Head to head
unlob vs DataForSEO
DataForSEO is the cheapest SERP data in the market at roughly $0.60–1 per 1,000. It is built for SEO tooling, not for agents.
Verified 7 October 2026·Figures from vendors' own pages
On the headline rate that is 1.5× — $0.60 per 1,000 for DataForSEO’s Standard queue (asynchronous), its cheapest comparable mode, against $0.40per 1,000 searches. Other modes cost more; the pricing detail below lists them. Both figures are computed from the published plan tables rather than typed into this page, so they follow the vendors rather than drifting from them.
Price
- unlob$0.40
- DataForSEO$0.60
| Provider | Own index? | $ / 1,000 searches | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
Priced: Standard queue (asynchronous). $0.60 per 1,000 SERPs (10 results each) in the Standard queue, which is asynchronous: you post a task and collect the result later. Priority queue is $1.20 per 1,000 and real-time Live mode $2. Pay as you go, with a $50 minimum payment. | No SERP data collection at scale | $0.60 | DataForSEO SERP API pricing |
$29 per month for 50,000 credits, and a search is one credit. | Yes Our own crawl and index | $0.58 | This page |
$199 per month for 500,000 credits, and a search is one credit. | Yes Our own crawl and index | $0.40 | This page |
When DataForSEO is the better choice
A comparison page that cannot name a scenario where the competitor wins is an advertisement. Here are the real ones.
Choose DataForSEO
- Building SEO tooling, where SERP position data is literally the product.
- Very high volume where per-query cost dominates every other consideration.
- Historical SERP data and rank tracking.
Choose unlob
- Agent retrieval, where you want passages rather than positions.
- No fetch-and-clean step after the call.
- Trust signals, graph traversal and coverage transparency.
The substantive differences
| DataForSEO | unlob | |
|---|---|---|
| Product | SERP data collection at scale. | A search index built for agent retrieval. |
| Output | Ranked URLs with SERP metadata. | Cleaned passages with trust signals. |
Sources
Every figure on this page was read from the vendor's own pricing page or funding announcement on the date shown.
- DataForSEO: DataForSEO SERP API pricingread 7 October 2026
Frequently asked questions
DataForSEO is cheaper — why not use it for my agent?
Because the price excludes the expensive part. A SERP row is a URL and a title; your agent still has to fetch each page, clean it, and judge whether the source is trustworthy. Add extraction costs and the tokens spent on triage, and the total is usually higher than a search API that returns cleaned passages with trust signals.
Check the claims yourself
The free tier is 10,000 credits a month with no card. That is enough to test coverage, latency and result quality against your own queries — which is a better comparison than this page.