FAQ - SERP API + Reader API

SearchCans is a cost-effective SERP API service providing real-time Google and Bing search results and web content extraction. Designed for AI developers, it's 10x cheaper than alternatives like SerpApi at just $0.56 per 1,000 searches.

Sign up for a free account on our registration page, get your API key from the dashboard, and make your first API call. New users receive 100 free credits to test the service. Check our complete documentation for detailed steps.

No! Sign up is completely free and requires no credit card. You get 100 free credits immediately upon registration to test the API.

Yes! New users get 100 free credits to test the API. No credit card required for signup. Simply register and start making API calls immediately.

SearchCans starts at $56 for 100,000 credits (100K searches). That's just $0.56 per 1,000 searches, making it 10x cheaper than SerpApi ($5/1K) and Serper ($2/1K). No monthly fees, pay-as-you-go pricing. View complete pricing plans.

Standard Google/Bing Search: 1 credit per request. Reader API: 2 credits (standard mode) or 5 credits (bypass mode). Advanced features (like Anti-Poisoning filters or Bypass Mode) cost extra. See Pricing page for details. Credits are deducted only for successful API responses.

No. We only charge for HTTP 200 Success responses with valid data. You are NOT charged for:

• Concurrency/Rate Limits (-1010, -1009)
• System Busy/Timeouts (-1002, -1001)
• Authentication Errors (401, 403)

Feel free to implement aggressive retry logic; it won't drain your wallet.

Credits are valid for 6 months from purchase date. You can check your balance and expiration date anytime in your dashboard.

We accept all major credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, Amex) via Stripe. Enterprise customers can contact us for invoice payments and custom billing.

Yes. If you're not satisfied within 7 days of purchase and have used less than 10% of credits, contact us for a full refund. See our Terms of Service for details.

SearchCans is 10x cheaper ($0.56/1K vs $5/1K), includes Reader API at no extra cost, uses Parallel Search Lanes instead of hourly limits, and offers faster response times (~2s vs 2.5s average). Both provide Google and Bing search data with similar accuracy.

SearchCans is 75% cheaper ($0.56/1K vs $2/1K) and includes Reader API which Serper charges extra for. We use a Parallel Search Lanes model (1-6 concurrent requests depending on plan) which doesn't limit hourly throughput, while Serper enforces strict rate limits.

As a challenger in the SERP API market, our strategy is aggressive growth. We offer at-cost pricing to attract developers and build long-term partnerships, ensuring you get the best ROI without compromising on data quality or speed.

Parallel Search Lanes are a concurrency-based limit model that allows simultaneous in-flight requests without hourly caps. Unlike competitors who limit "requests per hour", we use this lane-based approach. Think of it like a highway:

• Standard Plan (2 Lanes): You can run 2 requests simultaneously.
• Zero Cooldown: As soon as one request finishes, the lane is free immediately.
• Benefit: Perfect for AI Agents that need to "burst" search queries instantly.

We use a Parallel Search Lanes model. Depending on your plan, you can run 2 to 6 concurrent requests. For example, the Standard Plan (2 Lanes) allows 2 parallel requests constantly. Since an average request takes ~2s (accounting for network & processing), you can process up to 60 requests per minute (3,600/hour) per 2 lanes without any hourly throughput limits. This ensures high availability and burst performance for AI agents.

We can scale to 50+ parallel lanes or provide Dedicated Cluster Nodes for high-volume enterprise needs. Please contact us at support@searchcans.com for a custom plan tailored to your specific requirements.

Average response time is 1.5 - 2 seconds depending on the complexity of the query and filters used. Reader API typically takes 1-2 seconds. We use geo-distributed servers for optimal performance.

We support Google and Bing search engines. Specify the search engine using the "t" parameter in your API request (t=google or t=bing).

SearchCans works with any language that can make HTTP requests: Python, JavaScript/Node.js, Java, PHP, Ruby, Go, C#, etc. We provide code examples for all major languages in our documentation. You can also test directly in our API Playground.

Reader API converts any URL into clean, LLM-ready Markdown with preserved semantic structure. Returns title, content, metadata, images, and links in structured JSON format. Perfect for RAG pipelines, AI training data, and content analysis. Check our API documentation for detailed usage.

Reader API outputs LLM-ready Markdown with lossless conversion, while web scraping requires custom parsers for each site. Our API is 10x cheaper than Jina Reader and Firecrawl, with no infrastructure maintenance needed.

Yes! Headless browser rendering is enabled by default (b parameter defaults to true). This executes JavaScript and extracts complete content from dynamic sites like React or Vue applications. For simple static HTML pages, you can set b=false for faster processing.

You get title, LLM-ready Markdown content, author, publish date, images, links, word count, reading time, and metadata—all in structured JSON format, ready for LLM training, RAG systems, or database storage.

Bypass mode is an advanced feature that uses enhanced network infrastructure to overcome access restrictions on challenging URLs. It successfully handles 98% of sites that may block standard requests. Enable it by adding "proxy: 1" to your request. Normal mode costs 2 credits, bypass mode costs 5 credits. Best practice: try normal mode first, only use bypass mode when encountering access errors to optimize costs.

Absolutely! SearchCans is specifically designed for AI agents, LLMs, and chatbots. Our API provides structured data perfect for ChatGPT, Claude, LangChain, and other AI applications. Many developers use us for RAG systems and real-time knowledge augmentation.

Yes. Reader API is ideal for collecting LLM training data at scale. Extract millions of articles as clean Markdown with preserved structure and metadata. 10x cheaper than alternatives like Jina Reader and Firecrawl.

Yes! We provide integration guides for LangChain, LlamaIndex, and other AI frameworks in our documentation. You can use SearchCans as a tool for AI agents to access real-time web information.