ScrapeUnblocker vs. SerpApi: Google Search Results, Pricing and Features Compared (2026)
SerpApi and ScrapeUnblocker are different kinds of product. SerpApi is a search-engine results API: you send a search query, and it returns the results page as structured data. ScrapeUnblocker is a web scraping API: you send any URL, and it returns the rendered page. We also have one endpoint, /serpApi, that returns Google search results as JSON, and that is where the two overlap. This article compares SerpApi’s Google Search API with our /serpApi endpoint.
To be plain about the scope: our /serpApi covers Google only. SerpApi lists its own set of engines. According to its llms.txt file, they are Google, Apple App Store, Apple Maps, Baidu, Bing, Brave AI Mode, Amazon, DuckDuckGo, eBay, Facebook, Instagram, Naver, OpenTable, Search Index, The Home Depot, Tripadvisor, Walmart, Yahoo!, Yandex, Yelp, YouTube and Zillow.
A note before we start: we make ScrapeUnblocker, so we are not a neutral party. To keep this comparison fair and checkable, every SerpApi figure below comes from SerpApi’s own public pricing page, FAQ and documentation, as we viewed them on 24 September 2026. Every ScrapeUnblocker figure comes from our pricing page and documentation. Where we do not know something, we say so. Prices and features change, so please check both sites before you decide.
At a glance
| ScrapeUnblocker | SerpApi | |
|---|---|---|
| Product type | Web scraping API for any URL, plus /serpApi for Google | Search-engine results API |
| Search engines | Google only (/serpApi) | Google, Bing, Baidu, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo!, Yandex, Naver and others |
| Billing unit | 1 request = 1 credit | 1 successful search; cached, errored and failed searches are not counted |
| Pay as you go | €1.00 per 1,000 requests | Not found on its pricing page |
| Monthly plans | From €29 per month (34,000 requests) | From $25 per month (1,000 searches) |
| Largest plan with a listed price | €1,000 per month, 1,818,000 requests (Ultimate) | $106,050 per month, 54,000,000 searches (Cloud 54M) |
| Free usage | 500 requests on signup, no card needed | Free plan, 250 searches per month |
| Throughput | 2 to 10 requests per second on Pay as you go, Starter and Pro; up to 400 on Business, Scale and Ultimate | Guaranteed successful searches per hour: 50 (Free) to 640,000 (Cloud 54M) |
| Currency | EUR | USD |
How SerpApi pricing works
SerpApi’s pricing page lists a Free plan, a long ladder of monthly plans and a custom Enterprise option. Prices are in US dollars, month to month, and the page says you can cancel at any time. The first ten plans:
| Plan | Price per month | Searches per month | Price per 1,000 searches | Throughput per hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 250 | - | 50 |
| Starter | $25 | 1,000 | $25.00 | 200 |
| Developer | $75 | 5,000 | $15.00 | 1,000 |
| Production | $150 | 15,000 | $10.00 | 3,000 |
| Big Data | $275 | 30,000 | about $9.17 | 6,000 |
| Searcher | $725 | 100,000 | $7.25 | 20,000 |
| Volume | $1,475 | 250,000 | $5.90 | 50,000 |
| Infrastructure | $2,750 | 500,000 | $5.50 | 100,000 |
| Cloud 1M | $3,750 | 1,000,000 | $3.75 | 110,000 |
| Cloud 2M | $5,675 | 2,000,000 | about $2.84 | 120,000 |
The Cloud plans continue in one-million steps up to Cloud 54M: $106,050 per month for 54,000,000 searches (about $1.96 per 1,000). Beyond that, the page offers a custom Enterprise plan.
More rules from the same page and the FAQ:
- Speed modes. The prices above are for Best Effort, the default. Every plan can be combined with Ludicrous Speed at 2x the base price or Ludicrous Speed Max at 4x.
- Throughput. The pricing page calls it “the guaranteed number of successful searches per hour for your plan”. Per the FAQ, it is 20% of the plan volume below one million searches a month, and 100,000 plus 1% of the plan volume from one million up.
- Plan features. The U.S. Legal Shield (up to $2 million in coverage for the scraping and parsing of search engine data, limited to claims under U.S. law in a U.S. court) is included from Production up. ZeroTrace Mode and Priority Support are listed from Cloud 1M up and on Enterprise.
- Billing terms. Per the FAQ, the monthly allowance restarts on the first day of each billing cycle. The page offers a full refund within 7 days of subscribing unless more than 20% of the searches were used.
How ScrapeUnblocker pricing works
ScrapeUnblocker has a pay-as-you-go option and monthly plans. Our pricing page states that one request always equals one credit.
| Plan | Price | Requests included | Effective price per 1,000 | Additional usage per 1,000 | Rate limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pay as you go | €1.00 per 1,000 requests | - | €1.00 | - | 2 requests/second |
| Starter | €29 per month | 34,000 | about €0.85 | €0.95 | 5 requests/second |
| Pro | €99 per month | 132,000 | about €0.75 | €0.85 | 10 requests/second |
| Business | €299 per month | 440,000 | about €0.68 | €0.75 | Up to 400 requests/second |
| Scale | €599 per month | 966,000 | about €0.62 | €0.68 | Up to 400 requests/second |
| Ultimate | €1,000 per month | 1,818,000 | about €0.55 | €0.60 | Up to 400 requests/second |
There is also a custom Enterprise option. Pay as you go has no monthly commitment. Our plan cards list JavaScript rendering, CAPTCHA bypass and a real browser, and none of these is charged separately. Requests to /serpApi and to /getPageSource count toward the same plan.
Price per 1,000 searches or requests at similar volumes
For Google results the units are close, but not identical. SerpApi counts successful searches, and its FAQ says Google serves 10 results per page, so going past the top 10 takes more searches with the start parameter: one search is one results page. ScrapeUnblocker counts requests, at one credit each, and per our /serpApi documentation each results page it renders is charged as one request: a call with pages_to_check=3 that returns three pages counts as three requests. So on both sides, one unit is one results page. SerpApi prices in US dollars and ScrapeUnblocker in euros. We have not converted between them, because exchange rates move.
| Monthly volume | ScrapeUnblocker | SerpApi |
|---|---|---|
| Around 1,000 to 5,000 | Pay as you go: €1.00 per 1,000 | Starter: $25 for 1,000 ($25.00 per 1,000); Developer: $75 for 5,000 ($15.00 per 1,000) |
| Around 15,000 to 35,000 | Starter: €29 for 34,000 (about €0.85 per 1,000) | Production: $150 for 15,000 ($10.00 per 1,000); Big Data: $275 for 30,000 (about $9.17 per 1,000) |
| Around 100,000 to 130,000 | Pro: €99 for 132,000 (about €0.75 per 1,000) | Searcher: $725 for 100,000 ($7.25 per 1,000) |
| Around 250,000 to 500,000 | Business: €299 for 440,000 (about €0.68 per 1,000) | Volume: $1,475 for 250,000 ($5.90 per 1,000); Infrastructure: $2,750 for 500,000 ($5.50 per 1,000) |
| Around 1,000,000 | Scale: €599 for 966,000 (about €0.62 per 1,000) | Cloud 1M: $3,750 for 1,000,000 ($3.75 per 1,000) |
| Around 2,000,000 | Ultimate: €1,000 for 1,818,000 (about €0.55 per 1,000) | Cloud 2M: $5,675 for 2,000,000 (about $2.84 per 1,000) |
At the listed prices, and as long as one euro costs less than $5, ScrapeUnblocker’s figure per 1,000 is the lower one in every row. That compares the price of a call, not what each call returns:
- What comes back. SerpApi’s Google Search API documentation covers dozens of result types, such as the answer box, knowledge graph, local pack and related questions. Our
/serpApireturns organic results, ads and Google’s AI overview. If you need the other blocks, a lower price per call does not help. - Repeated searches. SerpApi serves an identical search from its cache for up to an hour, free. On ScrapeUnblocker, every request is one credit.
- Speed modes. Ludicrous Speed or Ludicrous Speed Max doubles or quadruples SerpApi’s column.
What you pay for when a request fails
Both services say they do not charge for failed calls. Here is what each one’s pages say.
SerpApi. Its pricing page says: “Only successful searches are counted toward your monthly searches. Cached, errored, and failed searches are not.” The same answer adds that a response with 100 results and one with an empty result set both count as one search. Its status documentation gives a proxy timeout and internal errors as examples of an errored search, and exceeding the hourly throughput or running out of searches returns a 429. Per the FAQ, retrieving an earlier search through the Search Archive API does not use search credits.
ScrapeUnblocker. Per our errors documentation, a delivered page (200) is billed. When the target itself answers 404 or 410, or its origin returns its own 5xx error page, we return a 200 with an X-Origin-Status header carrying the target’s status, and that is billed too. A domain that does not exist (400 Hostname cannot be resolved) is billed, and so is a browser steps action that fails after the page has rendered (422 step_failed). A 403 (blocked by the target’s bot protection on every bypass path we have), timeouts, 523 Origin unreachable, 429 rate limit, 402 out of quota and all errors on our side are not billed.
| Outcome | ScrapeUnblocker | SerpApi |
|---|---|---|
| Results delivered | Billed (one request) | Counts as one search |
| Same query repeated within an hour | Billed (one request each time) | Served from cache and not counted, unless you set no_cache=true |
| Blocked, timed out, or an error on the provider’s side | Not billed | Not counted (errored and failed searches) |
| Rate or throughput limit exceeded | Not billed (429) | 429; only successful searches are counted |
| Out of quota | Not billed (402) | 429, “Your account has run out of searches.” |
One caveat applies to both. Each service decides for itself whether a response counts as a success. We have not tested how SerpApi classifies edge cases.
Features compared
| Feature | ScrapeUnblocker | SerpApi |
|---|---|---|
| Google web search as JSON | /serpApi: organic results, ads and Google’s AI overview | Google Search API, with documentation pages for dozens of result types |
| Google AI overview | Returned by /serpApi | In the Google Search API; its documentation says Google sometimes requires an additional request, made through its Google AI Overview API |
| Other engines and Google services | /serpApi covers Google web search only | Separate APIs for other engines and for Google Maps, News, Shopping, Images, Scholar, Trends, Flights, Hotels, Jobs and more |
| Location, language and device | proxy_country, with a published list of supported countries | location, uule, GPS coordinates, gl, hl, google_domain and device (desktop, tablet or mobile) |
| Output formats | JSON from /serpApi; for other pages, HTML or JSON with parsed_data=true. Markdown not offered | JSON, raw HTML or Markdown (output=md); json_restrictor to trim fields |
| Asynchronous requests | Not offered | async=true, results retrieved later via the Search Archive API |
| Any web page, not only search results | /getPageSource: rendered HTML of any URL in a real browser, up to 60 seconds per request (90 with steps) | In the pages we checked, we did not find an endpoint for fetching an arbitrary web page |
| Browser actions (click, type, scroll) | steps, up to about 10 actions per request, plus list_elements | Not described in the pages we checked |
| Site-specific JSON | Plugin endpoints, for example Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Target, Etsy, Indeed, TikTok, Booking.com, Airbnb and Skyscanner | APIs for sites including Amazon, eBay, Walmart, The Home Depot, Tripadvisor, Yelp, YouTube and Zillow |
| Official client libraries | Python, Node.js, Ruby and PHP | Ruby, Python, JavaScript, Golang, PHP, Java, Rust, .NET, Swift, C++, plus a CLI |
| AI tooling and integrations | MCP server, Claude Code plugin, Scrapy middleware, n8n node, Apify actors | MCP integration; Markdown output for LLMs |
A note on throughput. SerpApi states, per plan, a number of successful searches per hour that its pricing page calls guaranteed and its status documentation calls a limit. ScrapeUnblocker states a maximum rate of requests per second. The two count different things, so we have not put them side by side.
On free usage: SerpApi’s Free plan gives 250 searches every month, at 50 per hour; its pricing and sign-up pages do not say whether a card is needed. ScrapeUnblocker gives 500 requests once, on signup, with no card needed.
When SerpApi may be the better fit
- You need other search engines, such as Bing, Baidu, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo!, Yandex or Naver, or Google services such as Maps, News, Shopping, Scholar or Trends, from one vendor.
- You need Google result blocks beyond organic results, ads and the AI overview, for example the knowledge graph, local pack or related questions, already parsed.
- You need city-level
location, GPS coordinates, a specific Google domain, or a tablet or mobile device. - You want Markdown or raw HTML output, asynchronous searches, or free repeats of the same query within an hour.
- You want the terms SerpApi publishes, such as a 99.95% SLA guarantee with all plans, the U.S. Legal Shield from Production up, unlimited team members, and SOC 2 Type II, SOC 3 and ISO 27001 certification.
- You want an official library for Golang, Java, Rust, .NET, Swift or C++.
- Your volume fits in 250 searches a month, which the Free plan gives every month.
- You already have a working SerpApi integration that meets your needs.
When ScrapeUnblocker may be the better fit
- You need Google organic results, ads and the AI overview as JSON, and the price per call in the table above matters to you.
- You also scrape ordinary web pages and want one API key and one plan for both: rendered HTML of any URL in a real browser, structured JSON with
parsed_data=true, and browser actions withsteps. - You want pay-as-you-go with no monthly commitment. We did not find a pay-as-you-go option on SerpApi’s pricing page.
- You want structured JSON from our plugin endpoints for sites that do not appear in SerpApi’s published lists of engines and APIs, such as Target, Etsy, Indeed, TikTok, Booking.com, Airbnb or Skyscanner.
- You prefer to be billed in euros.
What this comparison does not tell you
- Success rates and data quality. We have not run the two services on the same queries, or compared their JSON field by field, so we make no claim about which one returns complete, correct results more often. Our benchmark measures ScrapeUnblocker only and is not a head-to-head test.
- Speed. We have not measured SerpApi’s response times, or checked the figures it publishes for its speed modes.
- Results beyond the first page. One SerpApi search is one page of Google results, and on ScrapeUnblocker each additional page is one more request. We have not compared how many results each service returns per page for the same query.
- The extra AI overview request. We did not find a statement on whether SerpApi counts it as a separate search.
- Enterprise terms. Both companies offer custom plans. We do not know what SerpApi offers beyond its public pricing page.
- Anything that changed after 24 September 2026. Both pricing pages can change at any time.
How to decide in an afternoon
- Pick 50 to 100 queries that represent your real workload, with the countries and languages you need.
- Run them through SerpApi’s Free plan. At 50 searches per hour, 100 queries take at least two hours. Set
no_cache=trueif you want every search fetched fresh. - Run the same queries through our
/serpApiendpoint with ScrapeUnblocker’s 500 free requests. - For each service, check that the fields you need are present and right for the location, then divide the monthly price by the number of useful results pages.
The service with the lower cost per useful results page, and with the fields you need, is the better choice for you. You can start with our 500 free requests on the pricing page.
Sources
- SerpApi pricing: serpapi.com/pricing and serpapi.com/pricing.md, viewed 24 September 2026
- SerpApi FAQ: serpapi.com/faq, viewed 24 September 2026
- SerpApi Google Search API documentation: serpapi.com/search-api, viewed 24 September 2026
- SerpApi AI Overview documentation: serpapi.com/ai-overview, viewed 24 September 2026
- SerpApi status and error codes: serpapi.com/api-status-and-error-codes, viewed 24 September 2026
- SerpApi integrations: serpapi.com/integrations, viewed 24 September 2026
- SerpApi Markdown output: serpapi.com/markdown-output, viewed 24 September 2026
- SerpApi engines and APIs: serpapi.com/llms.txt, viewed 24 September 2026
- ScrapeUnblocker pricing: scrapeunblocker.com/pricing
- ScrapeUnblocker errors and billing: docs.scrapeunblocker.com/errors
- ScrapeUnblocker Google SERP guide (billing per results page): docs.scrapeunblocker.com/guides/serp-scraping
- ScrapeUnblocker documentation: docs.scrapeunblocker.com
SerpApi is a trademark of its respective owner. ScrapeUnblocker is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by SerpApi. This article is published by ScrapeUnblocker and reflects information that was publicly available on 24 September 2026. If you believe anything here is inaccurate or out of date, please contact us and we will review and correct it.
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