Parallel alternatives
8 other search & web-data apis compared on one normalised price. Normalised to dollars per 1,000 search requests at the listed entry rate. Where a vendor sells credits or tokens instead of requests and does not state the conversion on its page, no per-request figure is given or it is flagged partially verified.
| Vendor | Plan | Listed price (as on vendor page) | $/1k req | Free tier | Source | Status | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Parallel | Search API | $0.001 - $0.005 per request for 10 results Range = $1 to $5 per 1k; lower bound shown. | $1.00/1k | $5 free credits per month | source | verified | 2026-10-19 |
| Serper | Starter | 50k credits for $50 ($1.00/1k); 500k credits $0.75/1k; 2.5M $0.50/1k; 12.5M $0.30/1k Credits valid for 6 months. Lowest listed rate is $0.30/1k. | $1.00/1k | Get 2,500 free queries, no credit card required | source | verified | 2026-10-19 |
| Exa | Search | From $4 per 1k requests (up to 10 results); $7 and $12 for higher tiers Contents $1 per 1k pages extra. | $4.00/1k | Free: $10 credits every month + $10 onboarding bonus | source | verified | 2026-10-19 |
| Brave Search API | Search | $5 per 1,000 requests; includes $5 in free credits every month Also lists 'Answers' at $4 per 1,000 requests + $5 per million tokens. | $5.00/1k | $5 free credits every month | source | verified | 2026-10-19 |
| Perplexity Search API | Standard search | $5 per 1,000 requests; Fast Search $1.00 per 1k Fast Search mode is $1.00 per 1k. | $5.00/1k | — | source | verified | 2026-10-19 |
| Firecrawl | Hobby | $19/month ($16 billed yearly) for 5,000 credits = 2,500 searches or 5,000 pages Derived: $19 / 2,500 searches x 1,000 = $7.60. Scrapes cost 1 credit per page. | $7.60/1k | Free plan listed ('Free 1k' on page; limits not read) | source | verified | 2026-10-19 |
| Tavily | Pay as you go | $0.008 per credit; Project plan $30/month for 4,000 credits UNVERIFIED mapping: price is per credit; the page says credits vary by request type and does not state credits per search, so $8 per 1k credits is not a confirmed per-request price. | $8.00/1k | Researcher: 1,000 API credits/month free, no card | source | partly verified | 2026-10-19 |
| SerpApi | Starter | $25 / month for 1,000 searches ($25 per 1k); Developer $75/mo 5,000; Cloud 1M $3,750/mo Per-1k cost falls with volume: Developer = $15 per 1k, Production $150/mo = $10 per 1k (derived from plan size). | $25.00/1k | — | source | verified | 2026-10-19 |
| Jina Reader | Token-based | $0.050 per 1M tokens (Standard key $50) Billed per token, not per request, so no per-request figure. | — | — | source | verified | 2026-10-19 |