Credits & billing
The SERP API is credit-based. Credits are drawn from your organization’s balance — the same balance you top up in the dashboard.
What a task costs
Section titled “What a task costs”| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
One SERP task (serp_full) |
1 credit per keyword |
Cost is charged when the task is created, not when it finishes.
Cache hits are still charged
Section titled “Cache hits are still charged”A cache hit returns a recent result without re-crawling, but it is still charged the normal price — you’re paying for the data, and it saves you the wait. Caching is a performance optimization, not a free tier.
Refunds
Section titled “Refunds”If a task ends in error (the crawl failed after retries), the charge is
automatically refunded. You’re only billed for tasks that deliver a result.
Insufficient balance
Section titled “Insufficient balance”If your balance can’t cover a task, the submit returns 402 with code
payments.insufficient_balance and no task is created (nothing is charged).
Top up in the dashboard and retry.
{ "error": { "code": "payments.insufficient_balance", "message": "Insufficient credit balance" } }Checking your balance
Section titled “Checking your balance”View your balance and usage in the API section of the dashboard.