# Serper vs Tavily API + MCP

> Tavily API + MCP has a score of 77.2 (BB) against Serper's 24.3 (F). Both do web search. The largest gap is schema & documentation, 83 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-04

Tavily API + MCP has a score of 77.2 (BB) against Serper's 24.3 (F). Both do web search. The largest gap is schema & documentation, 83 points.

- Serper: grade F, 24.3/100, rank #446 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/serper.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/serper.json
- Tavily API + MCP: grade BB, 77.2/100, rank #20 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/tavily-mcp.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/tavily-mcp.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Serper for nothing in particular (no category where it leads by five points or more).

Pick Tavily API + MCP for reliability (+60), schema & documentation (+83), agent ergonomics (+46), security & auth (+32), payments & pricing (+35), maintenance & community (+82), transparency & trust (+32).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Serper | Tavily API + MCP | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 30 | 90 | Tavily API + MCP +60 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 6 | 89 | Tavily API + MCP +83 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 35 | 81 | Tavily API + MCP +46 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 20 | 52 | Tavily API + MCP +32 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 75 | Tavily API + MCP +35 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 3 | 85 | Tavily API + MCP +82 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 33 | 65 | Tavily API + MCP +32 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **24.3 · F** | **77.2 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Serper | Tavily API + MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | MCP server |
| Vendor | Serper | Tavily |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://google.serper.dev/search` | `https://mcp.tavily.com/mcp/?tavilyApiKey=<key>` |
| Transports | HTTP | stdio, Streamable HTTP, HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | payer tooling only |
| Licence | none | MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 6 |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.tavily-ai/tavily-mcp` |
| Last release | none | 2026-09-18 |
| Popularity | none | 2.4k stars, 452k npm/wk, 1.6M PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (2) | 3.6/5 (8) |

## Verdicts

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

**Tavily API + MCP.** Keyless search and extract, plus a free 1,000 credits a month with no card. x402 covers advanced search only, not extract, map, crawl or research.

## 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

### Tavily API + MCP

1. Try `X-Tavily-Access-Mode: keyless` first for search and extract, then switch to a key or x402 when the limit hits
2. Send the key in `Authorization: Bearer`, not `?tavilyApiKey=` in the MCP URL
3. On 429, wait for `Retry-After`. A 432 or 433 means a spend limit, and retrying won't help
4. Run /map before /crawl to bound the crawl, since crawl is billed as map plus extract
5. Research is async and runs 4 to 250 credits. Create the task, then poll /research/{request_id}

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