SerpApi Alternatives (2026): Price, Engines, Legal Cover

You’re paying SerpApi, or about to, and something is pushing you to look around: the bill at your volume, Google’s lawsuit, or a feature you need. Your reason for leaving decides where you should go, so I matched each reason to the alternatives that fix it.

Every option below gets a cost at three volumes, what you give up versus SerpApi, and a column most comparisons skip: legal cover. It’s part of my wider guide to search APIs.

Short on time?

Here's my take, by reason for leaving

Price, same shape as SerpApi

SearchApi

Monthly plans, about 70 APIs and its own AI Overview and AI Mode endpoints, at $2.50 per 1K searches at 100K a month vs SerpApi's $7.25.

Price, at high volume

apiserpent.com (SerpentAPI)

$0.10 per 1K at 100K with $500 Scale, or $0.03 at 1M with $1,250 Enterprise Plus. Lowest list prices under my cash rule, rechecked 3 Nov 2026. No public SLA or legal cover.

Price, and your jobs can wait

DataForSEO (Standard queue)

$0.60 per 1K at every volume, prepaid funds that never expire, and results in about five minutes.

Worried about legal risk

SerpApi or SearchApi, Production plan and up

The two comparable written protection clauses established here, each conditional and up to $2M. SearchApi's starts at $100 a month, SerpApi's at $150.

Need more engines

Bright Data SERP API

Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yandex, Baidu, Yahoo and Naver, an AI Overview option, and 5,000 free requests every month.

Free and open source

OpenSERP

MIT-licensed and self-hosted, with six engines and an n8n node. You pay for servers and proxies and carry the blocking and legal risk yourself.

Prices verified 31 Oct 2026. Public pricing and documentation rechecked 31 Oct 2026; no product API or account verification.

SerpApi alternatives compared #

At 100,000 one-page searches a month, SerpApi costs $7.25 per 1,000. SearchApi is the alternative with a comparable written customer-protection clause in the terms I reviewed; the scope and exclusions differ.

Provider	Engines	AI Overview / AI Mode (availability varies)	Per 1K at 1K/mo	Per 1K at 100K/mo	Per 1K at 1M/mo	Legal cover for you	Billing
SerpApi Baseline	100+ APIs	Separate APIs; budget a second uncached successful search when needed	$25.00	$7.25	$3.75	Up to $2M, Production ($150/mo) and up	Monthly plan; failed and cached searches free
SearchApi	About 70 APIs	Separate AIO and AI Mode endpoints	$40.00	$2.50	$1.50	Up to $2M per 12 months, Production ($100/mo) and up	Monthly plan; up to 20% of plan per hour
Serper	Google only (10 verticals)	Not confirmed	$8.33	$0.75	$0.50	Generic mutual clause only	Prepaid packs, expire after 6 months
apiserpent.com (SerpentAPI)	Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Brave	Optional AIO on eligible paid Deep; AI Mode +$0.004/call	$0.60	$0.10	$0.03	Customer indemnity; no comparable vendor shield established	Prepaid, $10 minimum; $500 Scale at 100K, $1,250 Enterprise Plus at 1M
DataForSEO (Standard queue)	Google and more (not itemized here)	Extra charge per SERP	$0.60	$0.60	$0.60	Customer indemnity; no comparable vendor shield established	Prepaid, $50 minimum; funds never expire
Bright Data SERP API	Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yandex, Baidu, Yahoo, Naver	AIO parameter	$0.00	$1.50	$1.31	No comparable vendor shield established	Pay-as-you-go or monthly plan
Scrapingdog	Google, Bing	AI Mode (10 credits)	$40.00	$0.90	$0.35	No comparable vendor shield established	Monthly credits; payment refunds excluded by terms
ValueSERP (ScraperAPI)	Google	—Not listed	Unverified	Unverified	Unverified	Not established	PAYG from a $25 initial purchase; plan cards are billed annually
Oxylabs Web Scraper API	Google and other targets	—Not listed	Unverified	Unverified	Unverified	Terms not read	Current /Scrape target-specific tariff
scrape.do	Google (general scraping API)	In the regular response	$29.00	$0.99	$0.70	Terms not read	Monthly credits
cloro (sync)	Google plus AI providers including ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot	Async AIO 5, AI Mode 4; sync adds 2 credits	$30.00	$2.50	$2.00	Terms not read	Google sync 5 credits; monthly credits, no rollover

Source: Public pricing and supporting docs rechecked 31 Oct 2026. Cost per 1,000 Google searches (one page of about 10 results) on the cheapest plan or pack that covers that monthly volume; a dash means the price needs a sales quote or I couldn't verify it. apiserpent.com new-credit prices were rechecked 3 Nov 2026; the 12-month entry-rate cash rule selects $500 Scale at 100K and $1,250 Enterprise Plus at 1M. Existing credit keeps its old schedule. DataForSEO is its queued Standard mode (about 5 minutes). ValueSERP's monthly-equivalent annual cards and unknown PAYG expiry do not establish comparable monthly totals; those cells are withheld. Oxylabs totals are also withheld for the current /Scrape configuration. cloro is synchronous Google: 5 credits/call, so 1M needs the $2,000/5,871,025-credit tier. Bright Data at 1M is its $499/380K Scale plan plus 620K at $1.30 per 1K ($1,305), because larger slider steps were not visible. Serper's 1K figure spreads its $50 pack over the six months before the credits expire. Scroll sideways for more columns.

Why do teams leave SerpApi, and why do many stay? #

I would compare three issues before switching: the price at your volume, the scope of any legal protection, and whether you need the extra engines. These are decision criteria, not a measured survey of why customers leave.

The price at scale #

SerpApi’s pricing page starts at $25 for 1,000 searches a month. That falls to $7.25 per 1,000 on the $725 Searcher plan (100K) and $3.75 per 1,000 on Cloud 1M ($3,750).

Google’s regular num parameter stopped providing 100 results in September 2025, according to SearchApi’s current Google reference. A 100-position workflow may need multiple page requests; special rank-tracking endpoints and best-effort alternatives have different contracts, so ten calls is not a universal rule.

SerpApi built a 100-result workaround, but its own post about it now says “Recently, Google blocked this new endpoint.” I could not re-read the review page, so I do not use it to assert a current rating or recurring complaint.

The lawsuits #

Reddit sued SerpApi in October 2025 and Google followed in December 2025. Both cases are pending; the dates and filings are in the legal cover section below.

I did not use unreadable Reddit threads as evidence.

Paying for breadth you don’t use #

SerpApi’s llms.txt lists more than 100 APIs. If you only need Google organic results, Google-only vendors such as Serper price for exactly that and nothing else.

Why many stay #

• Written legal cover. The “U.S. Legal Shield” covers up to $2M on the Production plan and above (pricing). SerpApi also claims that “no SerpApi customer has paid a single dollar in damages for web scraping using our tools” since 2017 (Legal Shield page); that’s the vendor’s own claim.
• Breadth. Those 100+ APIs include Google AI Mode, Google AI Overview, Bing Copilot and Brave AI Mode (llms.txt).
• Fair billing. “Only successful searches are counted,” and cached, errored and failed searches are free (pricing).
• Support. Review response time and support terms against your needs; I have no independent support measurements.
• Uptime promise. Its homepage advertises a “99.95% SLA guarantee with all plans”. I found no independent uptime data to check it against.

If two or more of those reasons matter to you, staying may be the right call. Compare the verified costs below with the particular capabilities and contractual conditions you need.

Which SerpApi alternative costs least per 1,000 searches? #

apiserpent.com has the lowest paid price at every volume I compared: $0.60 per 1,000 at 1K a month ($10 up front), $0.10 at 100K ($500 Scale) and $0.03 at 1M ($1,250 Enterprise Plus), per its pricing, rechecked 3 November 2026. I apply the 12-month entry-rate cash rule, so neither Enterprise tier qualifies at 100K. Only Bright Data’s free allowance beats it at 1K; DataForSEO’s queued Standard mode ties it there.

The catch is the deposit size. Scale at $500 ties up 50 months of usage at 100K; Enterprise Plus at $1,250 would lower the bill to $3 but fails my cash rule at that volume. On 31 October its pricing page carried a banner saying “Prices to increase 10x after October 31”; on 3 November that banner was gone and only the top tiers had changed, so recheck the page before you move a budget.

Here are the lowest costs I found at each volume, for live Google results:

• 1K a month: Bright Data $0.00 (inside its 5,000 free requests), apiserpent.com $0.60, Searlo is unranked here because its page doesn’t say how many results one web-search call returns (details below).
• 100K a month: apiserpent.com $0.10 (Scale), Serper $0.75.
• 1M a month: apiserpent.com $0.03 (Enterprise Plus), Scrapingdog $0.35, Serper $0.50.
• If you can wait about five minutes: DataForSEO’s Standard queue is $0.60 at every volume (pricing).
• With legal cover: SearchApi at $100 for the cheapest covered plan, $2.50 at 100K and $1.50 at 1M, vs SerpApi at $150, $7.25 and $3.75.

My like-for-like price comparison of 22 SERP APIs has the full dataset, the rules for prepaid packs and expiring credits, and the up-front cash each option needs.

Which SerpApi alternatives offer legal cover? #

Of the alternatives whose terms I read, SearchApi states customer legal protection comparable in purpose to SerpApi’s, subject to different conditions. Each caps it at $2M, and each starts it at the Production plan, not the entry plans.

Vendor	Cover for you	Which plans	What it covers, and what it doesn't	Governing law
SerpApi	Up to $2M	Production ($150/mo) and up	Liabilities of scraping and parsing results; excludes copyright, DMCA, privacy, fraud and more	Texas
SearchApi	Up to $2M per 12 months	Production ($100/mo) and up, active paid plans only	Claims from SearchApi's own collection and parsing; not your use, storage, redistribution or commercialization of data	New York
Serper	Mutual clause	All	Both sides indemnify each other; not a scraping guarantee	UK
apiserpent.com	No comparable vendor shield established	—Not listed	You indemnify apiserpent.com; service provided AS IS	India
DataForSEO	No comparable vendor shield established	—Not listed	You indemnify DataForSEO (ToS §7.2)	—Not listed
Bright Data	No comparable vendor shield established	—Not listed	You defend Bright Data	Israel
Scrapingdog	No comparable vendor shield established	—Not listed	No comparable scraping-specific indemnity established	Rajasthan, India
ScraperAPI, Oxylabs, Decodo, cloro, scrape.do	Not checked	—Not listed	Terms not reviewed; coverage is not established	—Not listed
OpenSERP, SearXNG (self-hosted)	None	—Not listed	You run the scraper, so the exposure is yours	—Not listed

Source: Public legal pages rechecked 31 Oct 2026 where marked reviewed. Contract scope differs; customer indemnity does not itself prove that no vendor protection exists. Unreviewed terms remain unreviewed. Scroll sideways for more columns.

Read the contract before relying on the headline #

SerpApi’s legal terms apply its shield to recurring plans above Free, Starter and Developer, with up to $2 million for lawful collection and parsing under U.S. law in U.S. courts. Your downstream use is excluded, as are categories including copyright, DMCA, privacy and other unlawful conduct. Its customer-indemnity clause still matters.

SearchApi’s terms cover qualifying claims about its own collection and parsing, on active Production-or-higher subscriptions. They exclude downstream use and various customer activities, cap payment at $2 million per 12 months, and leave defense or settlement choices to SearchApi. Prompt notice and cooperation are conditions. These are conditional contractual promises, not a guarantee that any particular lawsuit is covered.

Where do the lawsuits against SerpApi stand? #

The reviewed records establish procedural decisions, not a final merits outcome. In Google’s case (N.D. Cal. 4:25-cv-10826), the 20 Jul 2026 order dismissed the claims over results with no copyrighted content “WITHOUT LEAVE TO AMEND” and let Google re-plead the rest (ECF 42 pp.20–21). Google filed an amended complaint on 10 Aug 2026, and the court vacated the 13 Oct hearing on 5 Oct on SerpApi’s second motion to dismiss (ECF 49, filed 24 Aug 2026).

On 31 October I re-read ECF 60 and Google’s ECF 61, its 12 October statement of a recent decision in another case. It is a party filing, not a ruling on SerpApi’s amended-complaint motion. On 16 October the date-descending public RECAP index showed it as the newest indexed filing. On 31 October that index refused my unauthenticated request. On 3 November it still did, but the public docket feed listed ECF 61 as the newest entry, no ECF 62 document was available on RECAP, and a news search found no reported ruling on ECF 49. RECAP can lag or omit filings, so I can’t rule out newer PACER entries.

In Reddit’s separate New York suit (S.D.N.Y. 1:25-cv-08736), which also names Oxylabs, AWMProxy and Perplexity, the court “predominantly denies” SerpApi’s and Perplexity’s motions to dismiss (ECF 104, 31 Jul 2026).

Which alternatives cover the most engines and AI Overviews? #

SearchApi comes closest to SerpApi: about 70 APIs against SerpApi’s 100+, far more engines and verticals than anyone else here, and both have separate AI Overview and AI Mode endpoints. Bright Data covers seven engines, apiserpent.com five, and Serper is Google only.

• SerpApi: separate Google AI Overview and AI Mode APIs. Its AI Overview docs say the full block can need a second request with a page_token that “expires within 1 minute”; cached calls are explicitly free, and I budget an additional successful uncached search under its general pricing rule. That is a budget assumption, not account proof.
• SearchApi: Bing, Baidu, Yandex, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, YouTube, Amazon and more, plus separate AI Mode and AI Overview endpoints (homepage). How those endpoints are billed is unverified.
• apiserpent.com: Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo and Brave at the same rate. AI Overview fields are an opt-in paid Deep feature on Google, Yahoo and Brave, without a separate advertised surcharge; presence is not guaranteed. AI Mode adds $0.004 per call to the requested-page cost (docs).
• DataForSEO: loading the AI Overview costs “extra $0.002” on the Live endpoint (docs).
• Bright Data: Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yandex, Baidu, Yahoo and Naver (docs), with AI Overview via brd_ai_overview=2 (docs).
• Serper: search, images, news, maps, places, videos, shopping, scholar, patents and autocomplete, all Google (homepage). I couldn’t confirm AI Overview support.
• cloro: Google plus AI answer engines including ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot; async/batch AI Overview costs 5 credits and AI Mode 4, while sync adds 2 (pricing).

SearchApi #

Best for: teams that want SerpApi’s shape and legal cover for less money.

SearchApi is the closest like-for-like swap. It sells monthly plans from Developer ($40 for 10,000 requests) through Production ($100 for 35,000) and BigData ($250 for 100,000) to Octo 5M ($5,000, or $1 per 1,000), per its pricing page.

It has the comparable written protection clause established among the reviewed alternatives, from Production up (terms). It bills only successful responses, its homepage claims a 99.9% SLA, and its Google docs say num is “now constant 10”, so deeper results mean more requests.

Two limits to plan around: you can use “up to 20% of your plan’s credits each hour”, and the sign-up allowance is 100 free requests. Its terms allow a refund within 10 days if you’ve used 25% or less.

What you give up vs SerpApi: a shorter API list (about 70 vs 100+), and a higher entry price if you only need 1,000 searches a month ($40 vs $25).

apiserpent.com (SerpentAPI) #

Best for: high-volume Google, Bing or AI Overview work where price matters more than guarantees.

apiserpent.com (not serpentapi.com, which is unrelated) has the lowest list prices I found: $0.60 per 1K by default, $0.30 after one qualifying $100 deposit, $0.10 after $500, $0.05 after $1,000 and $0.03 after $1,250 (pricing, rechecked 3 November 2026). The same rate applies to all five engines, and purchased credits never expire. Existing credit keeps its original schedule; your best deposit in a calendar month sets the price for that month’s deposits. Refunds or chargebacks can affect qualification.

Its docs describe two modes. Quick is “one call, one charge, whatever the page count”, up to num=100, organic results only; Deep bills “every page you ask for”, so num=50 requests five charged units even if fewer results arrive. Optional AI Overview fields require an eligible paid call and include_aio=true; they can be absent.

Quick’s depth is best-effort, not a promised 100 results, and I have not checked its Google UI fidelity or yield. Deep bills requested pages at every tier. The docs say AI Mode’s empty-answer surcharge is refunded while the underlying search remains charged; paid AI Mode calls do not use the free-call pool. No product calls were made.

The weaknesses sit in its own terms and FAQ. Its FAQ says “No public SLA is currently published for pay-as-you-go accounts”, calls SERP data a “practical gray zone”, and tells users to consult counsel.

Its terms, updated 31 Oct 2026, provide the service “AS IS” under Indian law with arbitration in India, cap its liability at 12 months of fees, and require you to “indemnify and hold harmless Serpent API”. “Credits are non-refundable except as required by law”, and new users get 10 shared evaluation calls. Those free calls expire after 12 months of inactivity. Its pricing page adds that deposited credit does not expire and promotional bonus credit expires after 30 days.

On 31 October 2026 that pricing page carried a banner: “Prices to increase 10x after October 31.” When I checked it on 3 November the banner was gone; the lower tiers were unchanged, while Enterprise had moved from $0.03 to $0.05 and the new Enterprise Plus tier took the $0.03 rate. Every apiserpent.com figure here is the schedule shown that day; existing credit keeps its old schedule. The terms allow pricing changes with 30 days’ notice. My September search found no independent reviews; I have not measured its reliability.

What you give up vs SerpApi: a comparable contractual shield, a public PAYG SLA and much of the engine list. Pricing can change with the notice stated in the terms.

DataForSEO #

Best for: rank trackers and batch jobs that don’t need results in seconds.

DataForSEO charges per results page, not per plan. Its Standard queue is $0.0006 per 10-result SERP (about five minutes on average, 45-minute target), Priority $0.0012 (up to one minute on average) and Live $0.002 (up to six seconds on average), per its pricing page.

That makes Standard $0.60 per 1,000 at any volume, with no plan to outgrow. The minimum payment is $50, new accounts get a $1 trial credit (minimum-payment guide), and deposited funds do not expire.

Requested depth is rounded up in tens and can reach 200 results; extra pages and options change the charge (docs). Its terms (§7.2) have you indemnify DataForSEO.

What you give up vs SerpApi: instant results at the low price, legal cover, and a monthly plan’s predictability.

Serper #

Best for: Google-only projects, from a free start to millions of searches.

Serper gives 2,500 free queries with no card (homepage). After that you buy prepaid packs: $50 for 50,000 credits, $375 for 500,000, $1,250 for 2.5 million and $3,750 for 12.5 million, and each pack card says “Credits valid for 6 months”.

At 100K a month that works out to $0.75 per 1,000, and $0.50 at 1M. At 1K a month the six-month expiry hurts: a $50 pack spread over the searches you can use in time costs $8.33 per 1,000.

Its terms have a generic clause where both sides “defend, indemnify, and hold harmless each other”, under UK law. For a first payment, refunds are possible within seven calendar days if fewer than 20% of the credits were used.

What you give up vs SerpApi: every non-Google engine, legal cover, and the certainty of a documented AI Overview. I’ve set out how Serper and SerpApi compare head to head, priced at three volumes.

Bright Data SERP API #

Best for: multi-engine work, and small projects that fit inside a free allowance.

Bright Data gives “5K records per month” free, then charges $1.50 per 1,000 pay-as-you-go, or $499 a month for 380,000 requests with extra requests at $1.30 per 1,000 (pricing). Larger slider steps weren’t visible when I rechecked on 31 October, so at 1M I use Scale plus overage: $499 + 620 × $1.30 = $1,305, or $1.31/1K rounded, gross of unconfirmed free/paid stacking.

It covers seven engines, including Naver, Yandex and Baidu, and has a parameter that raises the odds of getting an AI Overview back. Its master services agreement has you defend Bright Data, under the license’s stated governing-law provisions. The billing docs distinguish default successful-only billing from custom-header/cookie all-attempt billing.

What you give up vs SerpApi: legal cover and SerpApi’s long tail of Google verticals.

Other alternatives worth a look #

These provide additional configurations, but I’d shortlist them only for a specific need.

• Scrapingdog: a Google search costs 5 credits (Advance 10, AI Mode 10). That’s $0.90 per 1,000 at 100K and $0.35 at 1M (pricing). Its terms say “We shall not refund”, and unused credits are lost when you cancel or downgrade.
• ScraperAPI and ValueSERP: ScraperAPI’s docs assign Google 25 credits before other applicable options. Its $49/100K-credit Hobby plan therefore covers 4K base Google requests. ValueSERP advertises $2.50/1K PAYG starting with a $25 initial purchase, but its plan cards are billed annually; monthly tariff and PAYG expiry remain unverified, so comparable volume totals are withheld.
• Oxylabs: the current /Scrape tariff starts at $30/month and advertises $5 welcome credit. Target, rendering and subscription affect cost, so older $49–$249 plan comparisons are withdrawn. The reviewed Reddit order names Oxylabs as a co-defendant.
• scrape.do: a general scraping API where a Google search costs 10 credits (product page), or $0.99 per 1,000 at 100K and $0.70 at 1M (pricing).
• cloro: built for tracking AI answer engines as well as Google. Async/batch Google costs 3 credits for the first page, extra pages add 2 each, and synchronous requests add 2; the free plan gives 500 credits monthly (pricing).
• Searlo: its pricing page now gives new users one-year validity per pack (legacy accounts unlimited) and charges one credit per successful web search. If one call is one 10-result page, its packs would work out to about $0.80 per 1,000 at 1K a month ($3.99/5K), $0.22 at 100K ($199.99/900K) and $0.20 at 1M ($799/4M). The page doesn’t say how many results a call returns and warns of price changes in November and December 2026, so I keep it out of the ranking.
• Decodo: the current Web Data API billing table lists Search separately from scraping and proxy/rendering modes. Its paid plan sizes start at $19; exact normalized configured Google totals remain unverified.

Are there free or open-source SerpApi alternatives? #

Yes, of two kinds: hosted free tiers, and open-source tools such as OpenSERP and SearXNG that you run yourself. Hosted free tiers are the easy route. Bright Data’s 5,000 requests a month is the largest recurring one here, and SerpApi’s own free plan gives 250 a month.

Self-hosting means running the scraper yourself. OpenSERP is MIT-licensed and documents Google, Yandex, Baidu, Bing, DuckDuckGo and Ecosia. It fetches results itself, over plain HTTP or a rendered browser, and supports proxies, so blocks and CAPTCHAs are yours to handle. It also has an n8n node and now offers a hosted cloud version.

SearXNG is a metasearch engine with JSON output, which an admin has to enable. When Google shows a reCAPTCHA, SearXNG suspends the Google engine for 604,800 seconds, a full week, by default.

The software is free, but the servers, proxies and upkeep aren’t, and with no vendor in the middle any legal exposure is yours. For a prototype that’s fine; for a product, I’d price the proxies before calling it free. My hub page covers self-hosted search and its hidden costs.

Which one should you pick? #

• Rank tracker at 500K searches a month (say, 50,000 keywords checked 10 pages deep): DataForSEO’s Standard queue, at about $300 a month from list prices, vs $2,750 on SerpApi’s Infrastructure plan. Rank checks rarely need results in seconds, and the price isn’t a promo. At this 500K volume, apiserpent.com Enterprise Plus passes my cash rule: about $15 a month in usage after a $1,250 deposit; Enterprise is $25 after $1,000 and Scale $50 after $500 (new-credit rates verified 3 Nov 2026).
• AI agent that needs Google and Bing, live: Bright Data if you want seven engines and a monthly free allowance, or apiserpent.com if price comes first and you can live without an SLA. Choose SearchApi if you also want legal cover. If the agent doesn’t need Google’s ranking at all, compare AI search APIs that return model-ready results first.
• Startup worried about the lawsuit: SearchApi’s Production plan ($100 a month for 35,000 requests) or SerpApi’s Production plan ($150 for 15,000). Both covers apply to the vendor’s collection, not to what you do with the data.
• Google-only side project: Serper’s 2,500 free searches, then the $50 pack.
• You need AI Overviews: compare eligible paid Deep calls on apiserpent.com with dedicated endpoints from SerpApi and SearchApi. No provider promises that every query has an Overview; budget for extra successful requests where needed.
• You’d rather own the stack: OpenSERP, once you’ve priced the proxies.

If I were moving an SEO tool doing 100K searches a month off SerpApi today, I’d go to SearchApi’s BigData plan: $250 instead of $725, the same kind of legal cover, and a very similar API. If price matters more than legal cover, I’d also shortlist apiserpent.com Scale, after checking the live page: its 3 November rate of $0.10 per 1,000 gives a $10 monthly usage bill after a $500 deposit, but leaves downtime and legal risk with you.

FAQ

Is there a cheaper alternative to SerpApi?

Yes. At 100,000 one-page searches a month, SerpApi costs $7.25 per 1,000; the alternatives with verified comparable totals below cost less. SearchApi is the closest swap at $2.50 per 1,000, with the same kind of written legal cover from its Production plan.

apiserpent.com is lower still at $0.10 per 1,000 on a $500 Scale deposit at 100K, rechecked 3 Nov 2026. Enterprise ($0.05 after $1,000) and Enterprise Plus ($0.03 after $1,250) fail my cash rule at this volume. No public PAYG SLA or comparable vendor shield was established.

What are some free alternatives to SerpApi?

For a free allowance that renews, Bright Data's SERP API gives 5,000 requests a month and cloro gives 500 credits a month (about 166 async/batch Google searches, or 100 synchronous searches). Serper gives 2,500 searches once, with no card needed, and SerpApi's own free plan is 250 searches a month.

For free software, OpenSERP (MIT license) and SearXNG are self-hosted. You pay for servers and proxies instead, you deal with CAPTCHAs and blocks, and any legal exposure is yours.

Is SerpApi illegal?

The records reviewed here do not establish a final ruling that SerpApi's service is illegal. In Google's suit (N.D. Cal., case 4:25-cv-10826), the court dismissed the first complaint on 20 Jul 2026: claims over results with no copyrighted content without leave to amend, the rest with leave. Google filed an amended complaint, and the court vacated the 13 Oct hearing on 5 Oct 2026 (ECF 60). On 3 Nov 2026 I found no replacement hearing date or written decision on SerpApi's second motion in the public records I could reach. In Reddit's separate New York suit, which also names Oxylabs, AWMProxy and Perplexity, the court "predominantly" denied SerpApi's and Perplexity's motions to dismiss on 31 Jul 2026.

A pending civil suit is not a finding of illegality. This is a summary of public court records, not legal advice.

Is SerpApi trustworthy?

Here's what I could verify. SerpApi says it was founded in 2017, it publishes its prices and legal terms, and it offers a written "U.S. Legal Shield" of up to $2 million on its Production plan and above. Current review ratings are withheld because the review page could not be re-read.

The cited Google and Reddit cases raise material legal questions; the reviewed orders are not final liability determinations. How much weight to give that depends on your use case and your appetite for risk.

Which scraping APIs are the best?

This page covers SERP APIs only, the ones that return search engine results as structured data, and my picks by situation are in the verdict box at the top. General web scraping APIs, which fetch any page, are a separate comparison with different pricing.

Which SerpApi alternatives offer legal protection?

Of the vendors whose terms I read, SearchApi provides comparable written legal protection in the terms reviewed here, up to $2 million per 12 months on its Production plan ($100 a month) and above. It covers claims arising from SearchApi's own collection and parsing of results, not from how you use the data. Their customer-indemnity clauses are different from an established vendor-funded scraping shield.

Is there a SerpApi alternative for n8n?

OpenSERP, the open-source option, lists an n8n node on its GitHub page. The hosted APIs on this page are plain HTTP APIs with an API key, so n8n's generic HTTP Request node can call any of them.

Sources

45 sources, accessed 16 Oct 2026 to 3 Nov 2026.

Official pricing, docs, changelogs and status pages 39

1. SerpApi pricing serpapi.com · accessed 31 Oct 2026
2. SerpApi legal terms (U.S. Legal Shield) serpapi.com · accessed 31 Oct 2026
3. SerpApi U.S. Legal Shield page serpapi.com · accessed 31 Oct 2026
4. SerpApi homepage (SLA and certification claims) serpapi.com · accessed 31 Oct 2026
5. SerpApi llms.txt (list of APIs) serpapi.com · accessed 31 Oct 2026
6. SerpApi docs: Google AI Overview API serpapi.com · accessed 31 Oct 2026
7. SerpApi blog: Google Fast Light API (100 results) serpapi.com · accessed 31 Oct 2026
8. SearchApi pricing searchapi.io · accessed 31 Oct 2026
9. SearchApi terms (Legal Protection) searchapi.io · accessed 31 Oct 2026
10. SearchApi homepage (APIs and SLA) searchapi.io · accessed 31 Oct 2026
11. SearchApi docs: Google Search API searchapi.io · accessed 31 Oct 2026
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14. apiserpent.com terms of service apiserpent.com · accessed 3 Nov 2026
15. apiserpent.com FAQ (SLA and legal questions) apiserpent.com · accessed 3 Nov 2026
16. Serper homepage and credit packs serper.dev · accessed 31 Oct 2026
17. Serper terms of service serper.dev · accessed 31 Oct 2026
18. DataForSEO Google Organic SERP API pricing dataforseo.com · accessed 31 Oct 2026
19. DataForSEO docs: Google Organic Live Advanced (depth and AI Overview) docs.dataforseo.com · accessed 31 Oct 2026
20. DataForSEO help center: minimum payment dataforseo.com · accessed 31 Oct 2026
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22. Bright Data SERP API pricing brightdata.com · accessed 31 Oct 2026
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25. Bright Data master services agreement brightdata.com · accessed 31 Oct 2026
26. Scrapingdog pricing scrapingdog.com · accessed 31 Oct 2026
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28. ScraperAPI docs: credits per request docs.scraperapi.com · accessed 31 Oct 2026
29. ScraperAPI pricing scraperapi.com · accessed 31 Oct 2026
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31. scrape.do pricing scrape.do · accessed 31 Oct 2026
32. scrape.do Google Search Scraper API scrape.do · accessed 31 Oct 2026
33. cloro pricing cloro.dev · accessed 31 Oct 2026
34. Searlo pricing searlo.tech · accessed 31 Oct 2026
35. SearXNG docs: search settings (JSON format, CAPTCHA suspension) docs.searxng.org · accessed 31 Oct 2026
36. Oxylabs current /Scrape pricing oxylabs.io · accessed 31 Oct 2026
37. Decodo current Web Data API billing help.decodo.com · accessed 31 Oct 2026
38. Bright Data SERP billing modes docs.brightdata.com · accessed 31 Oct 2026
39. DataForSEO deposited-fund expiry and payments dataforseo.com · accessed 31 Oct 2026

GitHub code, issues and releases 1

1. OpenSERP on GitHub github.com · accessed 31 Oct 2026

Other sources 5

1. Google v. SerpApi ECF 60: hearing vacated on 5 Oct 2026 storage.courtlistener.com · accessed 31 Oct 2026
2. Court order: Google v. SerpApi, ECF 42, order granting the motion to dismiss (20 Jul 2026) storage.courtlistener.com · accessed 16 Oct 2026
3. Court opinion: Reddit v. SerpApi et al., ECF 104, opinion and order on the motions to dismiss (31 Jul 2026) storage.courtlistener.com · accessed 31 Oct 2026
4. Google ECF 61: party notice, 12 Oct 2026 storage.courtlistener.com · accessed 31 Oct 2026
5. Google date-descending public RECAP index courtlistener.com · accessed 16 Oct 2026