Google Custom Search API is closing. Here's a drop-in replacement
I'm part of the team behind Serpbit, so this post is about what we built. I've tried to keep the comparison fair.
Google is shutting down the Custom Search JSON API. New sign-ups are already closed, and on January 1, 2027 it stops working for everyone else too.
Google's suggested replacement, Vertex AI Search, is built for searching your own websites, not the whole web. Microsoft shut down the Bing Search API back in 2025. So if your app, script or AI agent needs real web search results, you have to move somewhere, and soon.
We built Serpbit so that this move takes minutes rather than a sprint.
Same request, same answer, new address
Serpbit answers the exact same requests as Google's Custom Search, in the exact same format, with results straight from Google. Your parsing code doesn't change. Your tests don't change. You swap the address and the key:
https://www.googleapis.com/customsearch/v1 → https://api.serpbit.com/customsearch/v1 Google's own client libraries for Python and Node keep working, and so do LangChain and LlamaIndex with a small tweak. We tested all of them against the live API before writing this.
A few honest differences:
- Results come from the whole web, so your search engine's site settings (
cx) no longer apply. To limit a search to one site, passsiteSearch. - The
pagemapblock isn't there. - It's a bit slower: about 2 seconds per search instead of under one.
More than a replacement
The same key also gives you the rest of Google:
- Search, with the AI Overview included at no extra cost
- AI Mode, Shopping, Maps, News, Images and Autocomplete
- An MCP server, so Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor can search Google. You connect by signing in, with no key to copy.
- Answers in JSON or Markdown
- You only pay for answers. A failed search costs nothing.
How it compares
What 100,000 searches a month costs, from each provider's public pricing:
| Results | Works with your Custom Search code | Free tier | 100k searches/month | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Serpbit | Yes, change the URL | 1,000/month, no card | $75 | |
| Serper | No, new integration | 2,500 to start | ~$75 | |
| SerpApi | No, new integration | 250/month | $725 | |
| Brave Search API | Brave's own index | No, new integration | $5 credit/month, card required | ~$500 |
| Google Custom Search (until Jan 1) | — | 100/day | $485 |
In plain words:
- Serper costs about the same as us. If you're starting from scratch and only need web results, it's a fine choice. Serpbit makes more sense if you already have Custom Search code, or want AI Mode, Maps and the rest on one key.
- SerpApi covers many search engines beyond Google, and you pay for that breadth.
- Brave has its own independent index. It's great for feeding an AI agent relevant pages, but its results won't match what people see on Google. That matters for SEO and rank tracking.
Try it
The first 1,000 searches every month are free, and you don't need a card. Get a key, point one of your existing Custom Search calls at us, and compare the results with what you get today.
If anything in your setup doesn't work the way it did with Google, tell me in the comments or at support@serpbit.com. We'd like to fix it before January, not after.