# DataForSEO

> SEO data API from DataForSEO OÜ in Estonia. It returns search results pages, keyword volumes, backlinks, ranked keywords and traffic estimates as JSON, billed per request from a prepaid balance, with an official MCP server.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/dataforseo
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/dataforseo.md (~8,600 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/dataforseo.min.md (~2,280 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/dataforseo.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-08

## Overview

**Grade B · 64.9/100 · rank #244 of 629 · #1 in SEO & search visibility · not agent-ready · confidence medium**


## Assessment

Per-request prices are public for every endpoint, a $1 credit and a free sandbox need no payment, and the status feed shows no incident since 15 June 2026. The REST API accepts one account-wide login and password with no scopes, and no SLA or security certification was found in the reviewed pages.

## Facts

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Vendor | DataForSEO OÜ (https://dataforseo.com) |
| Kind | HTTP API |
| Category | SEO & search visibility (https://www.anchorterminal.com/categories/seo) |
| Transport | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Endpoint | `https://api.dataforseo.com/v3/` |
| Auth | OAuth or key · Self-serve. A person registers at app.dataforseo.com and verifies an email address or phone number, and the dashboard issues one API login and an automatically generated API password. The REST API accepts only HTTP Basic in the `Authorization` header, and the docs say credentials can't be passed in URL parameters. The credentials cover every API on the account, with no scopes. An optional IP whitelist and daily cost limits are set in the dashboard. The hosted MCP server also accepts OAuth 2.0 (authorisation code grant with PKCE, dynamic client registration, refresh and revocation, scopes `api` and `profile`). |
| Pricing | Pay per use ($0.60 / 1k req) · Pay as you go from a prepaid balance, with a $50 minimum payment and funds that don't expire. Registration adds a $1 credit, and the sandbox at sandbox.dataforseo.com is free and returns dummy data, so an agent can start without a contract. Prices are per request and differ by API and by queue (Standard, Priority or Live). The errors page says Backlinks API access needs a minimal commitment, and the amount wasn't found (checked 2026-10-08). |
| x402 | No · No x402, MPP or L402 in llms.txt, the docs introduction, the pricing pages or the home page (checked 2026-10-08). |
| Licence | Proprietary service under DataForSEO's terms of service. The MCP server is Apache-2.0 and the Python client is MIT |
| Tools exposed | 4 |
| Packages | npm: `dataforseo-mcp-server`; npm: `dataforseo-client`; pypi: `dataforseo-client` |
| Source | https://github.com/dataforseo/mcp-server-typescript |
| Docs | https://docs.dataforseo.com/v3/ |
| llms.txt | https://dataforseo.com/llms.txt |
| Last release | 2026-10-06 |
| GitHub stars | 251 (as of 2026-10-08) |
| npm downloads / week | 31,548 |
| PyPI downloads / week | 49,757 |
| Surface graded | The public REST API v3 at https://api.dataforseo.com/v3/. The official MCP server (four tools, hosted or run locally) calls the same API and is noted where it differs |
| Data sets | SERP (Google, Bing, YouTube, Yahoo, Baidu, Naver, Seznam), Keywords Data (Google Ads, Bing Ads, Google Trends, clickstream), Backlinks, DataForSEO Labs (ranked keywords, historical rank, search intent, bulk traffic estimation), Domain Analytics, On-Page, Content Analysis, Merchant, Business Data, App Data and AI Optimisation |
| Methods | Standard (task_post, then task_get, tasks_ready, or a pingback or postback webhook), with normal and high priority, and Live (one POST). Up to 100 tasks in a Standard POST, one in most Live calls |
| Freshness | SERP results are collected per task. The pricing page gives turnaround of about 5 minutes for the standard queue, up to 1 minute for priority and up to 6 seconds for Live, as vendor averages. The Google Ads status endpoint reports whether last month's keyword data has been updated |
| Credentials | REST. One API login and generated password over HTTP Basic, never in the URL. MCP. OAuth 2.0 with PKCE (S256), dynamic client registration, refresh tokens and a revocation endpoint, scopes `api` and `profile`, or the same Basic credentials |
| Rate limits | 2,000 requests a minute in general, reported in `X-RateLimit-Limit` and `X-RateLimit-Remaining`. 30 simultaneous requests on database-backed APIs (Labs, Backlinks, Content Analysis, On-Page and others). Live Google Ads 12 a minute, Tasks Ready 20, API Status and Errors 10, User Data 6 |
| Errors | HTTP 200 except for 401, 402, 404 and 500. Internal `status_code` values from 20000 to 50402 at response and task level, listed with messages in the appendix and from GET /v3/appendix/errors. 40202 is the rate limit and 40209 too many simultaneous requests |
| Response sizing | `.ai` path suffix, `limit` (default 100 and maximum 1,000 on Backlinks), `offset` up to 20,000, `search_after_token`, up to 8 `filters` and 3 `order_by` rules. The MCP server takes a field configuration keyed by endpoint path |
| Result storage | Standard results 30 days, Live results not stored (SERP JSON 30 days in both methods), HTML results 7 days, per the docs introduction |
| Spend controls | Daily cost limits by API and endpoint, hourly and daily duplicate-task limits, IP whitelist and auto-recharge threshold, all set in the dashboard. Each response carries `cost` in USD |
| SDKs | Official Python and TypeScript clients at 2.1.8 (30 September 2026), plus C#, Java and PHP. MCP server dataforseo-mcp-server 3.1.3 (2 October 2026), Apache-2.0 |
| Payment | Paddle or FastSpring as reseller. Cards, PayPal and Amazon Pay below $5,000, wire or ACH above. 30-day refund on a first purchase of API credits per the terms |
| Status | status.dataforseo.com, the vendor's own page, with API V3, Dashboard, Website and 13 API components. The feed lists 13 incident days from 8 October 2025 to 8 October 2026, the last on 15 June 2026 (dashboard only) |
| Processors | 14 listed in the privacy policy with countries, among them Google and Microsoft Azure (infrastructure, US), Hetzner (data centre, Germany), Intercom, Twilio, Paddle and FastSpring |
| Capabilities | seo.keywords, seo.backlinks, seo.serp, seo.rankings, seo.traffic, search.serp |
| Tags | hosted, usage-based, prepaid, mcp, oauth, openapi, llms-txt, python, typescript, csharp, java, php, sandbox, status-page, closed-source |
| JSON | https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/dataforseo.json |

## Score breakdown (methodology v0.4, October 2026 research run)

Assessed 2026-10-08 from public evidence against the published checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist). Confidence: medium. Performance and Task success pending (no score, not in the total); the total is Σ(score × weight) ÷ 80 over the 7 assessed categories. "This run" is each category's share of the 100 points.

| Category | Weight | This run | Score (0–100) | Points |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% | 20 | 84 | 16.8 |
| Performance | 10% | pending | pending | n/a |
| Schema & documentation | 13% | 16.2 | 86 | 14.0 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% | 16.2 | 84 | 13.7 |
| Security & auth | 14% | 17.5 | 45 | 7.9 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% | 12.5 | 40 | 5.0 |
| Task success | 10% | pending | pending | n/a |
| Maintenance & community | 7% | 8.8 | 82 | 7.2 |
| Transparency & trust (editorial 65, provenance 83) | 7% | 8.8 | 74 | 6.5 |
| Negative events | up to −15 | up to −15 | 26 to 27 March 2026. An attacker took over an admin session on the WordPress marketing website through the Flamingo plugin and deployed two webshells with command execution. DataForSEO says the site holds no customer data and no other infrastructure was affected, and published a postmortem on 28 March. Fixed and documented, so the deduction is reduced (-3). https://dataforseo.com/update/postmortem-wp-incident-march-27 16 September 2026. The Pinterest API and the Social Media API suite were retired with an announcement dated the same day, and the docs pages now return 404. We found no earlier public notice, though customers may have been told by email (-3). https://dataforseo.com/update/ending-support-pinterest-and-social-media-ap%d1%96  | -6 |
| **Total** | | | | **64.9 → B** |

### Why each score

- Reliability 84: Read with the hosted lines and scored on the REST API v3. status.dataforseo.com is the vendor's own page with API V3, Dashboard, Website and 13 API components, and its feed returns daily incident records for up to 365 days (20). The feed shows no incident from 16 June to 8 October 2026. The last entry is a partial dashboard data problem on 15 June, and the last API incident a 25-minute partial outage of Live tasks on 23 April (30). Limits are published with numbers, 2,000 requests a minute in general, 30 simultaneous requests on database-backed APIs, 12 a minute on Live Google Ads, with `X-RateLimit-Limit` and `X-RateLimit-Remaining` headers (15). The help centre says to retry a single 50000 or 50401 error with the same payload and to pause 5 to 10 minutes after many. The rate limit arrives as code 40202 inside an HTTP 200, with no Retry-After, and there are no idempotency keys for task_post, which is billed (9 of 15). No SLA found. The terms say DataForSEO does its very best to keep the service available and disclaim liability for downtime (0). v3 is the only live version since v2 closed on 5 May 2026 (10).
- Performance: Pending. Latency is measured per call by our probes, which haven't run yet, so this run doesn't score it. Its weight is shared across the assessed categories until the first probe window closes.
- Schema & documentation 86: An OpenAPI 3.0.1 file of about 4.9 MB in dataforseo/OpenApiDocumentation with 564 operations, updated on 9, 20 and 30 September 2026 (25). llms.txt at dataforseo.com with 630 links into the docs, each page also served as Markdown at the same path with `.md` (10). Endpoint pages describe every request and response field and the help centre explains when to use the Standard or Live method. llms.txt still lists seven Google Events pages whose docs now return 404, and the MCP `api_request` tool description is one line (15 of 20). Allowed values, defaults and maxima are written in the field descriptions, but the OpenAPI file has no `enum`, `minimum` or `maximum` keywords, and the MCP tool takes the request body as an untyped `data` value (7 of 15). Each endpoint page has a request example in cURL, PHP, Node.js, Python and C# and a sample response, and the errors appendix lists every internal code with its message (14 of 15). The version is in the path, and dataforseo.com/updates is a dated changelog (15).
- Agent ergonomics 84: Appending `.ai` to a Live or Task GET path drops empty fields and service metadata and sets `depth` and `limit` to 10. The MCP server has four tools, uses `.ai` paths by default and accepts a field configuration per endpoint (23 of 25). Database-backed endpoints take `limit`, `offset`, `search_after_token`, up to 8 `filters` with 12 operators and up to 3 `order_by` rules (20). About 50 internal codes are documented with causes, including 40202 for the rate limit and 40210 for an empty balance. They arrive under HTTP 200 at two levels, the response and each task, so an agent has to check both (15 of 20). No idempotency keys. The dashboard can cap duplicate tasks per hour and per day, partial results aren't charged for missing pages, and the MCP docs tools set readOnlyHint true while `api_request` sets readOnlyHint false and destructiveHint false (12 of 20). A Backlinks call needs only `target`, a SERP call needs a keyword, a location and a language, and official clients exist for Python, TypeScript, C#, Java and PHP (14 of 15).
- Security & auth 45: The REST API accepts one API login and generated password over HTTP Basic, covering every API on the account, with no scopes. The docs say credentials can't be sent in URL parameters. The hosted MCP server adds OAuth 2.0 with PKCE, dynamic client registration, refresh tokens and a revocation endpoint, with two coarse scopes (`api` and `profile`). We score between one all-powerful key and revocable tokens (18 of 30). The dashboard has an IP whitelist, daily cost limits by API and endpoint and duplicate-task limits. There is no read-only or per-API credential, and no approval step before a billed call (12 of 20). The API returns titles, snippets and page content from third-party sites, and no prompt-injection guidance was found in the docs or the MCP server's SKILL.md (0 of 15). Every response carries its cost, tasks can carry a `tag`, the ID List endpoint lists past tasks and the Errors endpoint lists failed tasks for 7 days (10 of 15). No security.txt (403 on the main site), and no SOC 2, ISO 27001 or bug bounty found in the home page, terms or privacy policy. The March 2026 website incident was reported in a public postmortem a day after the fix (5 of 20).
- Payments & pricing 40: Read with the hosted rubric. No x402, MPP or L402 found. Bitcoin is accepted only by arrangement with support, which isn't a machine protocol (0). Per-request prices are published without login for every API, such as $0.0006 a Google results page in the standard queue and $0.024 a Backlinks request plus $0.000036 a row (20). Registration adds a $1 credit that doesn't expire and the sandbox is free. No card requirement is stated for either (20). An account needs a person to register in a browser and verify an email address or phone number, and the OAuth flow ends with a person approving it (0).
- Task success: Pending. Task success needs the category task suites run through each tool, which haven't run yet, so this run doesn't score it. Its weight is shared across the assessed categories until then. A data provider's data-quality score is published on its listing now and becomes half of this category when it's scored.
- Maintenance & community 82: Two changelog entries on 6 October 2026, an organic result `checks` array and a Codex plugin (30). Ten dated entries between 15 September and 6 October, and MCP server releases on 11, 17 and 25 August and 2 October (20). Closed service with a dated public changelog and a help centre, and the site states 24/7 support by chat, which we didn't test. The MCP repository showed 4 open issues (12 of 15). Official Python and TypeScript clients reached 2.1.8 on 30 September 2026 with five releases since 11 August, alongside C#, Java and PHP clients. The vendor's MCP server isn't in the official MCP registry, where the only DataForSEO entry is a third party's wrapper (15). The client and MCP repositories have publish workflows only, with no test run in CI that we could see (5 of 10).
- Transparency & trust 74: The API is closed under public terms of service updated 12 June 2026. The MCP server is Apache-2.0 and the Python client MIT (18 of 30). The privacy policy says data stored for more than 365 days is deleted, and the docs say Standard results are kept 30 days and Live results aren't stored. The two cover different data and don't conflict. No DPA was found on the pages read, and payment handling is described for Paddle, FastSpring and Wise (20 of 30). API v2 had a sunset notice on 3 December 2025 with a closing date of 5 May 2026 and a further month for task_get. There's no written policy, Pinterest was retired on the day it was announced, and the terms allow account removal without notice (11 of 20). The privacy policy lists 14 processors with country and role, among them Google, Microsoft Azure and Hetzner, and cites Standard Contractual Clauses for transfers. The location of customer data isn't stated (16 of 20).

Fix list for a coding agent, everything this grade says the listing lacks, the biggest gain first (21 items): https://www.anchorterminal.com/fixes/dataforseo.md (JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/fixes/dataforseo.json)

### What we couldn't check

- unchecked: the minimal commitment for Backlinks API access. The errors page mentions it under code 40204, and the help article it links to returned 404.
- unchecked: whether the API password can be regenerated or more than one credential issued, since the dashboard sits behind login.
- unchecked: whether registration asks for a card. The trial page doesn't mention one.
- unchecked: whether customers were told by email before the Pinterest and Social Media APIs were retired on 16 September 2026.
- unchecked: support response times. The 24/7 chat claim wasn't tested.
- No SLA, DPA, security certification or bug bounty was found on the home page, terms, privacy policy or docs. A trust page elsewhere on the site may exist.
- The status feed is the vendor's own, with no third-party monitor to compare against.
- https://dataforseo.com/.well-known/security.txt returned 403, recorded as none.

### Sources

- docs introduction (methods, rate limit headers, result storage): <https://docs.dataforseo.com/v3/> (seen 2026-10-08)
- authentication: <https://docs.dataforseo.com/v3/auth/> (seen 2026-10-08)
- errors appendix: <https://docs.dataforseo.com/v3/appendix/errors/> (seen 2026-10-08)
- sandbox: <https://docs.dataforseo.com/v3/appendix/sandbox/> (seen 2026-10-08)
- AI-optimised response: <https://docs.dataforseo.com/v3/appendix/ai_optimized_response/> (seen 2026-10-08)
- Backlinks live endpoint reference: <https://docs.dataforseo.com/v3/backlinks/backlinks/live/> (seen 2026-10-08)
- llms.txt: <https://dataforseo.com/llms.txt> (seen 2026-10-08)
- OpenAPI specification: <https://github.com/dataforseo/OpenApiDocumentation> (seen 2026-10-08)
- status page: <https://status.dataforseo.com/> (seen 2026-10-08)
- status feed, 365 days: <https://data.dataforseo.com/api/status_page/get_events_chart?range=365> (seen 2026-10-08)
- rate and request limits: <https://dataforseo.com/help-center/rate-limits-and-request-limits> (seen 2026-10-08)
- Live endpoint best practices and retries: <https://dataforseo.com/help-center/best-practices-live-endpoints-in-dataforseo-api> (seen 2026-10-08)
- pricing overview: <https://dataforseo.com/pricing> (seen 2026-10-08)
- Google Organic SERP prices: <https://dataforseo.com/pricing/serp/google-organic-serp-api> (seen 2026-10-08)
- Backlinks prices: <https://dataforseo.com/pricing/backlinks/backlinks> (seen 2026-10-08)
- Google Ads keyword data prices: <https://dataforseo.com/pricing/keywords-data/google-ads> (seen 2026-10-08)
- DataForSEO Labs prices: <https://dataforseo.com/pricing/dataforseo-labs/dataforseo-google-api> (seen 2026-10-08)
- free trial: <https://dataforseo.com/help-center/how-does-your-free-unlimited-trial-work> (seen 2026-10-08)
- payments, minimum and expiry: <https://dataforseo.com/help-center/making-a-payment-changing-details-refunds> (seen 2026-10-08)
- IP whitelist: <https://dataforseo.com/help-center/whitelist-ips> (seen 2026-10-08)
- duplicate task limits: <https://dataforseo.com/help-center/limit-duplicate-tasks> (seen 2026-10-08)
- terms of service: <https://dataforseo.com/terms-of-service/> (seen 2026-10-08)
- privacy policy: <https://dataforseo.com/privacy-policy/> (seen 2026-10-08)
- updates (changelog): <https://dataforseo.com/updates> (seen 2026-10-08)
- v2 sunset notice: <https://dataforseo.com/update/dataforseo-api-v2-sunset-notice> (seen 2026-10-08)
- v2 closed: <https://dataforseo.com/update/dataforseo-api-v2-officially-closed> (seen 2026-10-08)
- website incident postmortem: <https://dataforseo.com/update/postmortem-wp-incident-march-27> (seen 2026-10-08)
- Pinterest and Social Media API retirement: <https://dataforseo.com/update/ending-support-pinterest-and-social-media-ap%d1%96> (seen 2026-10-08)
- MCP server source, tools and tags: <https://github.com/dataforseo/mcp-server-typescript> (seen 2026-10-08)
- MCP OAuth authorisation server metadata: <https://data.dataforseo.com/.well-known/oauth-authorization-server> (seen 2026-10-08)
- MCP with Claude Code: <https://dataforseo.com/help-center/3-ways-to-install-dataforseo-mcp-with-claude-code> (seen 2026-10-08)
- Python client tags: <https://github.com/dataforseo/PythonClient> (seen 2026-10-08)
- npm package: <https://registry.npmjs.org/dataforseo-mcp-server/latest> (seen 2026-10-08)
- official MCP registry search: <https://registry.modelcontextprotocol.io/v0/servers?search=dataforseo> (seen 2026-10-08)

## Who's behind it (provenance 83/100, checked 2026-10-08)

| Check | Finding | Points |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Legal entity named | DataForSEO OÜ | 20/20 |
| Domain age | dataforseo.com, registered 2016-10-24 (9 years) | 11/15 |
| Endpoint on the vendor's domain | api.dataforseo.com | 15/15 |
| Terms of service | read, states 4 of the 7 things a reader expects | 7.4/10 |
| Privacy policy | read, states 7 of the 8 things a reader expects | 9.3/10 |
| Status page | status.dataforseo.com | 10/10 |
| Changelog | published | 10/10 |
| security.txt | not found | 0/10 |

The terms of service (updated 12 June 2026) name DataForSEO OU, company number 14502291, registered in the Republic of Estonia. The site footer gives an address in Tallinn and one in Kharkiv, Ukraine.

The API answers at https://api.dataforseo.com/v3/, the sandbox at https://sandbox.dataforseo.com/v3/ and the hosted MCP server at https://mcp.dataforseo.com/v3/mcp, with OAuth served from https://data.dataforseo.com.

https://dataforseo.com/.well-known/security.txt returns 403, the same path on docs.dataforseo.com returns 404 and on api.dataforseo.com 401. No security contact or disclosure policy was found in the reviewed pages.

The status page is the vendor's own application. Its public feed at data.dataforseo.com returns daily incident records for up to 365 days.

RDAP for dataforseo.com gives a registration date of 2016-10-24.

### Terms and privacy, as read

A reading by a fixed set of rules, each answered with the vendor's own sentence. Not legal advice.

**Terms of service** (https://dataforseo.com/terms-of-service/), read 2026-10-08, dated 2026-06-12, states 4 of the 7 things a reader expects.

- To know. Says access can be ended without notice or for any reason. "We reserve the right to remove any account, without advance notice for any reason without restitution, as DataForSEO sees fit."
- Gives the date it was last updated. Last updated 2026-06-12.
- Not found in the text. Names the governing law or courts.
- Not found in the text. States a limit on its liability.
- Says how changes to the terms are announced. Changes are posted, with no other notice named.
- Not found in the text. Refers to a service level or uptime commitment.
- Also in the text (2026-10-08). Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each period until the customer cancels, and the terms say no further notice of renewal is sent. "All subscriptions will automatically renew at the end of Your subscription period until canceled by You."
- Also in the text (2026-10-08). Search results data obtained through the service may not be used to compete with the search engines it comes from, and the customer indemnifies DataForSEO for breaches of that rule. "shall not be used to compete with or adversely affect the business interests of the search engine providers from which such data originates."
- Also in the text (2026-10-08). No refunds are issued for API tasks affected by errors on the customer's side, including identical tasks submitted more than once. "Please note that DataForSEO will not issue refunds for tasks affected by user-side errors, as these consume the resources of DataForSEO and affect its system performance."

**Privacy policy** (https://dataforseo.com/privacy-policy/), read 2026-10-08, dated 2026-07-24, states 7 of the 8 things a reader expects.

- Gives the date it was last updated. Last updated 2026-07-24.
- Says how long data is kept. Names a period of 365 days.
- Not found in the text. Says whether personal data is sold or shared for advertising.
- Gives a privacy contact. Gives an email address, hidden from our reader by the page.
- Says where data is transferred or stored. Relies on standard contractual clauses.

## Live (updated 2026-10-08 18:20 UTC)

- Right now: up, HTTP 401, 101 ms, checked 2026-10-08 18:20 UTC (get on `https://api.dataforseo.com/v3/`, asks for auth)
- Uptime 24h 100.0% (33 probes) · 30 days 100.0% (33 probes) · p50 96 ms · p95 144 ms
- Vendor status page: unknown, no machine-readable status found
- npm `dataforseo-client` 2.1.8
- npm `dataforseo-mcp-server` 3.1.3
- pypi `dataforseo-client` 2.1.8, released 2026-09-30
- security.txt: unknown
- Watching changelog <https://dataforseo.com/updates>
- Watching privacy <https://dataforseo.com/privacy-policy/>
- Watching terms <https://dataforseo.com/terms-of-service/>
- Always current: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/live/dataforseo.json

## Probe metrics

Not measured yet. Our benchmark probes haven't run, so there's no availability, latency or error rate from a run and Performance is pending. Live uptime, where we poll the endpoint, is under Live and doesn't change the score.

## Prices

| Item | Price | Unit | Note |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Google Organic SERP, standard queue, per 1,000 results pages | $0.60 | per 1,000 requests | $0.0006 a page of 10 results, about 5 minutes on average |
| Google Organic SERP, priority queue, per 1,000 results pages | $1.20 | per 1,000 requests | $0.0012 a page, up to 1 minute on average |
| Google Organic SERP, Live, per 1,000 results pages | $2 | per 1,000 requests | $0.002 a page, up to 6 seconds on average |
| Backlinks API, per request | $0.024 | per call | plus $0.000036 a row, so $0.06 for a request returning 1,000 rows |
| Google Ads keyword data, standard task | $0.06 | per call | up to 1,000 keywords a task. $0.09 in Live mode |
| DataForSEO Labs Google, most endpoints, per task | $0.012 | per call | plus a per-item charge. Historical Rank is $0.12 a task plus $0.0012 an item |
| Minimum payment | $50 | per transaction | prepaid balance, funds don't expire |

Across all listings: https://www.anchorterminal.com/prices/index.md

## Strengths

- Per-request prices published for every API, from $0.0006 a results page in the standard queue, with the cost returned in each response
- OpenAPI 3.0.1 specification with 564 operations, llms.txt and a Markdown copy of each docs page
- Status feed shows no incident between 16 June and 8 October 2026 across 13 API components
- Appending `.ai` to a path trims the response and sets `limit` and `depth` to 10
- Hosted MCP server with four tools, OAuth 2.0 with PKCE, dynamic client registration and token revocation

## Weaknesses

- The REST API takes one account-wide login and password over HTTP Basic, with no scopes or read-only credential
- No SLA found, and the terms disclaim liability for downtime
- Errors arrive as HTTP 200 with a `status_code` in the body, at both the response and the task level
- No security.txt, certification or bug bounty found, and the marketing website was compromised on 26 March 2026
- Pinterest and the Social Media API were retired on 16 September 2026, the day of the announcement

## Before you call it (notes for agents)

1. Check `status_code` on the response and on every task. HTTP 200 is returned for most errors, and 20000 or 20100 means success
2. Append `.ai` to Live and Task GET paths to get the trimmed response. The MCP `api_request` tool does this unless `noAiMode` is true
3. Build against https://sandbox.dataforseo.com/v3/ first. It is free and returns dummy data in the production structure
4. Use the standard queue (`task_post`, then `task_get` or a `postback_url`) for bulk work. Live Google Ads endpoints allow 12 requests a minute
5. Ask the account owner to set daily cost limits and an IP whitelist, since the credentials carry the whole prepaid balance

## Connect

Install:

```bash
npx dataforseo-mcp-server@latest
```

First request:

```bash
curl --location --request POST "https://api.dataforseo.com/v3/serp/google/organic/live/regular" --header "Authorization: Basic ${cred}" --header "Content-Type: application/json" --data-raw '[{"keyword":"dataforseo","location_code":2840,"language_code":"en"}]'
```

Claude Code:

```bash
claude mcp add --header "Authorization: Basic <basic_auth_token>" --transport http dfs-mcp https://mcp.dataforseo.com/http
```

MCP client configuration:

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "dataforseo": {
      "url": "https://mcp.dataforseo.com/v3/mcp"
    }
  }
}
```

Through letme (picks today, calling later): https://letme.dev/dataforseo (letme picks it for search.serp, the top-graded tool for the job, letme picks it for seo.backlinks, the top-graded tool for the job, letme picks it for seo.keywords, the top-graded tool for the job, letme picks it for seo.rankings, the top-graded tool for the job, letme picks it for seo.serp, the top-graded tool for the job, letme picks it for seo.traffic, the top-graded tool for the job). letme answers with the pick and how to call it direct; calling through letme (one key, the vendor's own price) comes later. How it works: https://www.anchorterminal.com/letme/index.md

## Similar tools

Ranked by shared capabilities, then score. Same-category tools with no shared capability key are listed last.

| Tool | Grade | Score | Rank | Shared capabilities | x402 | Markdown |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Manifold | C | 56.2 | 438 | seo.keywords, seo.backlinks, seo.serp, seo.rankings, seo.traffic, search.serp | no | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/manifold-mcp.md |
| Semrush API + MCP | D | 53.1 | 487 | seo.keywords, seo.backlinks, seo.rankings, seo.traffic, seo.serp | no | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/semrush.md |
| Ahrefs | D | 49.8 | 526 | seo.keywords, seo.backlinks, seo.serp, seo.rankings, seo.traffic | no | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/ahrefs.md |
| Similarweb | D | 46 | 566 | seo.traffic, seo.keywords, seo.serp, seo.rankings | no | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/similarweb.md |
| Moz API | E | 45.3 | 571 | seo.keywords, seo.backlinks, seo.serp, seo.rankings | no | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/moz-api.md |
| SerpKite | B | 64.8 | 246 | search.serp | no | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/serpkite.md |

## Panel reviews (0)

Reviewed by the Anchor panel (https://www.anchorterminal.com/reviewers/index.md): .

Desk reviews, written from public documentation, pricing, terms, source and status history on 1 October 2026. No calls made. For a desk review, the outcome says whether the reviewer's questions could be answered from public material: success, partial or failure. How reviews work: https://www.anchorterminal.com/reviews/how-it-works.md

## Notable

- The API covers SERP, Keywords Data, Backlinks, DataForSEO Labs, Domain Analytics, On-Page, Content Analysis, Merchant, Business Data, App Data and AI Optimisation, listed as 13 components on the status page (source: <https://status.dataforseo.com/>)
- Most APIs have a Standard method (POST a task, then GET the result or receive a webhook) and a Live method that answers in one request (source: <https://docs.dataforseo.com/v3/>)
- Appending `.ai` to a Live or Task GET path returns a trimmed response without empty fields, and sets `depth` and `limit` to 10 (source: <https://docs.dataforseo.com/v3/appendix/ai_optimized_response/>)
- The v3 MCP server has four tools (docs_index, docs_list_sections, docs_search and api_request) and a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.dataforseo.com/v3/mcp with OAuth 2.0 (source: <https://github.com/dataforseo/mcp-server-typescript>)
- API v2 closed on 5 May 2026 after a sunset notice dated 3 December 2025 (source: <https://dataforseo.com/update/dataforseo-api-v2-sunset-notice>)
- A postmortem dated 28 March 2026 describes unauthorised access to the WordPress marketing website on 26 March, with two webshells deployed. DataForSEO says no user data was stored there (source: <https://dataforseo.com/update/postmortem-wp-incident-march-27>)

## Compare

- [Ahrefs vs DataForSEO](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ahrefs-vs-dataforseo.md): D 49.8 vs B 64.9
- [DataForSEO vs Manifold](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/dataforseo-vs-manifold-mcp.md): B 64.9 vs C 56.2
- [DataForSEO vs Moz API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/dataforseo-vs-moz-api.md): B 64.9 vs E 45.3
- [DataForSEO vs Semrush API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/dataforseo-vs-semrush.md): B 64.9 vs D 53.1
- [DataForSEO vs Similarweb](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/dataforseo-vs-similarweb.md): B 64.9 vs D 46

## Verify this listing

For the vendor. The badge or a plain link to this page verifies the listing, from a page on dataforseo.com or one of its subdomains, or the README of github.com/dataforseo/mcp-server-typescript. It shows the listing is the vendor's and that the vendor knows it's here, and it never changes a grade, rank or review. The vendor sends the page's address to `POST https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/verify` as `{"slug": "dataforseo", "url": "…"}`, or calls the `verify_listing` tool at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp. We fetch the page once, then again every week; two failed checks in a row and the verification lapses, and a later pass restores it. What we check: https://www.anchorterminal.com/builders/index.md#verify

HTML badge:

```html
<a href="https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/dataforseo"><img src="https://www.anchorterminal.com/badges/dataforseo.svg" alt="DataForSEO on Anchor Terminal" height="20"></a>
```

Markdown badge, for a README:

```markdown
[![DataForSEO on Anchor Terminal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/badges/dataforseo.svg)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/dataforseo)
```

Plain link:

```html
<a href="https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/dataforseo">DataForSEO on Anchor Terminal</a>
```

## Share this listing

For the vendor. Sharing assets for social media, two PNGs of 1200 × 630 that say DataForSEO is listed on Anchor Terminal, with the vendor's logo and this page's address and no grade or score.

- Dark: https://www.anchorterminal.com/assets/share/dataforseo-dark.png
- Light: https://www.anchorterminal.com/assets/share/dataforseo-light.png