Search API Pricing Comparison — SerpApi vs Tavily vs SearchHive vs Exa
Choosing a search API comes down to three questions: what results do you need, how many queries will you run, and how much do you want to spend? This guide compares four of the most popular developer search APIs head-to-head with real pricing data.
Key Takeaways
- Cheapest for Google results: Serper.dev at $0.50/1K at scale, or SearchHive at $9.80/1K on the starter plan
- Best for AI agents: Tavily returns pre-processed answers and extracted content — no parsing needed
- Best free tier: Brave Search API offers 2,000 queries/month free
- Most expensive: SerpApi at ~$15/1K on the lowest paid plan
- Google Custom Search API is being deprecated — not recommended for new projects
How These APIs Differ
Before comparing prices, understand that these four services solve different problems:
- SerpApi — Scrapes Google and 30+ other search engines, parsing every SERP feature into structured free JSON formatter
- SearchHive SwiftSearch — Returns structured Google-style search results at lower prices
- Tavily — AI-native search that returns synthesized answers and extracted page content
- Exa — Neural/semantic search that finds pages by meaning, not keywords
They're not interchangeable. The right choice depends on your use case.
Pricing at a Glance
| Service | Free Tier | First Paid Plan | Per-1K Cost (Lowest) | Pricing Model |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SerpApi | 100/mo | $75/mo (5K) | ~$15/1K | Monthly plans |
| SearchHive | 500/mo | $49/mo (5K) | ~$9.80/1K | Monthly plans |
| Tavily | 1,000/mo | ~$8/10K | ~$0.80/1K | Pay-as-you-go |
| Exa | 1,000/mo | $100/mo (10K) | $5-12/1K | Monthly + per-type |
Exa's pricing is more complex because it charges differently for Search ($7/1K), Deep Search ($12/1K), Answer ($5/1K), and Contents ($1/1K pages).
Cost at Volume
Here's what you'd pay monthly at different query volumes. SerpApi and SearchHive prices reflect their plan tiers. Tavily and Exa scale linearly (pay-as-you-go).
| Monthly Volume | SerpApi | SearchHive | Tavily | Exa (Search) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | $75 | $49 | $0 | $100 |
| 5,000 | $75 | $49 | ~$40 | $35 |
| 10,000 | $150* | ~$99* | ~$80 | $70 |
| 25,000 | $250* | $149 | ~$200 | $175 |
| 50,000 | $500 | $399 | ~$400 | $350 |
| 100,000 | $500+ | $399 | ~$800 | $700 |
*Estimated at nearest plan tier.
SerpApi and SearchHive become relatively cheaper at higher volumes because of their tiered plans. Tavily's per-query pricing is great at low volumes but expensive at scale.
Feature Comparison
| Feature | SerpApi | SearchHive | Tavily | Exa |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google SERP parsing | Yes (full) | Yes (structured) | No | N/A |
| AI-processed answers | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Content extraction | No | Via ScrapeForge | Yes | Yes |
| Search by URL similarity | No | No | No | Yes |
| Content type filtering | No | No | No | Yes |
| Number of search engines | 30+ | Google-focused | Web (multi) | Neural index |
| Python SDK | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Rate limit (paid) | 5 req/sec | 5-10 req/sec | ~10 req/sec | 5-10 req/sec |
Use Case Recommendations
Building a SERP tracking tool? SerpApi or SearchHive. You need exact Google result positions with full feature parsing (People Also Ask, Local Pack, etc.). SerpApi has the most complete feature extraction. SearchHive gives you 80% of that at 35% lower cost.
Building an AI agent or chatbot? Tavily. It returns an answer and extracted content in one API call — exactly what your LLM needs. No need to parse SERP features you don't care about.
Building a content discovery system? Exa. Neural search finds relevant pages by meaning, not keywords. You can filter by content type (research papers, GitHub repos, tweets) and find semantically similar pages to a seed URL.
Building a general web search feature in an app? SearchHive SwiftSearch. Best balance of Google-quality results, structured output, and pricing. If budget is tight, add Serper.dev or Brave Search API as a fallback.
Python Code Examples
SearchHive SwiftSearch:
from searchhive import SwiftSearch
client = SwiftSearch(api_key="your-key")
results = client.search("best web scraping api 2026", engine="google")
for r in results[:5]:
print(f"{r['title']} | {r['url']}")
Tavily:
from tavily import TavilyClient
client = TavilyClient(api_key="your-key")
result = client.search("what is vector database", search_depth="basic")
print(result["answer"])
Exa:
from exa_py import Exa
exa = Exa(api_key="your-key")
results = exa.search_and_contents(
query="enterprise AI agent frameworks",
type="neural",
text=True,
num_results=5
)
for r in results.results:
print(f"{r.title}: {r.text[:150]}")
Additional Options Worth Considering
Beyond these four, there are other search APIs that might fit specific needs:
- Serper.dev — $0.50-$1/1K at scale. Best per-query price for Google results. No monthly commitment.
- Brave Search API — $3/1K. Independent index. "Data for AI" tier at $5/1K competes with Tavily.
- Bing Web Search API — $3/1K. First-party Microsoft. Best if Bing results work for your use case.
Which One Should You Choose?
If you're reading this, you probably want a straightforward answer.
For most developers building search into an application: Start with SearchHive SwiftSearch. The 500 free searches/month let you prototype without paying. At $49/5K, the pricing is competitive. And if you later need scraping too, ScrapeForge is on the same platform.
For AI/LLM projects: Start with Tavily. The 1,000 free searches/month with pre-processed output is hard to beat for prototyping. Switch to SearchHive or Brave's Data for AI tier when you need lower per-query costs.
For research and content discovery: Exa has no real competitor. Neural search finds things keyword queries can't.
For exact Google SERP data: SerpApi remains the gold standard for feature completeness. Use SearchHive if you want 80% of the features at 65% of the cost.
Try SearchHive free — 500 search credits, no credit card required. The docs cover SwiftSearch, ScrapeForge, and DeepDive in detail.