SerpApi vs Bright Data SERP API: cost per 1,000 searches
Published prices compared, with the arithmetic shown. Last checked . Prices only: we have not tested reliability, speed or output quality.
At a glance
| SerpApi | Bright Data | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | search and serp apis | proxies and unblockers |
| Free tier | 250 searches/month, 50/hour throughput. | Unlocker and SERP APIs: 5K requests/month free, no card (as stated on their pricing pages). Browser API page lists a 1 GB monthly free tier. |
| Entry paid price | from $25/mo | from $499/mo |
| MCP / agent support | Yes | Yes |
| Verification | full verification | full verification |
| Official pricing page | Pricing (opens official site in a new tab) | Pricing (opens official site in a new tab) |
Analysis
Both return structured search-engine results, but they are on different ends of the market: SerpApi sells fixed monthly buckets of successful searches across a very large catalogue of engines and endpoints; Bright Data sells a SERP API on a per-request basis with a free tier.
Per-1,000 search cost
| Use case | Monthly spend | SerpApi | Bright Data |
|---|---|---|---|
| SERP query (structured search results) | no monthly minimum | none published | $1.50 SERP PAYG |
| SERP query (structured search results) | up to $50/mo | $25.00 Starter | $1.50 SERP PAYG |
| SERP query (structured search results) | up to $100/mo | $15.00 Developer | $1.50 SERP PAYG |
| SERP query (structured search results) | up to $500/mo | $9.17 Big Data | $1.31 SERP Scale ($499) |
| SERP query (structured search results) | any budget | $9.17 Big Data | $1.31 SERP Scale ($499) |
- SerpApi: $25.00 (Starter, 1,000 searches for $25) down to $9.17 (Big Data, 30,000 searches for $275).
- Bright Data SERP API: $1.50 pay-as-you-go and $1.31 on its $499 plan.
- On those published numbers Bright Data is 6.1x to 16.7x cheaper per search depending on the SerpApi tier.
What the price difference may be buying
SerpApi's pricing page lists dozens of dedicated endpoints (Google Maps, Shopping, Flights, Hotels, Scholar, Trends and more), a “U.S. Legal Shield” feature on every plan, a ZeroTrace mode that stores no search parameters or results, and uptime SLAs up to 99.97% on higher support tiers. It counts only successful, non-cached searches. Bright Data's SERP page advertises JSON or HTML delivery across multiple engines, unlimited concurrency and pay-only-for-success. We have not measured accuracy, latency or parsing coverage for either, and we do not know how much each vendor's parsing differs.
Free tiers and limits
SerpApi: 250 searches/month, 50 per hour on the free plan; throughput caps rise by plan (e.g. 6,000 per hour on Big Data). Bright Data: 5K requests/month free, unlimited concurrency.
Verdict
If you only need Google-style results at scale and cost dominates, Bright Data's published rate is far lower. If you rely on SerpApi's broad catalogue of parsed endpoints and its privacy features, the premium may be worth it for you; check that the endpoints you need exist on both before comparing price alone.
Price ladders from the data
Effective price per unit at each published plan (monthly spend shown). Overage and assumption-based rows are excluded here; see each vendor page.
SERP query (structured search results)
SerpApi
- $25.00 Starter · $25/mo
- $15.00 Developer · $75/mo
- $10.00 Production · $150/mo
- $9.17 Big Data · $275/mo
Bright Data
- $1.50 SERP PAYG · pay as you go
- $1.31 SERP Scale ($499) · $499/mo
What we could not verify
- SerpApi: No per-search overage published; running out triggers early renewal of the plan.
- Bright Data: Billed per GB; page weight varies, so no per-page figure computed.; Not stated on page.