SerpApi vs SerpsBot (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 SerpsBot if

• Fits if you build SEO tools and want to pay per search result
• Works for a data team that wants credits to roll over each month

Look elsewhere if

• Skip it if you want a free plan: there is none, and no stated trial
• Not for you if you cannot code, as it is an API with no dashboard on the page
• Watch out: subscription prices are not on the home page, only in a portal that needs an account
• Watch out: no integrations or SDKs are listed on the pages we read

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.

SerpsBot

• Prices are per request: $0.002 pay-as-you-go, $0.0015 on Launch, $0.0008 on Business.
• Monthly subscription fees are not shown on the home page, so no plan prices are recorded.
• The page says more plans are available in the developer portal, which requires an account.
• No free tier is listed; the vendor suggests topping up a small amount to try the API, or contacting it for a tailored trial.

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.

SerpsBot

Real-time results

The vendor says results come back in real time, typically under 1.5 seconds, with no queue or batching.

Pay as you go

A pay-as-you-go option with no minimum commitment gives access to the full API at a flat per-request rate.

Subscription tiers with credit rollover

Launch and Business tiers lower the per-request rate and raise throughput; the vendor says unused subscription credits roll over to the next month.

Concurrency limits by tier

Launch allows 30 requests per second and Business allows 500. Custom concurrency is available by contacting the vendor.

Documentation and developer portal

The site links to API documentation and a developer portal where more plans are listed.

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.

SerpsBot

Pricing could not be confirmed. See serpsbot.com.

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.

SerpsBot

No public discounts listed.