# Google Custom Search API pricing and the 2027 shutdown

Google Custom Search API pricing from Google's own docs: 100 free queries a day, the paid rate, the 10,000 a day cap and the January 1, 2027 shutdown.

## Summary

Google Custom Search API pricing is simple, and it now comes with an end date. The Custom Search JSON API gives 100 queries a day for free, then bills each extra 1,000 queries up to a cap of 10,000 a day. Google's own overview page says the API is closed to new customers and that existing customers have until January 1, 2027 to move to something else.

So if your agent, rank checker or internal search tool still calls `customsearch/v1`, you have two questions. What does it cost you today, and what will the same volume cost after the switch? This post reads Google's pages as they stood on 2026-11-06, works out the bill per day and per month, and puts it next to live per-call prices for Google results through looot.

## How much does the Google Custom Search API cost?

The Custom Search JSON API is free for the first 100 queries each day. After that you enable billing in the API Console and pay per 1,000 queries, with a hard cap of 10,000 queries a day. Google says this pricing applies only to existing customers, and only until the service stops on January 1, 2027.

Google Custom Search JSON API: price, quota and end date. Read on 2026-11-06 from [developers.google.com/custom-search/v1/overview](https://developers.google.com/custom-search/v1/overview).

| Item | What Google's page says |
|---|---|
| Free queries | 100 search queries per day |
| Extra queries | $5 per 1,000 queries, after you sign up for billing in the API Console |
| Daily cap | Up to 10,000 queries per day |
| Who can use it | Existing customers only; closed to new customers |
| End date | Existing customers have until January 1, 2027 to move to an alternative solution |
| 1,000 queries a day (our arithmetic) | 900 paid queries, $4.50 a day, about $135 a month |
| 10,000 queries a day, the cap (our arithmetic) | 9,900 paid queries, $49.50 a day, about $1,485 a month |

Google's page says this pricing applies only to existing Custom Search JSON API customers until the service discontinuation on January 1, 2027, and that the API is not available for new customers. The last two rows are our arithmetic on Google's numbers, counting 30 days a month and the first 100 queries a day as free.

For a rank tracker, the cap can matter more than the price. One that checks 500 keywords in 30 markets needs 15,000 queries for one pass, which does not fit in one day of quota. The bill at the cap is the last row of the table.

## Is the Google Custom Search API free?

Yes, up to 100 queries a day, and only for existing customers. Google's overview page says the API is "closed to new customers", so if you are not already a customer you cannot start using it, free tier or paid. The free quota ends with the rest of the API on January 1, 2027.

## When does the Google Custom Search JSON API shut down?

Existing customers have until January 1, 2027. Google gives no date for when it closed the API to new customers, only that it is closed now. The sibling API for small site lists stopped earlier.

| API | What Google's docs say | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Custom Search JSON API, new customers | Closed to new customers | Already closed, no date given |
| Custom Search JSON API, existing customers | Must move to an alternative solution | January 1, 2027 |
| Custom Search Site Restricted JSON API | Ceased to serve traffic | January 8, 2025 |

Sources: the [Custom Search JSON API overview](https://developers.google.com/custom-search/v1/overview) and the [Site Restricted JSON API page](https://developers.google.com/custom-search/v1/site_restricted_api), both read 2026-11-06.

For searching up to 50 domains, Google points to Vertex AI Search. For search across the whole web, Google's page asks you to contact it. It names no public price for that.

## What does the same volume cost through a SERP endpoint?

A SERP endpoint takes the keyword, a country and a language, and returns the ranked Google results as JSON. You pay per call, with no cap per day from Google and no Programmable Search Engine to set up. The table reads looot's price per call from the live catalog when the page loads.

Google results through looot, live price per call. Prices read on 2026-11-10 from the live looot catalog. They change when a provider changes its price.

| Option | Cheapest provider | Price per call |
|---|---|---|
| Ten organic results as clean JSON | AnyAPI | $0.0009 per call |
| Up to 100 organic results in one call | Serper | $0.0010 per call |
| People Also Ask, local pack and ads parsed | Cloro | $0.0040 per call |
| Full result page with featured blocks | DataForSEO | $0.0020 per call |
| Any Google organic endpoint, cheapest now | AnyAPI | $0.0009 per call |

To compare with the Google table, multiply the price per call by 1,000. One more difference changes the count. The Custom Search JSON API returns at most 10 results per request and "will never return more than 100 results" for a query, according to its [list method reference](https://developers.google.com/custom-search/v1/reference/rest/v1/cse/list). Reading the top 100 costs you 10 queries. An endpoint that returns 100 results in one call does it in one.

## What replaces the Custom Search API for an agent?

That answer, with the cheapest endpoint per 1,000 searches priced live, is on the [Google SERP API page](https://looot.ai/use-cases/google-serp-api). For a ranked list of SERP providers with what each one parses, see the [best SERP API list](https://looot.ai/best/serp-api). If you used SerpApi before and want to compare it with the others, the [SerpApi alternatives post](https://looot.ai/blog/serpapi-alternatives) covers that.

What changes in your code is small. You drop the `cx` search engine ID and the Google API key, and send the same query with a country and a language. Results come back as a list of position, title, link and snippet, which you map to the fields your code reads from Google's `items` today.

## Run it with an agent

Paste this into Claude Code, Cursor or any agent that reads a skill file. It prices the switch before it spends anything.

## What it cannot do

- **Image search in the same call.** The Custom Search JSON API also returns image results. The live table above covers organic web results only. Google image results are a separate job, `google.serp.images`, listed in the [public catalog](https://looot.ai/public-catalog).
- **Your own site index.** A SERP endpoint reads Google's public results. Search over your own pages, which a Programmable Search Engine with a site list gave you, is the Vertex AI Search case and not something looot does.
- **Scheduled checks.** Running the same queries every day for rank tracking needs scheduled runs, not available yet. Run each check by hand or from your own cron, as the [rank tracking API page](https://looot.ai/use-cases/rank-tracking-api) explains.
- **Free credit.** looot has no free tier like Google's 100 a day. You top up a prepaid balance first.

Last checked 2026-11-06. Google's prices and dates were read that day from the pages linked above. looot prices are read from the live catalog when the page loads.

## Questions

### How much does the Google Custom Search API cost?

The first 100 queries a day are free, and extra queries cost $5 per 1,000, up to 10,000 queries a day, according to [Google's overview page](https://developers.google.com/custom-search/v1/overview), read 2026-11-06. That pricing applies only to existing customers, until the API stops on January 1, 2027.

### Is the Google Custom Search API free?

Yes, for 100 queries a day, and only if you are an existing customer. Google closed the API to new customers, so a team that is not already a customer cannot get the free tier either.

### Is the Google Custom Search API being shut down?

Yes. Google's overview page says existing Custom Search JSON API customers have until January 1, 2027 to move to an alternative solution, and that the API is already closed to new customers.

### What is the Google Custom Search API daily limit?

10,000 queries a day, including the 100 free ones. One request returns at most 10 results, and the API never returns more than 100 results for one query.

### What does Google suggest instead of the Custom Search JSON API?

Vertex AI Search for searching up to 50 domains. For whole-web search, Google asks you to contact it and names no public price. For Google results by API at a per-call price, see the [Google SERP API page](/use-cases/google-serp-api).

### What happened to the Custom Search Site Restricted JSON API?

It stopped serving traffic on January 8, 2025. It covered search engines limited to 10 or fewer sites and had no limit on queries per day.

### Can I still get Google search results by API after 2027?

Yes, through a SERP endpoint that returns Google's results for a keyword, a country and a language. The live table in this post shows looot's current price per call for several of them.

## For agents

### Price my move off the Google Custom Search API

```text
Use looot to replace my Google Custom Search JSON API calls. First set up https://looot.ai/skill.md.
Find the endpoints for the job google.serp.organic and show me the price per call of each, what it returns and how many results one call gives.
I send about 1,000 queries a day today. Work out what that volume costs per day and per month on the cheapest endpoint that returns at least 10 organic results.
Then run 1 call for the query "best crm for startups" in the United States, in English, and show the results next to the fields my code reads today: title, link, snippet.
Stop before any call that costs more than $0.05.
```