Apify vs SerpApi — Pricing (2026)

Apify vs SerpApi

Web Scraping pricing comparison · 2026

Apify pricing ranges from $0–$999/month, while SerpApi ranges from $0–$999/month. SerpApi is typically 70% more affordable, though your actual cost depends on tier and team size.

Web Scraping

Apify

$0–$999
/month
5 plans · Free tier
Full pricing breakdown →
VS
Web Scraping

SerpApi

$0–$999
/month
6 plans · Free tier
Full pricing breakdown →

Apify and SerpApi both operate in the web scraping category. This page compares their published pricing.

Plan-by-Plan Pricing

Plan Apify SerpApi
Free Free /month Free /month
Starter $29 /month $75 /month
Scale $199 /month $150 /month
Business $999 /month $275 /month
Enterprise Custom $999 /month
Enterprise Custom

Cost at Scale

Total cost of ownership — licenses, implementation, and hidden costs included.

Apify

6 scenarios
$0/month (Free plan)
Solo Developer / Small Project
$29/month
Small Team / Regular Automation
base (Starter) + proxy and actor overage
$199/month
Growing Business / High-Volume Scraping
base (Scale) + proxy costs
See all 6 scenarios →

SerpApi

6 scenarios
$75/month (Developer plan)
Solo Developer / Prototyping
$150/month (Production plan)
Small Production Team
$1,475/month (Volume plan)
Data-Intensive Operation
See all 6 scenarios →

Hidden Costs

Beyond the sticker price — what catches buyers off guard.

Apify 8 hidden costs

high
Proxy Costs Add Significant Per-Page Expense 50-200% of license costs
medium
Memory-Based Compute Overconsumption 10-50% of license costs
medium
Paid Third-Party Actors in Apify Store 5-20% of license costs
medium
Consumption-Based Billing Is Hard to Forecast 10-100% of license costs
low
High Concurrency Settings Accelerate Credit Burn 5-15% of license costs
See all Apify hidden costs →

SerpApi 4 hidden costs

medium
Per-Search Cost Pressure for AI Agents and Startups 25-100% of base plan costs when usage exceeds tier quota
high
Search volume limits force rapid tier escalation $75-$3,750/month
high
Significantly more expensive than alternatives for bulk data extraction 300-500% of alternative API costs for review/data extraction at scale
low
No annual billing discount available 0% annual discount (no annual billing option listed)
See all SerpApi hidden costs →

Contract Terms

Term Apify SerpApi
Auto-renewal
Cancellation
Minimum commitment
Price escalation No published escalation schedule; one user noted that actor pricing model changes resulted in higher costs for previously affordable actors. $75-$3,750/month