In June of last year, our SaaS company, DataInsight Analytics, received a blunt email from our CFO. We were spending over $5,200 a month on SerpAPI to power our SEO monitoring platform—more than our entire AWS bill combined. The message was clear: find a way to cut this cost, or we would have to start cutting features. This email kicked off a six-week evaluation and migration process that ultimately led us to switch to SearchCans, reducing our monthly SERP API costs by 93% and saving us over $57,000 a year.
This is the story of how we did it, the challenges we faced, and the lessons we learned.
The Problem: A Bloated API Bill
Our platform tracks 50,000 keywords daily for 200 clients, which translates to about 15 million searches per month. At our negotiated enterprise rate with SerpAPI, this was costing us over $62,000 annually. As a growing but still budget-conscious company, this was an unsustainable expense. We had to find a more cost-effective solution without sacrificing the quality or reliability our customers depended on.
The Evaluation: Finding a Viable Alternative
We set out with a clear set of requirements: we needed a provider that supported Google and Bing, had a response time under 3 seconds, a success rate over 99%, and, crucially, could handle our volume for less than $1,500 a month. We built a testing framework to run 10,000 of our real-world keywords through five different SERP API providers in parallel.
The results were surprising. SearchCans, a provider we hadn’t heard of before, not only met our requirements but significantly outperformed the competition. It was faster than SerpAPI (averaging 1.2s vs. 2.1s), had a slightly higher success rate, and, most importantly, the pricing was a game-changer. For our volume, the cost would be around $330 a month, a 93% reduction.
The Migration: A Phased and Cautious Approach
Migrating a critical piece of infrastructure is always risky, so we adopted a careful, phased approach.
Week 1: Proof of Concept
We built a simple adapter layer in our code to normalize the slightly different JSON responses from SerpAPI and SearchCans. This ensured that the rest of our application wouldn’t need to change, regardless of the data source.
Weeks 2-3: Shadow Mode
For two weeks, we ran both APIs in parallel for every single production request. We used SerpAPI’s data as the source of truth for our customers but logged the SearchCans data for comparison. This allowed us to compare millions of real-world results and verify that the data quality was consistent.
Week 4: Gradual Rollout
Confident in the data quality, we began a gradual rollout. We started by sending 10% of our production traffic to SearchCans, monitoring our error rates and performance metrics closely. Over the course of a week, we ramped this up to 25%, 50%, 75%, and finally, 100%.
Week 5: Full Migration
We flipped the switch to 100% SearchCans. We kept the SerpAPI integration in our code for another month as a fallback option, but we never needed it. The migration was seamless, with zero downtime and no customer-facing impact.
The Results: More Than Just Cost Savings
The financial impact was immediate and dramatic. Our monthly bill dropped from $5,200 to $330. The projected annual savings of over $57,000 was a massive win, freeing up budget that we could reinvest in hiring two new developers.
But the benefits went beyond cost. Our application’s average response time improved by 43% because the SearchCans API was consistently faster. And our operational overhead was reduced; instead of dealing with a complex monthly subscription, we could simply pre-purchase credits as needed.
Lessons Learned for Your Own Migration
Looking back, our biggest mistake was waiting so long to question our API costs. We had assumed that a high price equated to high quality. Our testing proved this was not the case. For any startup or business relying on third-party APIs, I would offer this advice:
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Constantly Re-evaluate Your Providers: The market changes quickly. The best provider two years ago may not be the best one today. Run a competitive analysis at least once a year.
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Test with Real Production Load: Don’t rely on marketing claims or simple tests. The only way to know how a service will perform is to test it with your actual production traffic in a shadow mode.
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Migrate Gradually: A phased rollout allows you to de-risk the migration process and build confidence in the new provider before you make the final switch.
For our company, making the switch was a transformative decision. It dramatically improved our unit economics, enhanced our product’s performance, and gave us the financial flexibility to accelerate our growth. If you’re spending a significant portion of your budget on a legacy SERP API provider, I strongly encourage you to run your own tests. The potential savings are too significant to ignore.
Resources
Learn More About API Migration and Cost Optimization:
- SERP API Pricing Comparison 2025 - A detailed cost analysis of major providers
- Enterprise AI Cost Optimization Strategies - Broader strategies for reducing AI costs
- SERP API for Startups - A guide for budget-conscious businesses
Technical Guides:
- SearchCans API Documentation - The technical foundation for your migration
- SERP API Integration Best Practices - How to build a robust integration
- Building Profitable SEO Tools - A business case built on low-cost data
Get Started with Your Own Evaluation:
- Free Trial - Get 100 free credits to run your own comparison tests
- API Playground - Test API performance live in your browser
This case study reflects the real-world experience of a SearchCans customer. Company names and specific financial details have been synthesized for confidentiality, but the technical process and percentage of cost savings are accurate. Start your own migration journey today →