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Google Custom Search JSON API alternatives

Google's own programmable search endpoint. Real Google results, a hard 10,000/day ceiling, and terms written for site search rather than agents.

Verified 5 August 2026·Figures from vendors' own pages

Google Custom Search JSON API at a glance

Vendor
Google
Category
SERP resellers
Own index
Yes — Google's index, via Programmable Search Engine
Price per 1,000
$5
Free tier
100 queries per day
MCP server
No
Graph traversal
No
Coverage transparency
No

Pricing detail. $5 per 1,000 queries after the free allowance, capped at 10,000 queries per day.

The alternatives

unlob

$0.40/1k

Our own index, admitted rather than ranked. Metadata-only passage hits, six coverage-graph traversal tools, an MCP server, and an endpoint that tells you why any URL is or is not in the index. Smaller than the well-funded incumbents, and considerably cheaper than all of them.

Read the full Google Custom Search JSON API comparison →

SerpAPI

$25/1k

The mature multi-engine SERP API. Returns real Google, Bing and Baidu result pages with all their features — at SERP-scraping prices.

No own index· Free: 100 searches per month

Serper

$1/1k

The cheapest way to get raw Google results into an agent. Fast, minimal, and entirely dependent on Google continuing to be scrapeable.

No own index· Free: 2,500 free queries on signup

DataForSEO

$0.60/1k

Industrial SERP infrastructure built for SEO tooling rather than agents. The cheapest per query in the field, with the lowest-level API to match.

No own index· Free: Free trial credit

Parallel Search

$1/1k

A suite of web search, extraction and research APIs on a proprietary index, from the former Twitter CEO. The closest competitor to unlob by thesis.

Own index· Free: 5,000 requests per month

Brave Search API

$5/1k

A genuinely independent index of 40B+ pages, sold as a conventional search API with an LLM-context option. Long the default independent choice.

Own index· Free: $5 in monthly credits — the perpetual free tier was retired in February 2026

Free developer tier removed February 2026

Exa

$7/1k

Neural, embeddings-first search over a proprietary index, sold alongside content extraction, answers and agentic research products.

Own index· Free: $20 in credits at signup, then $10 in credits per month

Grounding with Google Search

$14/1k

Google's first-party grounding for Gemini. The best index in the world, billed per search query on top of tokens, and only usable from Gemini.

Own index· Free: 5,000 prompts per month (Gemini 3.x)

Perplexity Sonar

$14/1k

Search and synthesis in one call. You get an answer rather than results, which is convenient until you need to control retrieval yourself.

Own index· Free: API credits included with Perplexity Pro

Sources

Frequently asked questions

What is the best alternative to Google Custom Search JSON API?

It depends what you are replacing. If you need an independent index at the lowest price, unlob is $0.40 per 1,000 queries against Google Custom Search JSON API's $5. If you need Google's exact ranking, Google Custom Search JSON API may still be the right tool — we say so on our comparison page rather than pretending otherwise.

Does Google Custom Search JSON API own its own web index?

Yes — Google's index, via Programmable Search Engine. That matters because a provider without its own index inherits the deprecation and repricing risk of whoever it depends on.

How much does Google Custom Search JSON API cost?

$5 per 1,000 queries after the free allowance, capped at 10,000 queries per day.

Try the cheapest own-index alternative

10,000 free requests a month, no card. Test coverage and latency against your own queries before you commit to anything.

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