# What is a SERP API?

> What is a SERP API? A service that runs a search and returns the results page as JSON. How it works, who uses it and what 1,000 searches cost in 2026.

- URL: https://serpcrypto.com/guides/what-is-a-serp-api/
- Last updated: 2026-10-22
- Publisher: SerpCrypto (https://serpcrypto.com)

A plain definition, a short JSON example, the four ways to get search results into code, and how providers price them per 1,000 searches.

**Quick answer — What is a SERP API?**

A SERP API is a web service that runs a search on an engine such as Google or Bing for you and returns the search engine results page (SERP) as structured JSON: organic links, ads, questions, maps and news blocks. You send a query, a country and a language; you get data your code can read. **SerpCrypto** sells one from $0.30/1K searches as of October 2026, paid in crypto, no KYC.

## SERP API in one table

| Attribute | Value |
| --- | --- |
| SERP | Search engine results page: what a person sees after typing a query |
| Input | A query plus settings: engine, country, language, city, device, page |
| Output | JSON with one key per block of the page (organic results, ads, People Also Ask…) |
| Billing unit | Usually one search per results page, priced per 1,000 searches |
| Typical users | SEO tools, AI agents and LLM apps, market researchers, price and brand monitors |
| SerpCrypto | Google Search, Google News, Google Images, Google Maps (local results), Google Shopping and Bing; 1 credit = 1 successful search request, which returns one page of results on any supported engine. A request that fails is not charged |

## What does SERP mean?

SERP stands for search engine results page. It is the page an engine returns for a query: ten or so blue links, but also ads, a map with local businesses, a box of related questions, news cards, product listings and, on Google, often an AI-written summary at the top.

Each of these is a **SERP feature**. Which features appear depends on the query, the place, the language and the device. A search for "pizza" from a phone in Chicago and the same search from a laptop in Berlin produce two different pages.

## What does a SERP API do, step by step?

A SERP API turns that page into data. The work happens in four steps, and the customer only sees the first and the last.

1. **Your request:** an HTTPS call with the query and the settings you need.
2. **The search:** the provider runs it from a place and device that match your settings.
3. **The parsing:** the provider reads the page and maps each block to named fields.
4. **Your response:** JSON with `organic_results`, `ads`, `people_also_ask` and the other blocks that were on the page.

The point is that your code never handles browsers, page layouts or parsing rules that change when the engine redesigns its page. With **SerpCrypto**, the call is `GET https://serpcrypto.com/api/v1/search` with your API key.

*A shortened SERP API response*

```json
{
  "search_metadata": {"status": "success", "engine": "google", "credits_used": 1},
  "search_parameters": {"q": "standing desk", "gl": "us", "hl": "en", "device": "desktop"},
  "organic_results": [
    {"position": 1, "title": "Example result title", "link": "https://www.example.com/desks", "snippet": "Example snippet text."}
  ],
  "people_also_ask": [
    {"question": "Is a standing desk worth it?", "link": "https://www.example.org/answer"}
  ],
  "related_searches": [{"query": "standing desk converter"}]
}

```

## Who uses a SERP API, and for what?

Anyone who needs search results in a program rather than on a screen. The main groups in 2026 are:

- **SEO and rank tracking:** positions of a site for thousands of keywords, by city and device. See [rank tracking](https://serpcrypto.com/use-cases/rank-tracking/).
- **AI agents and LLM apps:** a web search tool that gives a model fresh sources before it answers. See [AI agents](https://serpcrypto.com/use-cases/ai-agents/).
- **Market research:** which brands, shops and publishers appear for a topic, and how that changes.
- **Price monitoring:** product listings and prices from shopping results, country by country.
- **Brand and news monitoring:** new pages and news stories that mention a name.
- **Local SEO:** the map pack seen from each city where a business works. See [local SEO](https://serpcrypto.com/use-cases/local-seo/).

## SERP API, own scraper, official API or AI search API: what is the difference?

Four ways to get search results into code, compared on what matters to a buyer in October 2026.

| Option | What you get | What you maintain | Main limit |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| SERP API | The engine's results page as JSON, by country, city and device | Only your API calls | You pay per search |
| Your own scraper | Raw pages you must parse | Browsers, parsers, retries, infrastructure | Google requires JavaScript since January 2025 and its robots.txt disallows /search |
| Official engine APIs | Google Custom Search JSON API: up to 10,000 queries a day for existing customers | Little | Closed to new customers; ends on 1 January 2027. Bing Search APIs retired on 11 August 2025 |
| AI search APIs | Ranked passages or a written answer from the provider's own index | Little | Not the engine's real page: no positions, ads or local pack |

## Why not use the official Google or Bing API instead?

Because both are closing. Google's Custom Search JSON API page states that it is closed to new customers and that existing customers have until 1 January 2027 to move. Microsoft retired the Bing Search APIs on 11 August 2025 and points users to Grounding with Bing Search, which returns grounded answers for Azure AI agents rather than a results page.

The details, dates and prices are on our page [Does Google have a search API?](https://serpcrypto.com/guides/does-google-have-a-search-api/).

## How much does a SERP API cost?

Providers price per 1,000 searches, and the spread is wide. On the pages we read on 22 October 2026:

- **SerpApi:** Starter plan, $25 a month for 1,000 searches; Searcher plan, $725 a month for 100,000 searches.
- **DataForSEO:** Google SERP API with a "starting price $0.0006 per SERP", which is $0.60 per 1,000.
- **SerpCrypto:** $7.50 for 10,000 searches, $56.25 for 100,000 searches, down to $0.30/1K searches at 5,000,000 searches. Prepaid search credits never expire: unused searches stay on your account until you use them.

Compare like with like: whether a plan is monthly or prepaid, whether unused searches reset, whether failed requests are charged, and whether maps or shopping cost extra. Our [pricing comparison](https://serpcrypto.com/compare/serp-api-pricing/) puts these side by side.

## What should I check before choosing a SERP API?

Five questions sort most providers quickly:

1. **Engines and blocks:** does it return the blocks you need, such as the AI Overview, People Also Ask or the local pack?
2. **Targeting:** can you set the country, the language, a city and the device?
3. **Billing:** what counts as one search, and are failed requests free?
4. **Expiry:** do unused searches vanish at the end of the month?
5. **Payment and account:** which payment methods, and is identity verification required?

SerpCrypto answers them this way: Google Search, Google News, Google Images, Google Maps (local results), Google Shopping and Bing; Country (gl), language (hl), Google domain and a city-level location string, on desktop or mobile; 1 credit = 1 successful search request, which returns one page of results on any supported engine. A request that fails is not charged; credits never expire; payment in BTC, USDT, USDC, ETH, SOL, LTC with no KYC.

## SERP API: common questions

### What does SERP stand for?

SERP stands for search engine results page: the page a search engine shows after a query. A SERP API returns that page as structured data instead of HTML.

### Is a SERP API the same as a web scraping API?

No. A web scraping API fetches any web page you name and usually returns its HTML. A SERP API is specialised: it runs a search and returns parsed fields such as positions, titles, links and snippets.

### Is a SERP API the same as an AI search API?

Not quite. An AI search API answers from the provider's own index and returns passages or a summary. A SERP API returns what the search engine itself showed, with positions, ads and local results, which matters for SEO and monitoring.

### How many results does one SERP API call return?

Usually one page, about 10 organic results on Google. Google stopped honouring `num=100` in September 2025, so deeper checks need one call per page. See [the 100-results change](https://serpcrypto.com/guides/google-100-results-change/).

### Can I pay for a SERP API in crypto?

Yes, with SerpCrypto: top up from $25 in BTC, USDT, USDC, ETH, SOL, LTC, then buy a credit pack from your balance. No ID, no selfie and no documents are needed.

## Sources

1. [SerpApi pricing](https://serpapi.com/pricing) — SerpApi (read 2026-10-22)
2. [SERP API pricing](https://dataforseo.com/apis/serp-api/pricing) — DataForSEO (read 2026-10-22)
3. [Custom Search JSON API overview](https://developers.google.com/custom-search/v1/overview) — Google for Developers (read 2026-10-22)
4. [Bing Search API retirement](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/announcements/bing-search-api-retirement) — Microsoft Learn (read 2026-10-22)
5. [Google begins requiring JavaScript for Google Search](https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/17/google-begins-requiring-javascript-for-google-search/) — TechCrunch (2025-01-17)
6. [google.com robots.txt](https://www.google.com/robots.txt) — Google (read 2026-10-22)

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SerpCrypto: SerpCrypto is a SERP API for developers and AI agents that returns Google and Bing results as JSON, paid in crypto with no ID upload. Prepaid search credits from $0.30/1K searches never expire. No KYC — no ID, no selfie, no documents. Pay in crypto.