COMPARE:
Serper or SerpApi for search results as data
Serper and SerpApi both do getting search results back as structured data, and this page puts them on the same seven questions. Mamba Labs builds Apify actors. Page Finder Extractor is ours, it is the third column, and it does not win most of these rows.
The verdict
Serper is the cheap fast one and it does Google. SerpApi costs several times more and parses many engines properly. Volume and engine coverage decide it.
Side by side
| Serper | SerpApi | Page Finder Extractor | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it actually does | Runs a Google query and returns the results as JSON, in well under a second. | Runs a query against a named engine and returns a structured result set with the page elements parsed out. | Takes a list of domains and a page to look for, then returns the URL and the extracted content. |
| Coverage and hit rate | Google web, images, news, places, and a handful of the other verticals. It does not cover other engines. | Google, Bing, Baidu, YouTube, Amazon, Google Jobs, Google Maps and a long tail of others. | Any page type a site actually publishes: pricing, careers, security, leadership, integrations. |
| What it costs | Per query in credit packs, and it is the cheapest per query of the search APIs here. | Per successful search in monthly plans, and a failed search is not billed. | Cents per domain, charged on a returned page rather than on a search. |
| How it fits a workflow | One endpoint and a key. Nothing else to hold. | One endpoint per engine, official libraries, and a playground that shows the schema before you write code. | One call for the whole list, from Clay or from a script, and finished rows come back. |
| Where the data comes from | Google, fetched live per query. | The engines themselves, fetched live, with legal shielding stated as part of the product. | The sites themselves, fetched directly, so the source URL is on every row. |
| What it takes to set up | A key and a POST. It is the shortest setup of anything on this page. | A key and a call, plus reading the schema for whichever engine you picked. | Give it the domains and say which page you want. |
| Where it stops | Google only, and the parsed fields are fewer than the fuller search APIs return. | Several times the per query price of the cheap alternatives, which is the trade for the parsing. | It reads pages. Anything behind a login is not something it can reach. |
The same seven questions are asked on every compare page here, in this order, so two of these pages can be read against each other.
Where each one genuinely wins
- Serper wins on what it costs, what it takes to set up. A fast, cheap Google search API with a small surface.
- SerpApi wins on what it actually does, coverage and hit rate. A search API across many engines, with a parsed schema for each one.
- Page Finder Extractor wins on where the data comes from. Finds one named page across hundreds of websites and extracts what is on it.
- Nobody wins on how it fits a workflow, where it stops. Serper and SerpApi give the same answer on those, and we are not going to invent a difference.
Where to get them
What we would actually do
At high volume on plain Google queries, Serper is the obvious answer and the price difference is not close. SerpApi earns the premium when you need an engine Serper does not cover, or when the parsed structure saves you writing and maintaining extraction code against a page that changes. Google Jobs and Google Maps are the two that usually force the decision. Before either, ask whether you need a search engine at all. If the target is a known page on a list of known sites, fetching those sites directly is cheaper and steadier.