# Search API pricing calculator

Type your monthly search volume. See what 11 search APIs actually cost at it, side by side, and how much you keep by switching to Keirolabs. Every price comes from the vendor's own pricing page.

Prices checked October 12, 2026. Volume: **100,000 searches a month** (change it with `?queries=`).

**Keirolabs vs Tavily basic:** $30/mo vs $500/mo, saving $470 a month ($5,640 a year). Pick another rival with `?vs=` (for example `?vs=exa`). Start free: https://platform.keirolabs.cloud/login (12,500 searches a month, no card).

## Cost at 100,000 searches a month

| # | API | Monthly cost | Per 1,000 | Plan | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Keirolabs (/search/lite) | $30 | $0.30 | Essential |  |
| 2 | Serper (Google SERP) | $75 | $0.75 | Standard pack | One-time credit packs, valid 6 months. 2,500 free queries once at signup. |
| 3 | Keirolabs (/search/fast) | $100 | $1.00 | Startup |  |
| 4 | Parallel (Fast / Turbo) | $100 | $1.00 | Pay as you go |  |
| 5 | Perplexity (fast) | $100 | $1.00 | Pay as you go |  |
| 6 | DataForSEO (Live SERP) | $200 | $2.00 | Pay as you go | Standard queue is $0.60 per 1,000 but returns in minutes, not live. |
| 7 | Firecrawl (search) | $333 | $3.33 | Standard + 50 top-ups | 2 credits per search (10 results). Annual-billing prices. |
| 8 | Exa (instant) | $400 | $4.00 | Pay as you go | Up to 10 results; each extra result adds $1 per 1,000. |
| 9 | Brave Search (web search) | $500 | $5.00 | Pay as you go | Card required, even for the free credit. |
| 10 | Linkup (standard) | $500 | $5.00 | Pay as you go | Deep search is $50 per 1,000. |
| 11 | Parallel (Basic / Advanced) | $500 | $5.00 | Pay as you go |  |
| 12 | Perplexity (standard) | $500 | $5.00 | Pay as you go |  |
| 13 | Tavily (basic) | $500 | $5.00 | Growth |  |
| 14 | You.com (web search) | $500 | $5.00 | Pay as you go | $100 in free credits once at signup. |
| 15 | Exa (auto / fast) | $700 | $7.00 | Pay as you go | Up to 10 results; each extra result adds $1 per 1,000. |
| 16 | SerpAPI (Google SERP) | $725 | $7.25 | Searcher |  |
| 17 | Tavily (advanced) | $1,600 | $16 | Pay as you go | Advanced search costs 2 credits. |

## Why Keirolabs comes out cheapest

Keirolabs answers `/search/lite` from its own pre-built index and bills it at 0.1 credit on a monthly plan: $0.24 per 1,000 on Essential, $0.13 on Pro, and $0.08 on Startup. Eight of the other ten vendors here price their standard search at $5 per 1,000 or more. The ones that undercut that do it with lighter fast modes, queued results, or Google SERP credit packs that expire.

That gap compounds with volume. At 100,000 searches a month, Keirolabs costs $30 against Tavily's $500, which keeps $5,640 a year in your budget. At a million it is $100 against $8,000.

And the first 12,500 searches every month are free, with no card. Most prototypes never leave the free tier.

## How the calculator prices each API

Per-1,000 rates are where most comparisons stop. They are also where most comparisons go wrong, because almost nobody pays the per-1,000 rate. You pay for a plan, a credit pack or a prepaid balance, and each vendor carves those up differently. So the calculator works out what you would actually pay at your volume:

1. **List prices only**, read off each vendor's own pricing page or docs on October 12, 2026. No promo codes, no negotiated discounts.
2. **The cheapest way to buy your volume.** For subscription vendors that means the cheapest plan that covers it, or a plan plus top-up packs where the vendor sells those. Where a plan simply stops at its cap (Tavily's do), the calculator compares it against pay-as-you-go.
3. **Free tiers count only while your whole month fits inside them.** Past that, the paid estimate does not subtract the free allowance, for every vendor alike.
4. **One basic search, 10 results.** Deeper modes are listed as separate rows where they cost more (Tavily advanced, and Exa, Parallel and Perplexity by mode).

## What 10K, 100K, 1M and 5M searches a month cost

| API | 10K / mo | 100K / mo | 1M / mo | 5M / mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keirolabs (/search/lite) | $0 | $30 | $100 | $400 |
| Serper (Google SERP) | $10 | $75 | $500 | $1,500 |
| Keirolabs (/search/fast) | $30 | $100 | $800 | $4,000 |
| Parallel (Fast / Turbo) | $10 | $100 | $1,000 | $5,000 |
| Perplexity (fast) | $10 | $100 | $1,000 | $5,000 |
| DataForSEO (Live SERP) | $20 | $200 | $2,000 | $10,000 |
| Firecrawl (search) | $83 | $333 | $1,599 | $9,599 |
| Exa (instant) | $40 | $400 | $4,000 | $20,000 |
| Brave Search (web search) | $50 | $500 | $5,000 | $25,000 |
| Linkup (standard) | $50 | $500 | $5,000 | $25,000 |
| Parallel (Basic / Advanced) | $50 | $500 | $5,000 | $25,000 |
| Perplexity (standard) | $50 | $500 | $5,000 | $25,000 |
| Tavily (basic) | $80 | $500 | $8,000 | $40,000 |
| You.com (web search) | $50 | $500 | $5,000 | $25,000 |
| Exa (auto / fast) | $70 | $700 | $7,000 | $35,000 |
| SerpAPI (Google SERP) | $150 | $725 | $3,750 | $11,450 |
| Tavily (advanced) | $160 | $1,600 | $16,000 | $80,000 |

At 100,000 searches a month, the cheapest option outside Keirolabs is Serper (Google SERP) at $75. At a million it is Serper (Google SERP) at $500, and at five million Serper (Google SERP) at $1,500. Keirolabs /search/lite comes in at $100 for a million.

## Why the per-1,000 price misleads

- **Plans have cliffs.** Tavily's Growth plan covers 100,000 credits for $500, and its plans stop at their cap rather than billing overage. At 100,001 searches there is no bigger self-serve plan, so the calculator prices the month at the $8 pay-as-you-go rate: $800 instead of $500.
- **Credit packs expire.** Serper's cheapest rate ($0.30 per 1,000) comes with a 12.5 million credit pack that is only valid for 6 months. Buy more than you use in that window and the effective rate climbs.
- **Some searches cost more than one credit.** Firecrawl bills 2 credits per search, and Tavily's advanced mode bills 2. Exa adds $1 per 1,000 for every result past the tenth, so a 30-result search costs $27 per 1,000, not $7.
- **Subscription tiers round up.** SerpAPI sells fixed monthly blocks. At 16,000 searches you are on the 30,000-search Big Data plan, paying for 14,000 you never run.

## Use it from code or an agent

The volume lives in the URL, and every format is computed on the server, so no JavaScript is needed:

- Page: `https://keirolabs.cloud/tools/search-api-pricing-calculator?queries=250000`
- Markdown: `https://keirolabs.cloud/tools/search-api-pricing-calculator.md?queries=250000`
- JSON: `https://keirolabs.cloud/tools/search-api-pricing-calculator.json?queries=250000`

`queries` takes a plain number or a shorthand like `250k` or `1.5m`.

```bash
curl "https://keirolabs.cloud/tools/search-api-pricing-calculator.json?queries=1m"
```

## Sources

Every rate was read from the vendor's own page on October 12, 2026:

- Keirolabs: [keirolabs.cloud/pricing](https://keirolabs.cloud/pricing)
- Tavily: [docs.tavily.com/documentation/api-credits](https://docs.tavily.com/documentation/api-credits)
- Exa: [exa.ai/pricing](https://exa.ai/pricing)
- Brave Search: [brave.com/search/api/](https://brave.com/search/api/)
- Serper: [serper.dev](https://serper.dev)
- SerpAPI: [serpapi.com/pricing](https://serpapi.com/pricing)
- Parallel: [parallel.ai/pricing](https://parallel.ai/pricing)
- Linkup: [docs.linkup.so/pages/documentation/development/pricing](https://docs.linkup.so/pages/documentation/development/pricing)
- Firecrawl: [www.firecrawl.dev/pricing](https://www.firecrawl.dev/pricing)
- You.com: [you.com/pricing](https://you.com/pricing)
- Perplexity: [docs.perplexity.ai/docs/getting-started/pricing](https://docs.perplexity.ai/docs/getting-started/pricing)
- DataForSEO: [dataforseo.com/pricing/serp/google-organic-serp-api](https://dataforseo.com/pricing/serp/google-organic-serp-api)

Google's Custom Search JSON API is left out: it is closed to new customers and shuts down on January 1, 2027. Bing's Web Search API was retired in August 2025.

## FAQ

### How much does a search API cost per 1,000 queries?

At 100,000 searches a month, list prices run from $0.30 per 1,000 (Keirolabs (/search/lite)) to $16 per 1,000 (Tavily (advanced)). Most AI search APIs (Brave, Parallel Basic, Linkup, You.com, Perplexity) sit at $5 per 1,000, Exa at $7 and Tavily basic at $8 pay-as-you-go.

### What is the cheapest search API in 2026?

At a million searches a month, Keirolabs (/search/lite) is cheapest at $100. Among Google SERP APIs, Serper is cheapest at volume, down to $0.30 per 1,000 on its largest pack. The answer changes with volume, which is what the calculator above is for.

### How much does Tavily cost for 100,000 searches a month?

$500 a month on the Growth plan for basic search. Advanced search costs 2 credits, which pushes 100,000 searches past every plan and onto pay-as-you-go at $1,600.

### How much does Exa cost per month?

Exa is pay-as-you-go: $7 per 1,000 searches on auto or fast mode, $4 on instant, with $10 of free credit every month. 100,000 searches cost $700. Results past the tenth add $1 per 1,000 each.

### How much does the Brave Search API cost?

$5 per 1,000 requests, with $5 of free credit each month (about 1,000 searches). A card is required even for the free credit. 100,000 searches a month cost $500.

### Can an AI agent use this calculator?

Yes. Add ?queries= to the URL and the page, its .md version and its .json version all return the prices for that volume, computed on the server. Example: keirolabs.cloud/tools/search-api-pricing-calculator.json?queries=250k.