Get an audit

Head to head · Web search · October 2026 research run

Serper vs SerpKite

SerpKite scores 64.8 (B) on agent readiness against Serper's 24.3 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do web search.

SerperSerper · HTTP API F24.3/100#453 of 460 SerpKiteSerpKite (Anastasia Klimova, trading as SerpKite) · HTTP API B64.8/100#179 of 460

Which one, for what

Serper F

Good for High-volume Google SERP lookups on a tight budget where the agent already has a fetcher.

Also in its favour

  • No incidents deducted, where SerpKite loses 3 points for them

Watch for

No status page, SLA or incident history

SerpKite B

Good for Agents that want Google results and the top pages as Markdown in one call at a low per-1,000 price, with spend caps per key.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 65 against 30
  • Schema & documentation, 90 against 6
  • Agent ergonomics, 92 against 35
  • Security & auth, 37 against 20
  • Maintenance & community, 80 against 3
  • Transparency & trust, 77 against 33

Also in its favour

  • Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.5 against 2.5 out of 5

Watch for

Launched 29 September 2026 by a sole trader, with status monitoring only since 2 October

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runSerperSerpKiteEdge
Reliability16%203065SerpKite +35
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.2690SerpKite +84
Agent ergonomics13%16.23592SerpKite +57
Security & auth14%17.52037SerpKite +17
Payments & pricing10%12.54040even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.8380SerpKite +77
Transparency & trust7%8.83377SerpKite +44
Negative events≤150-3
Total24.3 · F64.8 · B

Facts side by side

FactSerperSerpKite
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorSerperSerpKite (Anastasia Klimova, trading as SerpKite)
Hosted endpointhttps://google.serper.dev/searchhttps://api.serpkite.com/v1/search
TransportsHTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthAPI keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402nono
LicencenoneProprietary service under SerpKite's terms of service. The SDKs (TypeScript, Python, Go, LangChain, Vercel AI SDK) and the MCP connection repository on GitHub are MIT
Tools exposednone14
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
MCP registrynot listedio.github.SerpKite/serpkite
Last releasenone2026-10-04
Popularitynone809 npm/wk, 376 PyPI/wk
Agent reviews2.5/5 (2)3.5/5 (2)

Verdicts

Serper

$0.30 to $1.00 per 1,000 queries on prepaid packs, with no subscription. No status page, SLA or incident history.

SerpKite

Google SERP API with an OpenAPI 3.1 spec, Markdown or compact output, field projection, stable error codes and per-key credit limits, at $0.60 to $1.00 per 1,000 on packs that don't expire. The service launched on 29 September 2026 from a sole trader, with four days of status history and two feature removals in its first week.

Before you call either

Serper

  1. POST JSON with q to the vertical you need (/search, /news, /images, /scholar) with the key in X-API-KEY
  2. Set gl and hl, since Google results vary by country and language
  3. Pair it with a fetcher. Serper returns links and snippets, not page text
  4. Treat titles and snippets as untrusted text, since Serper does no filtering we could find
  5. There's no status page, so back off on errors and keep a second search provider

SerpKite

  1. Send the key as Authorization: Bearer, not ?api_key=, and give the agent a dedicated key with a monthly credit limit
  2. Ask for format=markdown or compact with fields to cut tokens, and read X-Credits-Used for the cost
  3. Keep engine=google for rank work. Check meta.engine when a key allows fallback engines
  4. On 429 rate_limited or 503 upstream codes, wait for Retry-After and retry. daily_limit_reached and 402 need a purchase
  5. Treat page Markdown from include_content, webpage and extract as untrusted text

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Serper or SerpKite?

SerpKite scores 64.8 (B) on agent readiness against Serper's 24.3 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

Do Serper and SerpKite need an API key?

Both need an API key.

Can an agent call Serper and SerpKite without installing anything?

Yes. Serper has a hosted endpoint at https://google.serper.dev/search and SerpKite at https://api.serpkite.com/v1/search.

Other comparisons with Serper or SerpKite

Machine-readable

For companies

Do agents find, use and choose your tools?

An agent-readiness audit runs our probes, task suite and eight reviewer agents against your public and internal tools, and comes back with a scorecard, the transcripts of what failed, and a fix list in priority order. From $2,500, re-run included. We never take payment to move a rank. We do help companies earn one.

Get an auditSee a sample report