Pick SearchApi.io if you query engines beyond Google or need SERP features serp.cheap doesn’t parse; pick serp.cheap if Google organic results are all you consume — you’ll pay $0.60–0.75 per 1,000 instead of roughly $1.60. The deciding factor is engine coverage, not data quality: both hit the live google.com.
serp.cheap vs SearchApi.io at a glance
| serp.cheap | SearchApi.io | |
|---|---|---|
| Price / 1,000 | $0.30 cached / $0.60 fresh ($0.75 PAYG tier) | ~$1.60 |
| Billing model | Pay as you go, no contract | Subscription / credits |
| Credits expire | After 12 months | Varies by plan |
| Free tier | 100 free searches, no card | Trial |
| Search engines | Google only | Many |
| Real google.com | ✅ Live, via residential proxies | ✅ Live google.com |
| Knowledge Graph | ✅ | ✅ |
| Countries | 12 | Many |
| Min. spend | None | Varies |
| Response | Synchronous, avg <3s (cached: milliseconds) | Synchronous |
Prices last reviewed June 2026 — always check the provider’s pricing page.
Where serp.cheap wins
- Price per Google query. $0.75/1,000 pay-as-you-go, $0.60–0.70/1,000 at volume, $0.30/1,000 when the result comes from cache — against ~$1.60/1,000 at SearchApi.io. For Google-only workloads that’s roughly half to a third of the cost.
- No subscription to size. SearchApi.io sells plans; serp.cheap bills only what you call. Credits stay valid for 12 months, there’s no monthly minimum, and a project that goes quiet for two months costs $0 in months two and three.
- You don’t subsidize engines you never call. Multi-engine infrastructure is priced into every request. If 100% of your traffic is Google organic, a Google-only pipeline is the cheaper machine.
- Cache pricing is explicit. Repeated queries (rank trackers re-checking the same keyword set) bill at $0.0003 instead of $0.0006 per request — the discount is in the price list, not a negotiation.
Where SearchApi.io wins
- Engines beyond Google. If your roadmap includes any non-Google source, serp.cheap simply doesn’t cover it — one SearchApi.io integration replaces several single-engine ones.
- More SERP features parsed. serp.cheap returns
organic[]and the Knowledge Graph, full stop. No Maps, Images or Shopping verticals. SearchApi.io parses considerably more of the page. - Broader geo coverage. serp.cheap supports 12 countries (US, BR, GB, DE, FR, ES, IT, MX, CA, AU, JP, NL). If you need results localized elsewhere, SearchApi.io is the safer bet.
- Polished developer experience. Clean docs and a tidy multi-engine API surface — genuinely pleasant to build against.
What switching looks like
A SearchApi.io Google call is a GET with query-string params:
curl "https://www.searchapi.io/api/v1/search?engine=google&q=coffee+grinder&gl=us&api_key=KEY"The serp.cheap equivalent is a POST with a JSON body and the key in a header:
curl https://api.serp.cheap/v1/search \
-H 'X-API-Key: KEY' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{"q":"coffee grinder","gl":"us"}'Field mapping is mechanical: SearchApi.io’s organic_results[] becomes serp.cheap’s organic[], and the items carry the same core fields — position, title, link, snippet (plus date and sitelinks when Google shows them). The Knowledge Graph arrives as a top-level knowledgeGraph object when available. Localization params keep their names: gl for country, hl for UI language, page (1-indexed) for pagination, tbs for time filters. If your parser only reads organic positions, titles, links and snippets, the adapter is a dozen lines; if it reads shopping units or image/Maps verticals, those fields have no serp.cheap equivalent — stop here, you need the bigger API.
Cost math: 500 keywords, checked daily
Take a concrete rank-tracking job: 500 keywords, one fresh check per day, 30 days = 15,000 fresh requests/month.
- serp.cheap (pay-as-you-go, $0.75/1,000): 15 × $0.75 = $11.25/mo — dropping toward 15 × $0.60 = $9.00/mo at volume rates, and lower still if any re-checks land in cache at $0.30/1,000.
- SearchApi.io (~$1.60/1,000): 15 × $1.60 = $24.00/mo.
Same Google organic data, about $12.75/month apart at this volume — and the gap scales linearly: at 150,000 requests/month it’s roughly $113 vs $240. Rate limits (1–60 req/s depending on plan) are a non-issue at this pace; 15,000 requests spread over a month is well under one per second.
One billing detail worth knowing before you commit: serp.cheap’s direct top-ups take card (Stripe) or crypto, no KYC. The same API is also listed on RapidAPI at ~$0.90/1,000 and Apify at ~$1.50/1,000 — still under SearchApi.io’s ~$1.60/1,000, but the gap narrows, so run the math against the channel you’d actually use. The 15,000-request job above costs $13.50/mo via RapidAPI and $22.50/mo via Apify.
When SearchApi.io is the right choice
- You query more than one search engine — consolidating on one API beats wiring up several.
- You need SERP verticals beyond organic + Knowledge Graph + ads: shopping, images, Maps.
- You need countries outside serp.cheap’s 12-market list.
Verdict
This isn’t a quality contest — both return live google.com results. It’s a scope question. SearchApi.io is the broader tool and charges accordingly; serp.cheap does one thing (Google organic + Knowledge Graph in 12 countries) at $0.60–0.75/1,000. If your queries are 100% Google organic, you’re paying SearchApi.io roughly 2× for breadth you never invoke.
For the full market picture, see our Google Search API pricing comparison and the price-ranked cheapest SERP API 2026.
Try serp.cheap
Run your SearchApi.io keyword set through serp.cheap and diff the organic positions yourself. 100 free searches on signup — no card required; pay-as-you-go from $0.75/1k after that, and credits stay valid for 12 months.
- Get your free API key →
- Prefer paying by card? serp.cheap is also on RapidAPI (
$0.90/1k) and Apify ($1.50/1k).