+ countries, with country, city, and ISP targeting, rotating or sticky sessions, and HTTP, HTTPS, and SOCKS5 support. Mobile proxies use 4G/5G mobile IPs with country, city, and ASN/ISP targeting, rotating or sticky sessions, and HTTP, HTTPS, and SOCKS5 support.

Proxidize vs SerpApi: Which One to Choose

The better option depends on how much of the SERP collection stack you want to manage yourself.

SerpApi makes more sense when you want a managed SERP API. You send requests to the API and receive structured search data without having to build and maintain the underlying SERP collection system. This can be useful when the primary requirement is getting search results into an application rather than controlling how those requests are routed.

Proxidize makes more sense when you already operate, or want to build, your own data collection infrastructure. The proxy service provides the network layer while your own scraper, rank tracker, browser automation, or data pipeline handles the requests and processing. 

Proxidize supports the following use cases:  

• Geolocation testing
• Ad verification
• Market research
• Brand protection
• AI data collection
• SEO monitoring
• Price monitoring
• Web scraping

This also means the pricing cannot be compared on a simple “$X per search vs. $X per GB” basis because a SerpApi search and a gigabyte of proxy traffic are not equivalent units.

With SerpApi, you're primarily paying for access to managed SERP data collection. With Proxidize, you're paying for the proxy connectivity that enables your own collection workflow. If you choose the latter, you'll also need to account for the scraper, SERP parser, infrastructure, and maintenance required to turn those proxy connections into usable search data.

For teams that want an API that handles SERP extraction end to end, SerpApi is the more direct fit. For teams that want to control the scraping stack and choose their own collection and parsing tools, a proxy-based architecture, like Proxidize, gives them more control over how that system is built.

If you’re collecting SERP data at scale, the cost of the API is only one part of the equation. It’s also worth considering how much control you need over IPs, locations, sessions, request routing, and the rest of your data collection workflow. 

If you already have a scraper, rank tracker, browser automation setup, or data pipeline, or want to build one, a proxy-based approach can give you more flexibility over how requests are handled.

Proxidize provides residential and mobile proxies with country, city, and ISP/ASN targeting, rotating or sticky sessions, and HTTP, HTTPS, and SOCKS5 support. You can use the proxy network with your own scraper or data collection tools and scale bandwidth based on your requirements.

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