Yes, Google has a search API, but if you are building something new today, you cannot get it.
The official path is the Custom Search JSON API. It returns web and image results from a Programmable Search Engine in JSON format, and it requires two things together: a search-engine ID and an API key. Existing customers get 100 free queries per day, then pay $5 per 1,000 queries up to 10,000 per day. That pricing applies only to existing customers until the service ends on January 1, 2027. The API is not available to new customers; Google closed it to new signups on January 20, 2026, according to a vendor comparison.
So the practical answer splits in two: if you already hold a key, you are on a countdown. If you are starting now, you are choosing a replacement.
Is Google Search API Free?
Partly, and only for whoever already has access.
Google's docs describe 100 search queries per day for free, with billing through the API Console once you need more. Additional requests cost $5 per 1,000 queries, up to 10,000 queries per day. That free slice is narrow by design: 100 queries covers a prototype, a small internal tool, or a daily smoke test. It does not cover a tracker, an agent loop, or any batch workload.
Do not read the free tier as an ongoing free plan for new projects. Because the API is closed to new customers, there is no new free 100-a-day to sign up for.
Is the API Key Free, and How Do You Use It?
On the official path, the key alone was never enough.
To use the API you needed both a configured Programmable Search Engine and an API key. The engine is created and configured through the Programmable Search Engine control panel, with the search-engine ID located through the help center. Results come back in JSON following the OpenSearch 1.1 specification. Basic usage could be monitored through the Cloud Console API Dashboard, with more advanced monitoring (custom dashboards, alerts, programmatic metrics access) through Cloud Operations. That setup-and-monitoring detail comes from Google's own Custom Search JSON API documentation.
The questions people bring here (is the key free, is it paid, how do I use it) were never answered by engine configuration alone. The docs state the engine-plus-key prerequisites without addressing the free-versus-paid confusion. In practice: usage past 100 a day billed at the $5-per-1,000 rate, and new keys are no longer issued.
What Does the 100-Free Cap Actually Cover?
Think of it as a scoped engine endpoint rather than a full Google-results firehose.
What you get:
- Web and image results from your configured engine, returned as JSON
- 100 queries per day free, for existing customers
- Metered overage at $5 per 1,000, capped at 10,000 queries per day
- An end date: January 1, 2027
What you do not get:
- A general free web-search API returning full Google results: Google offers no such thing
- A path for new customers, closed since January 20, 2026
- Headroom for batch work: 10,000 a day is a hard ceiling even before the shutdown
If your workload fits inside 100 lookups a day and you already hold credentials, the official path remains the simplest call until the cutoff. Anything that fans out (rank checks across keywords times locations, suggestion expansion, agent loops) outgrows it immediately.
When Does Official Math Beat Vendor Per-1K Math?
Run the numbers before nostalgia decides for you.
At official overage rates, 1,000 extra queries cost $5. A widely cited vendor anchor, DataForSEO's Standard queue, is listed at $0.60 per 1,000 with a $50 minimum prepaid deposit, roughly eight times cheaper per thousand on raw price, but with deposit friction the official pricing never describes. The official 100-a-day is described without a deposit floor; the vendor's low per-thousand carries a $50 floor before the first call.
That makes the tradeoff concrete:
- Under ~100 queries a day with an existing key: official wins on simplicity: JSON straight from the configured engine, no deposit floor, no queue tier to choose.
- Past that, or without an existing key: the vendor per-thousand wins on unit price, and the real comparison shifts to queue versus live delivery (results in minutes at a lower price, or in seconds at a higher one), deposit and top-up friction, and what happens at the limit. Deposit and top-up mechanics are their own set of checks.
Do not promise yourself a free tier beyond those two shapes: official 100-a-day for existing holders, and whatever limited trial credits vendors currently advertise. Neither is an ongoing free plan.
What Replaces It for New Builds?
For new projects, the choice is not "which official key" but "which non-official path."
Google's own modern replacement, for enterprise and AI workloads, is Vertex AI Search, not another Custom Search key. For everyone else, the path is a third-party SERP API that returns structured JSON search results; most advertise limited trial credits for evaluation.
If you are deciding this week:
- Holding an existing Custom Search key with light volume: stay on it, budget the $5-per-1,000 overage, and plan the migration before January 2027. Treat the shutdown date as fixed.
- Starting new with light, ad-hoc needs: evaluate a vendor SERP API on its trial credits, then on metered per-thousand pricing and the deposit floor; whether it calls itself official is beside the point.
- Starting new with production volume: compare on quota shape and observability from day one (daily caps, queue-versus-live latency, how you tell a struggling endpoint from a healthy one), because the failure mode you are buying into is no longer Google's dashboard but the vendor's.
qequals sits in that non-official camp, a Google-only vendor answer for displaced builds: live SERP plus suggest through an agent-first API.
Whichever path you pick, budget against the January 2027 date, not against the free tier.
