Google Search API: what your real options are in 2026
Google killed its real search API in 2014, and its last official option is now closed to new customers. Here's what that leaves, with every number pulled live.
→ for those still on it: $5 per 1,000, hard 10,000/day cap, 10 results per request
! and per Google's docs, its results differ from what Google.com actually shows
→ gemini grounding returns AI answers with citations, not ranked results
→ serp apis return the real page: $0.30 to $25 per 1,000 depending on vendor
→ ours is crustapi: $1.96 falling to $0.40 per 1,000, and 3,000 free every month
If you searched "google search api" you probably want one thing: real Google results as JSON, at a sane price. This page maps every route to that, including the ones Google itself offers, with each number pulled from the live source pages on July 12, 2026.
The official Custom Search JSON API
Google's last official web search API, and it's shutting its doors: the documentation now opens by saying it's closed to new customers, with existing customers given until January 1, 2027 to move off.
| Status | Closed to new customers. Existing customers must transition by January 1, 2027 |
| Price | $5.00 per 1,000 queries |
| Free tier | 100 queries per day |
| Volume ceiling | 10,000 queries per day, and Google offers no higher tier on this API |
| Results per request | 10 maximum (the num parameter accepts 1 to 10) |
| Total results per query | 100 maximum, ever |
| Setup | Create and configure a Programmable Search Engine before your first call |
| SERP features | Web and image results only. No local pack, no knowledge graph, no news or shopping verticals |
All figures from Google's Custom Search documentation, checked July 12, 2026.
Google's own words on what it returns
The bigger issue isn't the price or the cap. It's that the results are not what Google.com shows, and Google says so directly in its documentation:
"The Custom Search JSON API is closed to new customers. Existing Custom Search JSON API customers have until January 1, 2027 to transition to an alternative solution."
Google Custom Search documentation, checked July 12, 2026"Programmable Search Engines configured to search the entire web are limited to a subset of the total Google Web Search corpus."
Google Programmable Search Engine help, checked July 12, 2026"Even if a custom search engine is configured to search the entire web, it's designed to emphasize results from your own sites."
Same page"Your custom search engine doesn't include Google Web Search features such as Oneboxes, real-time results, universal search, social features, or personalized results."
Same pageIf your use case is rank tracking, SEO tooling, brand monitoring, or grounding an AI agent in what people actually see, a subset corpus that emphasizes your own sites is measuring the wrong thing.
Gemini grounding and Vertex are not SERP APIs either
Both are real products solving different problems. Neither returns ranked search results.
| What it returns | Price | |
|---|---|---|
| Gemini API, Grounding with Google Search | An AI answer with citations. No ranked organic results, no positions, no SERP features | $14 per 1,000 search queries on Gemini 3 models after 5,000 free prompts a month ($35 per 1,000 grounded prompts on Gemini 2.5 after 1,500 free requests a day) |
| Vertex AI Search | Search over your own indexed websites and data, not Google.com | $1.50 to $4.00 per 1,000 queries |
From Google's Gemini API pricing and Vertex AI pricing, checked July 12, 2026.
A bit of history explains the pattern: Google had a real Web Search API once, deprecated it in 2010, and shut it down on September 29, 2014. Nothing official has returned raw Google SERPs since, and with Custom Search now closed to new customers, the official menu is heading to zero.
SERP APIs: the actual results, as JSON
A SERP API fetches the live Google results page and returns it parsed: organic results with positions, the local pack, knowledge graph, news, shopping, images. This is what rank trackers, lead-gen tools, and AI agents actually run on.
On the legal side, stated neutrally: US courts have repeatedly sided with scraping public, logged-out pages, while Google's Terms of Service prohibit automated access that violates machine-readable instructions like robots.txt. Vendors carry that tension, and it's why this market exists as managed APIs rather than everyone scraping themselves.
Official API vs SERP APIs
| Custom Search JSON API | Typical SERP APIs | CrustAPI | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Real Google.com results | No, subset corpus | Yes | Yes |
| Price per 1,000 | $5.00, closed to new customers | $0.30 to $25 | $1.96, to $0.40 at scale |
| Free tier | 100 / day, existing customers only | Varies, often one-time | 3,000 / month, no card |
| Daily ceiling | 10,000 hard cap | None typical | None |
| Local pack, knowledge graph, verticals | No | Most | Yes, 12 surfaces |
| Billing on empty results | Per request | Usually per request | Free |
Comparing vendors instead? We keep honest, receipt-backed roundups: serper alternatives, SerpApi alternatives, and the direct three-way comparison.
One request, real results
Swap type=web for maps, news, shopping, images, videos, scholar, patents, autocomplete, reviews, places, or webpage. Twelve surfaces, one endpoint.
When the official API is the better pick: you're searching your own sites (that's literally what it's built for), you need under 100 queries a day forever, or your compliance team requires a Google-billed product. Those are real cases and the $5 per 1,000 is fine there.
Common questions
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