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

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

Pick SerpBase if

• Fits if you want Google, social and shop data on one key for a few dollars
• Works for AI agents that call search through MCP

Look elsewhere if

• Watch out: requests that ran but failed may still use credits, and only failures proven never to have run are refunded
• Tight if you need speed, as the rate starts at 2 requests a second and only prepaid packs raise it, not subscriptions
• Watch out: the $3 plan's credits are time-limited, and Maps, Shopping, Jobs, Scholar and Trends cost 2 credits a request
• Watch out: used credits are generally not refundable, and the payment reseller's refund terms apply too
• Tight if you're testing, as new accounts get 100 free credits

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.

SerpBase

• Google web, image, news and video searches cost 1 credit; Maps searches, Shopping, Jobs, Scholar and Trends 2; Maps place details 3.
• Requests that ran but failed may still use credits; only failures proven never to have run are refunded automatically.
• The request rate rises with total prepaid top-ups, from 2 a second at $3 to 50 at $1,000; subscriptions do not count toward it.
• Used credits are generally not refundable; payments go through a reseller such as Paddle, whose refund terms also apply.

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.

SerpBase

Google search endpoints

Web, images, news, videos, shopping, jobs, scholar, books, finance, patents, Play and Trends, plus autocomplete and Google Maps search, places and reviews.

Parsed Google results

Web search JSON includes organic results, the knowledge graph, the AI overview, People also ask and other modules on the page.

Bing and DuckDuckGo

Web search endpoints for Bing and DuckDuckGo, each at 1 credit a request.

Social and shopping data

Reddit, TikTok, X and YouTube (including transcripts), Amazon, Walmart, eBay, Flipkart and Myntra, and Zillow property search.

Web scrape and crawl

Fetch or crawl ordinary web pages through the same key, at 1 credit per request.

MCP server and agent skill

An open-source MCP server and a portable skill let Claude, Codex, Cursor, Cline and other agents call SerpBase with your key.

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.

SerpBase

• Starter Boost$3

  per month for 10,000 credits

  A monthly subscription with time-limited credits at $0.30 per 1,000; it does not raise the request rate.

• Starter$10

  one-time for 20,000 credits, no calendar expiry

  Prepaid pack at $0.50 per 1,000 credits, with 2 requests a second.

• Growth$50

  one-time for 125,000 credits, no calendar expiry

  Prepaid pack at $0.40 per 1,000 credits, with 5 requests a second.

• Pro Monthly$100

  per month for 400,000 credits

  A monthly subscription at $0.25 per 1,000 credits, with 10 requests a second.

• Pro$200

  one-time for 570,000 credits, no calendar expiry

  Prepaid pack at $0.35 per 1,000 credits, with 15 requests a second.

• Business$500

  one-time for 1,500,000 credits, no calendar expiry

  Prepaid pack at $0.33 per 1,000 credits and 15 requests a second. An Enterprise pack is $1,000 for 3.3M credits at 50 a second.

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.

SerpBase

No public discounts listed.