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unlob vs Google Custom Search JSON API

Google’s Programmable Search gives you real Google results at $5 per 1,000, with a hard 10,000-per-day ceiling and terms written for site search.

Verified 5 August 2026·Figures from vendors' own pages

On the headline rate that is 13× — $5 per 1,000 against $0.40. 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
  • Google Custom Search JSON API$5
Per 1,000 comparable web searches — about ten results, no extraction, no summarisation. Log scale, because the spread is over an order of magnitude.
ProviderOwn index?$ / 1,000 queriesSource
Google Custom Search JSON API

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

Yes

Google's index, via Programmable Search Engine

$5Custom Search JSON API pricing
unlob — Build

$29 per month for 50,000 requests.

Yes

Our own crawl and index

$0.58This page
unlob — Scale

$199 per month for 500,000 requests.

Yes

Our own crawl and index

$0.40This page
Rates are the cheapest directly comparable web search call — roughly ten results, no extraction and no summarisation — because that is the only way a table across credit systems, token pricing and per-request pricing means anything. Where a vendor does not publish a flat per-1,000 rate they are omitted from this table and covered in full on the landscape page. Figures read from each vendor’s own pricing page on 5 August 2026.

When Google Custom Search JSON API 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 Google Custom Search JSON API

  • Google’s result quality on broad consumer queries.
  • Site search over a small set of domains, which is what it was designed for.
  • Low-volume applications comfortably under 10,000 queries a day.

Choose unlob

  • No daily ceiling — 2,000,000 requests a month on Archive.
  • Price: $0.40 against $5 per 1,000.
  • A response shape built for agents rather than for a result page.
  • Graph traversal and coverage auditing.

The substantive differences

Google Custom Search JSON APIunlob
Hard limits10,000 queries per day, full stop.Monthly quotas from 1,000 to 2,000,000, with no daily cap.
Intended useSearch across a defined set of sites.Retrieval across the open web for an agent.

Sources

Every figure on this page was read from the vendor's own pricing page or funding announcement on the date shown.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use Google Custom Search to ground an LLM?

Technically it returns results you could use, but the 10,000-per-day ceiling makes it unworkable for anything with real traffic, and the terms of service were written for site search rather than model grounding. Google’s own recommendation for grounding is Gemini with Google Search grounding.

Check the claims yourself

The free tier is 10,000 requests 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.

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