ScraperAPI vs SerpApi (2026): which should you pick?

Pick ScraperAPI if

• Fits if you scrape Google alongside Amazon, Walmart or eBay on one key
• Works for large batches that need retries and scheduling, through the async API or DataPipeline

Look elsewhere if

• Watch out: a Google or Bing request costs 25 credits, so Hobby's 100,000 credits is about 4,000 searches
• Skip it if you need rankings outside the US and EU below Business at $269.10 a month
• Pricey if you need rendering, premium proxies or screenshots, which add 10 credits each
• Tight if you run out mid-month, as credits don't roll over and pay-as-you-go starts at Scaling, $427.50
• Tight if you're on Free, with 1,000 credits a month, about 40 Google searches

Pick SerpApi if

• Fits if you need Google AI Overviews, AI Mode and other engines in one response format
• Works for low volumes that fit in 250 free searches or 1,000 paid ones a month

Look elsewhere if

• Pricey if you search in volume, at $25 per 1,000 on Starter where Serper charges $1
• Tight if you're on Free, with 250 searches a month and at most 50 an hour
• Skip it if you want the U.S. Legal Shield on a small plan, as it starts on Production at $150 a month
• Watch out: plans are month to month, and yearly billing is only set up by request
• Watch out: Ludicrous Speed costs twice the price, and refunds stop after 7 days or 20% of a plan's searches

ScraperAPI

• A Google or Bing request costs 25 credits, so Hobby's 100,000 credits cover about 4,000 Google searches.
• JavaScript rendering, premium proxies and screenshots each add 10 credits, and bypassing bot protection adds 10 more.
• Credits reset each billing cycle with no rollover; pay-as-you-go past the allowance starts at the Scaling plan.
• Hobby and Startup can only geotarget the US and EU; country-level targeting starts at Business.

SerpApi

• Plans are month to month; the FAQ says yearly billing can only be set up by request while an official yearly plan is in the works.
• The U.S. Legal Shield is not included on the Free, Starter or Developer plans.
• Bigger self-serve plans run from Searcher at $725 for 100,000 searches a month to Cloud plans of 1 million searches and up from $3,750.
• Refunds are offered within 7 days of subscribing, unless more than 20% of the plan's searches have been used.

ScraperAPI

Google structured data endpoints

Ready-made endpoints return Google Search, Shopping, Maps, News and Jobs results as JSON, without needing JavaScript rendering turned on.

Proxy rotation and anti-bot handling

Rotating proxy pools, premium residential and mobile IPs, CAPTCHA handling and automatic retries, with geotargeting by country on Business and up.

JavaScript rendering and screenshots

Load dynamic pages in a headless browser, follow a rendering instruction set, and capture screenshots of the result.

Asynchronous API and DataPipeline

Submit up to 50,000 jobs that retry until they succeed, or schedule large scraping jobs in DataPipeline without writing code.

AI Parser and LLM-ready output

Train a custom parser to get clean JSON from any source, or ask for pages as text or Markdown for language model pipelines.

MCP server and integrations

An MCP server, a CLI and SDKs, with LangChain, LlamaIndex, n8n and Zapier integrations.

SerpApi

Google and many other engines

Endpoints for Google Search, AI Mode, AI Overview, Maps, Shopping, Scholar, Trends, Flights and Hotels, plus Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, Yandex, Baidu, Naver, YouTube, Amazon, eBay and Walmart.

Full browser and CAPTCHA solving

Each request runs immediately in a full browser through a proxy near the chosen location, and results come back as JSON or Markdown.

Only successful searches counted

Cached, errored and failed searches do not count against the monthly allowance, and a response with 100 results counts as one search.

Ludicrous Speed

An option on every paid plan that sends parallel requests for faster responses, at twice the price; Ludicrous Speed Max is four times the price.

U.S. Legal Shield

From the Production plan up, SerpApi says it takes on liability for the lawful collection of public search data, with up to $2 million in coverage.

Teams and client libraries

Unlimited team members with admin, developer, billing and viewer roles, and libraries for Python, JavaScript, Ruby, Go, PHP, Java, Rust and .NET, plus an MCP server.

ScraperAPI

• Free$0

  1,000 API credits a month and 5 concurrent threads, to keep scraping after the trial ends.

• Hobby$44.10

  per month for 100K API credits, billed annually ($49 billed monthly)

  20 concurrent threads, geotargeting in the US and EU only, and 30 days of analytics history.

• Startup$134.10

  per month for 1M API credits, billed annually ($149 billed monthly)

  50 concurrent threads, with US and EU geotargeting only.

• Business$269.10

  per month for 3M API credits, billed annually ($299 billed monthly)

  100 concurrent threads, country-level geotargeting worldwide and unlimited analytics history.

• Scaling$427.50

  per month for 5M API credits, billed annually ($475 billed monthly)

  200 concurrent threads, and the first plan with pay-as-you-go credits past the monthly allowance.

• Professional$877.50

  per month for 10.5M API credits, billed annually ($975 billed monthly)

  300 threads and priority support. Advanced is $1,777.50 a month billed annually for 21.5M credits; Enterprise is custom above 22M.

SerpApi

• Free$0

  250 searches a month with a throughput of 50 an hour.

• Starter$25

  per month for 1,000 searches, billed monthly

  Throughput of 200 successful searches an hour. No U.S. Legal Shield.

• Developer$75

  per month for 5,000 searches, billed monthly

  Throughput of 1,000 successful searches an hour. No U.S. Legal Shield.

• Production$150

  per month for 15,000 searches, billed monthly

  Throughput of 3,000 an hour, and the U.S. Legal Shield with up to $2 million in coverage.

• Big Data$275

  per month for 30,000 searches, billed monthly

  Throughput of 6,000 an hour, with the U.S. Legal Shield.

• EnterpriseCustom

  Custom volume and throughput, ZeroTrace mode, which stores no search data, and priority support. Sold through sales.

ScraperAPI

• Annual discount

  10% off with yearly billing

  ScraperAPI's pricing page lists 10% off every self-serve plan when billed yearly: Hobby is $44.10 a month instead of $49.

SerpApi

• Education

  Special pricing for students and educators

  SerpApi's FAQ says universities, students and educators can email about their project and budget to arrange special pricing.