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 at searchcans.com/register, get your API key from the dashboard, and make your first API call. New users receive 100 free credits to test the service.

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.

SERP API costs 1 credit per search, Reader API costs 2 credits per call. Cache hits consume 0 credits. Credits are deducted only for successful API responses.

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.

SearchCans is 10x cheaper ($0.56/1K vs $5/1K), includes Reader API at no extra cost, has no rate limits, and offers faster response times (1.5s 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 also have no rate limits while Serper limits concurrent requests.

We use optimized infrastructure, intelligent caching, and efficient routing to reduce costs. As a newer service, we also offer competitive pricing to attract developers. Quality and speed remain our top priorities.

No! SearchCans has no rate limits. Make as many concurrent API calls as your credit balance allows. Perfect for high-volume applications.

Average response time is 1-1.5 seconds for SERP API and 1-2 seconds for Reader API. We use geo-distributed servers and intelligent caching for optimal performance.

Yes. Our infrastructure provides intelligent caching to optimize performance and reduce costs. Frequently accessed data is automatically cached on our servers.

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 <a href="/docs/" class="text-[#4285F4] hover:underline font-medium">documentation</a>. Check out our <a href="/blog/serp-api-python-tutorial" class="text-[#4285F4] hover:underline font-medium">Python tutorial</a> or <a href="/blog/serp-api-nodejs-development-guide" class="text-[#4285F4] hover:underline font-medium">Node.js guide</a>.

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. <a href="/blog/building-rag-pipeline-with-reader-api" class="text-[#4285F4] hover:underline font-medium">See RAG integration guide →</a>

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. <a href="/blog/reader-api-vs-jina-reader" class="text-[#4285F4] hover:underline font-medium">Compare with Jina Reader →</a>

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, word count, reading time, and metadata - all in structured JSON format ready for AI processing or database storage.

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. <a href="/blog/build-ai-agent-with-serp-api" class="text-[#4285F4] hover:underline font-medium">Learn how to build AI agents →</a>

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 have integration guides for LangChain, LlamaIndex, and other AI frameworks. Use SearchCans as a tool for AI agents to access real-time web information. <a href="/blog/ai-agent-serp-api-integration-guide" class="text-[#4285F4] hover:underline font-medium">View integration guide →</a>