Per-request searches vs one request per job

1Lookup checks a keyword's top 100 Google results in one request for $0.15, where SerpApi needs about 10 searches to read 100.

SerpApi is a subscription that returns search pages as JSON and counts one search per request. 1Lookup prices the finished job: 30 credits for a top-100 rank check, 2 for up to 100 reviews of a place, 3 for a news search of up to 10 articles and 2 for a trends comparison.

SerpApi sells monthly plans of successful searches: Free $0 for 250, Starter $25 for 1,000, Developer $75 for 5,000, Production $150 for 15,000 and Big Data $275 for 30,000, with no contract. Each request counts as one search, and its Google Search results come ten to a page, so reading 100 results takes about 10 searches. 1Lookup answers the same jobs with one request each, from $0.010 to $0.15 on the Starter plan.

Four SerpApi engines, each as one priced request

SerpApi counts a search for each request and each page. These are the same four jobs sold by the finished result, so the price stays the same however deep the answer goes.

Google Search results

Keyword Rank Checker API

A keyword, a domain and a country or city in; the domain's place in the top 100, the page that ranks and the top 10 results with the domain marked, from one request.

30 credits per check that reads results, free when no results come back

1Lookup Google Reviews API turning a Google Maps place into up to 100 reviews, each with a star rating, the review text, the date, the reviewer and the owner's reply, above the place's overall rating

Google Maps Reviews

Google Reviews Export API

A Google place id or a Maps link in; up to 100 reviews out, newest, highest, lowest or most relevant first, each with the owner's reply, where SerpApi returns up to 20 a request.

2 credits per place that has reviews, free when a place has none

Google News

Google News Search API

A keyword and a country in; up to 10 recent articles out, with each publication, time and link, plus which publications wrote the most.

3 credits per search that returns articles, free when there is no news

Google Trends

Search Trends API

Up to 5 keywords in; their interest over time on one shared 0 to 100 scale for the last 5 years, for a country of your choice.

2 credits per comparison that returns readings, free when there are no readings

1Lookup vs SerpApi: the same criteria, side by side

Both products measured on identical criteria, with SerpApi’s numbers taken from its own published pricing.

1lookup1lookup.ioData and validation APIs

serpapi.comSEO platform

SerpApi · Starts at: Starter at $25 per month: 1,000 searches per month and a guaranteed 200 successful searches per hour (works out to $25.00 per 1,000 searches).; 1Lookup: $99/mo for 20,000 credits ($4.95 per 1,000, down to $2.00 on Enterprise)
SerpApi · Do credits expire?: Plan searches are a monthly allowance: the pricing FAQ says that on renewal 'your searches will reset at the start of the new billing cycle'. If you cancel you can use remaining searches until the renewal date, and on a downgrade the remaining searches are added to an 'Extra Credits' balance. The pricing page does not print an explicit roll-over sentence for unused plan searches.; 1Lookup: Unused monthly credits roll over for 3 months; separately purchased credits last 1 year

Criteria	1Lookup
Pricing model	Monthly plans with universal credits; core phone, email and IP lookups cost 1 credit, enrichment and intelligence products cost more	Monthly subscription by number of successful searches per month, month-to-month with no contract: Free $0 (250 searches), Starter $25 (1,000), Developer $75 (5,000), Production $150 (15,000), Big Data $275 (30,000) per month, and Enterprise by quote. The pricing page prints monthly prices only (no annual toggle or annual price). One successful search is one credit regardless of how many results it returns; cached, errored and failed searches are not counted.
Starting price	$99/mo for 20,000 credits ($4.95 per 1,000, down to $2.00 on Enterprise)	Starter at $25 per month: 1,000 searches per month and a guaranteed 200 successful searches per hour (works out to $25.00 per 1,000 searches).
Free option	Free single lookups via the online tools at 1lookup.io/tools, no account required	Free plan: $0 / month, 250 searches per month, 50 throughput per hour (50 successful searches per hour guaranteed).
Free trial	7-day free trial on every plan: $5 of credits on Starter, $20 on Growth, Professional, and Enterprise, with no payment today	None published
Do credits expire?	Unused monthly credits roll over for 3 months; separately purchased credits last 1 year	Plan searches are a monthly allowance: the pricing FAQ says that on renewal 'your searches will reset at the start of the new billing cycle'. If you cancel you can use remaining searches until the renewal date, and on a downgrade the remaining searches are added to an 'Extra Credits' balance. The pricing page does not print an explicit roll-over sentence for unused plan searches.

What SerpApi costs at volume

Volume	SerpApi price	Per 1,000
1,000 searches a month (Starter)	$25 a month	$25.00
5,000 searches a month (Developer)	$75 a month	$15.00
15,000 searches a month (Production)	$150 a month	$10.00
30,000 searches a month (Big Data)	$275 a month	$9.17

SerpApi's price per search falls with the plan, from $25.00 per 1,000 on Starter to $9.17 on Big Data, and every page of results is a search. 1Lookup bills the finished result: 666 rank checks, 10,000 review exports, 6,666 news searches or 10,000 trends comparisons a month on the Starter plan.

Before you sign: SerpApi and 1Lookup on the operational terms

The terms that decide what a year actually costs, rather than what the first month does. “Not listed” means we could not verify it on either product’s published pages, not that the answer is nothing.

Term	1Lookup	SerpApi
Minimum commitment	None. Monthly plans with no contract and no minimum volume; cancel any time	Month-to-month; the pricing page says 'Month-to-month. Cancel anytime.' and the FAQ says you can upgrade, downgrade or cancel at any time without restrictions. Refund: full refund within 7 days of subscribing unless more than 20% of searches are used.
Going over your quota	Not listed	No per-search overage price is printed. If you run out of searches in a month, you can set Automatic Early Renewal, which renews the plan once all searches are used and replenishes them, or renew manually; the renewal date is updated and searches reset at the start of the new billing cycle. On upgrade you pay only the difference and keep the renewal date.
API access	Included on every plan and during the free trial; there is no tier that unlocks it	Every plan on the pricing page, including Free, is a plan for the search APIs; the Google Search, News, Trends and Maps Reviews engines are all called through https://serpapi.com/search with an engine parameter and an api_key.
Rate limit	1,000 requests per minute on standard accounts, with higher limits available on request	Guaranteed throughput per hour by plan, in successful searches: Free 50, Starter 200, Developer 1,000, Production 3,000, Big Data 6,000; Enterprise custom. The page advises spreading searches evenly through the hour.
Uptime SLA	Not listed	99.95% SLA guarantee with all plans, with credits up to 100% of the monthly plan price on the next invoice (Terms of Service, Section 21). The pricing page also says premium support is backed by uptime SLAs of up to 99.97%.
Compliance	Not listed	SOC 2 Type II, SOC 3 and ISO 27001 (as printed on the pricing page).
Support	Starter: Email Support; Growth: Priority Email & Chat Support; Professional: Chat + Live Meeting; Enterprise: Dedicated CSM	contact@serpapi.com for enterprise and volume enquiries; support@serpapi.com for Terms of Service questions; Priority support is a feature listed on the pricing page.

SerpApi fine print worth reading twice

Published terms that change what SerpApi costs or what you can do with it. Each one links to the SerpApi page it was read on, because a claim about somebody else’s contract should be checkable in one click.

The U.S. Legal Shield (up to $2 million coverage) applies to recurring plans except Free, Starter and Developer, so it needs Production at $150 per month or higher.
Read it on SerpApi’s site
Ludicrous Speed, the faster delivery option, is priced at 2x the price of Best Effort and can be switched on for paid plans.
Read it on SerpApi’s site
ZeroTrace Mode (no storage of search parameters or results) is Enterprise only.
Read it on SerpApi’s site
Responses with an empty result set count as 1 search.
Read it on SerpApi’s site
The Terms say prices are subject to change without notice.
Read it on SerpApi’s site
Refunds are limited to 7 days after subscribing and are not given if more than 20% of the searches were used.
Read it on SerpApi’s site

1Lookup

Source: 1lookup.io homepage, captured August 2026

SerpApi

Source: serpapi.com homepage, captured October 2026

Where 1Lookup wins

A top-100 rank check is one request at $0.15 on Starter, where SerpApi needs about 10 searches, $0.15 on Developer and $0.25 on Starter
Up to 100 reviews of a place for $0.010, where SerpApi returns up to 20 a request and 100 reviews take five searches, $0.075 on Developer
A trends comparison of up to 5 keywords for $0.010, below SerpApi's $0.015 on Developer and $0.025 on Starter
One balance for search data and for the lookups that follow it: business data, email and phone validation, with credits that roll over for 3 months

Where SerpApi wins

Month-to-month plans with a free tier of 250 searches and no contract; upgrades, downgrades and cancellation are allowed at any time (pricing FAQ).
Cached, errored and failed searches are not charged, and cached searches (same parameters within 1 hour) are free.
City-level location control for rank checks through location, or exact coordinates through lat and lon / uule, plus gl, hl and device (desktop, tablet, mobile) parameters.
Google Maps Reviews API pages through reviews with next_page_token and up to 20 per request, so a full review list can be walked page by page.
Printed security and reliability terms: SOC 2 Type II, SOC 3 and ISO 27001 certifications, a 99.95% SLA with service credits on all plans, and a $2 million U.S. Legal Shield on Production and Big Data.
One API key and plan reach the Google Search, Google News, Google Trends and Google Maps Reviews engines (engine=google, google_news, google_trends, google_maps_reviews), so a buyer needing several Google data types does not need separate contracts.

SerpApi pricing and product facts verified against serpapi.com as of October 2026. Prices change; always confirm on the vendor’s site. 1Lookup numbers come from the live rate card.

Who this is for

A quick, honest read on which tool fits your use case.

Choose 1Lookup if: you read a place's reviews, a keyword's top 100 or a news search as one request with one price, instead of counting a search for every page of results.

Consider SerpApi instead if: you need several search engines through one key, city-level location and device settings, a free tier of 250 searches, or a printed 99.95% SLA with SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001.

Frequently asked questions

What is SerpApi used for?

Getting search-engine result pages as structured JSON without writing a scraper. Developers, SEO tools and data teams call it for Google Search, Google News, Google Trends, Google Maps and Google Maps Reviews, and a long list of other engines, with an API key and an engine parameter on one endpoint.

How does SerpApi pricing work in 2026?

Monthly plans of successful searches, with no contract and the prices printed per month only: Free $0 for 250 searches, Starter $25 for 1,000, Developer $75 for 5,000, Production $150 for 15,000, Big Data $275 for 30,000, and Enterprise by quote. A request counts as one search whether it returns 100 results or none, cached and failed requests are free, and a plan's searches reset at the start of each billing cycle. Per 1,000 searches that is $25.00, $15.00, $10.00 and $9.17 from Starter up to Big Data.

How many SerpApi searches does a top-100 rank check take?

About 10. Google Search results are paged with a start offset in steps of 10, so each page is its own request and its own search. On the Developer plan that is $0.15, on Starter $0.25. 1Lookup's Keyword Rank Checker reads the top 100 in one request for 30 credits, about $0.15 on the Starter plan.

How much does 1Lookup charge for the same jobs?

Keyword rank check: 30 credits per check that reads results, free when no results come back. Google reviews: 2 credits per place that has reviews, free when a place has none. News search: 3 credits per search that returns articles, free when there is no news. Trends comparison: 2 credits per comparison that returns readings, free when there are no readings. On the Starter plan ($99 a month for 20,000 credits) those are about $0.15, $0.010, $0.015 and $0.010 a request.

Is there a cheaper alternative to SerpApi?

It depends on the job. For reading a place's reviews, 100 reviews take five SerpApi searches, $0.075 on the Developer plan, against $0.010 for one 1Lookup request. For a trends comparison, $0.010 against $0.025 on Starter and $0.015 on Developer. For rank checks and news searches the two cost about the same at the Developer level, and SerpApi's Production and Big Data plans are cheaper per search at high volume.

Where does SerpApi beat 1Lookup?

On entry price and breadth. SerpApi starts at $25 a month, with a free plan of 250 searches, where the cheapest 1Lookup plan is $99 a month. It covers many engines beyond these four, takes city-level location, exact coordinates and a device parameter, pages through an entire review list with a page token, guarantees searches per hour on every plan and publishes a 99.95% uptime SLA with service credits, SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certifications and a 7-day refund window.

Is SerpApi worth it in 2026?

For a developer who needs several search engines through one key, yes: the plans are month-to-month, the free tier is usable and the SLA is printed. Before committing, count the pages: an empty result still costs a search, deep result lists multiply the bill, and a plan runs out at its monthly quota unless you renew early.

Pull Google rank, review, news and trends data by API

From $0.010 a request, on the same balance as phone, email and IP checks. Start with the 7-day free trial.