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A SerpApi alternative.
SerpApi charges $25 a month for 1,000 searches. Plainserp charges $0.30 for the same 1,000, with no plan and nothing to cancel. If you use the organic links and snippets, you are paying for extras you never read.
SerpApi prices were read from its own public pages on 7 October 2026 and may have changed since.
What it costs
The same searches, priced both ways.
| Searches a month | SerpApi | Plainserp |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | $25.00Starter plan | $0.3083 times cheaper |
| 10,000 | $150.00Production plan, the smallest that covers 10,000 | $3.0050 times cheaper |
| 100,000 | $725.00Searcher plan | $30.0024 times cheaper |
On top of that, every new Plainserp account starts with 1,000 free searches. Your balance never expires and there is no plan to cancel.
How SerpApi charges
Monthly subscription plans, each with a fixed number of searches and an hourly throughput limit.
- Free
- $0 a month, 250 searches
- Starter
- $25 a month, 1,000 searches
- Developer
- $75 a month, 5,000 searches
- Production
- $150 a month, 15,000 searches
- Big Data
- $275 a month, 30,000 searches
- Searcher
- $725 a month, 100,000 searches
Side by side
| Topic | SerpApi | Plainserp |
|---|---|---|
| What you get back | Organic results plus Maps, Local, Shopping, Direct Answer and Knowledge Graph, with separate APIs for AI Overview, Bing and more | Organic results only: position, title, link and snippet |
| Billing | Monthly plans with a set search allowance | Pay as you go from a prepaid balance. $0.30 per 1,000 searches, no plan |
| Free tier | 250 searches every month | 1,000 searches free on sign-up, once |
| Throughput | Hourly limit per plan, for example 200 an hour on Starter | 300 requests a minute on every account |
Choose Plainserp when
- You pay 83 times less at 1,000 searches a month, and 24 times less at 100,000.
- You only use the organic links and snippets, which is what most agents and RAG pipelines read.
- Your volume changes month to month and you don't want to pay for an allowance you might not use.
- You want page text as Markdown from the same API, at $2.50 per 1,000 pages.
Where SerpApi still fits
- You need knowledge panels, local packs, shopping results, AI Overviews or other parts of the results page.
- You need search engines other than Google.
Sources
Checked on 7 October 2026. Plainserp is not affiliated with SerpApi, and SerpApi is a name of its owner. If a figure here is out of date, tell us and we will fix it.
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