Serper vs Kagi Search API for AI agents
Serper is a low-cost API that returns Google search results as JSON. Kagi Search API is programmatic access to Kagi's premium, ad-free search results for search products and agents.
The short answer
- Serper: The cheapest way on this list to get raw Google results in JSON.
- Kagi Search API: High-quality, ad-free results with clear terms that explicitly allow feeding results to an LLM.
Side by side
| Serper | Kagi Search API | |
|---|---|---|
| Searches | Google results: web, images, news, maps, places, videos, shopping, scholar, patents, autocomplete. | Kagi's search results (web, news, video, podcasts, images per its MCP). |
| Returns | JSON shaped like a Google results page: organic results with title, link and snippet, knowledge graph, People Also Ask, related searches; places with address, rating and phone. | JSON search results; optionally full Markdown extraction of the top results in the same request. |
| Before the first call | An account and an API key; no credit card for the free queries. | A Kagi account, an API key from the API dashboard, and billing set up (pay-per-use, prepaid credit or invoice). |
| Free | 2,500 free queries, no credit card (the page does not say they renew monthly). | Not stated on its pages |
| Paid | $50 for 50,000 credits ($1.00 per 1,000), credits valid 6 months; down to $0.30 per 1,000 at volume. | $12 per 1,000 requests; Extract $4 per 1,000 pages. |
| Acting on a result | Through the web page each result links to | Through the web page each result links to |
| Limits on keeping or showing results | Not stated on its pages | No storing, caching or building a database of results beyond transient caching; cached results must be deleted on termination. |
| AI in its terms | Not stated on its pages | Sending results to an AI model to answer your users is allowed; training or fine-tuning models, or harvesting training/evaluation datasets, is not. |
| MCP server | No official server listed | Official MCP server: https://mcp.kagi.com/mcp (code: https://github.com/kagisearch/kagimcp) |
Questions people ask
What do I need before I can use Serper?
An account and an API key; no credit card for the free queries.
Is Serper free?
2,500 free queries, no credit card (the page does not say they renew monthly).
What do I need before I can use Kagi Search API?
A Kagi account, an API key from the API dashboard, and billing set up (pay-per-use, prepaid credit or invoice).
Is Kagi Search API free?
Its pages listed no free use when we read them on October 15, 2026.
Sources
Every line about another company comes from its own pages. Prices and terms change, so check the source before you rely on one.
Serper, read on October 15, 2026:
- serper.dev: “Get 2,500 free queries”
- serper.dev: “No credit card required”
- serper.dev: “50k credits ($1.00/1k)”
- serper.dev: “Credits valid for 6 months”
- serper.dev: “The World's Fastest & Cheapest Google Search API”
Kagi Search API, read on October 15, 2026:
- kagi.com/api/pricing: “$12 /1k requests”
- kagi.com/api/pricing: “$4 /1k pages”
- kagi.com/api/docs: “The Search API is a feature-rich endpoint for search products and agents.”
- kagi.com/api/docs: “You can also request full markdown extraction of the top results in a single API request.”
- help.kagi.com/kagi/api/overview.html: “The API uses a pay-per-use model”
- kagi.com/privacy/api: “Store, cache, or build a database of Results beyond the transient caching needed to operate your application.”
- kagi.com/privacy/api: “including sending Results to an AI model to answer your users' queries.”
- kagi.com/privacy/api: “Use Results to train or fine-tune a search index, ranking system, translation or summarization model”
- github.com/kagisearch/kagimcp: “The Official Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for Kagi Search & other tools.”