FAQ - SERP API + Reader API

SearchCans is an enterprise-grade SERP API service providing real-time Google and Bing search results and web content extraction. Designed for AI developers, it targets 99.99% uptime with Parallel Lanes — pricing as low as $0.56 per 1,000 searches on high-volume plans.

Sign up for a free account on our registration page, get your API key from the dashboard, and make your first API call. New users receive 100 free credits to test the service. Check our complete documentation for detailed steps.

No! Sign up is completely free and requires no credit card. You get 100 free credits immediately upon registration to test the API.

Yes! New users get 100 free credits to test the API. No credit card required for signup. Simply register and start making API calls immediately.

SearchCans starts at $18 for 20,000 credits. Higher-volume plans offer better rates — down to $0.56 per 1,000 searches on the Ultimate plan ($1,680 for 3M credits). Choose Elastic Credit Packs for bursty AI traffic, or our upcoming Predictable Monthly Plans for steady workloads. View complete pricing plans.

Standard Google/Bing Search: 1 credit per request. Reader API: 2 credits (standard mode). Premium add-ons like Proxy Pool, Document Parsing, and CAPTCHA Solving consume additional credits. See Pricing page for details. Credits are deducted only for successful API responses.

No. We only charge for HTTP 200 Success responses with valid data. You are NOT charged for:

• Concurrency/Rate Limits (-1010, -1009)
• System Busy/Timeouts (-1002, -1001)
• Authentication Errors (401, 403)

Feel free to implement aggressive retry logic; it won't drain your wallet.

Credits are valid for 6 months from purchase date. You can check your balance and expiration date anytime in your dashboard.

We accept all major credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, Amex) via Stripe. Enterprise customers can contact us for invoice payments and custom billing.

We offer a 7-day refund window from the date of purchase, provided that less than 10% of the purchased credits have been used. Refund requests must be submitted via email or your dashboard within this window. Please note that all API usage across your account — including activity through stacked Parallel Lanes — counts toward the usage threshold. A small processing fee applies. See our Terms of Service §4.3 for complete refund policy details.

We are building Document Parsing (PDF, Word, Excel to Markdown), Page Screenshot, a multi-tier Proxy Pool (Shared, Datacenter, Residential), Geo Targeting, CAPTCHA Solving, and fine-grained extraction controls (Render Mode, CSS selectors, cookie injection). These will be available as add-on parameters with transparent per-request credit pricing. See our documentation for parameter details.

SearchCans uses a Parallel Lanes concurrency model instead of hourly rate limits. This means your AI agents can burst traffic freely without hitting arbitrary caps. Plus, Reader API is included at no extra cost, and Lane Stacking lets you scale concurrency on demand.

We target 99.99% Uptime, dedicated cluster nodes for high-volume plans, Parallel Lanes (2–68 concurrent lanes, stackable up to 100+) with zero hourly throughput limits, and flexible billing via Elastic Credit Packs or upcoming Monthly Plans.

We've built purpose-designed infrastructure optimized for AI workloads from day one. This efficiency allows us to offer enterprise-grade reliability at rates as low as $0.56/1K while maintaining the highest data quality and speed.

Lanes = how many searches can run at the same time. No hourly caps — when one request finishes, the lane is instantly free for the next.

• Standard: 2 Lanes  |  Starter: 3 Lanes  |  Pro: 22 Lanes  |  Ultimate: 68 Lanes
• Zero Cooldown: As soon as one request finishes, the lane is free immediately.
• Lane Stacking: Buy more than one plan and their lanes add up. E.g. 2× $99 = 6 Lanes. See below for details.

We use a Parallel Lanes model instead of hourly rate limits. Depending on your plan, you get 2 to 68 concurrent lanes. Since an average request takes ~2.5s, each lane processes ~24 requests/minute. For example: 3 Lanes = ~72 RPM (4,320/hour). With Lane Stacking, you can combine plans for even higher throughput — e.g. 25 stacked lanes = ~600 RPM (36,000/hour).

Lane Stacking lets you buy more than one plan and their lanes add up automatically. More lanes = more searches running at once = faster data collection.

• How it works: Purchase multiple Elastic Credit Packs — we instantly combine all their Parallel Lanes into one account.
• Example: 1× $99 (3 Lanes) + 1× $597 (22 Lanes) = 25 Lanes running in parallel.
• More examples: 2× $99 = 6 Lanes  |  2× $1680 = 136 Lanes
• Non-stackable: The $18 Standard tier has a fixed 2-lane allocation and cannot be stacked.
• No upper limit: Stack as many plans as you need. For 100+ lanes or dedicated infrastructure, contact support@searchcans.com.

Credits follow a First-In-First-Out (FIFO) order — the oldest order's credits are used first. When one order's credits are fully used up or expire, its lanes are automatically detached from your total concurrency. Your remaining orders' lanes stay active.

Example: You have Order A (3 Lanes, 50K credits left) + Order B (22 Lanes, 500K credits). Total = 25 Lanes. Once Order A's 50K credits run out, it drops to 22 Lanes (Order B only). Purchase a new plan anytime to add lanes back.

Average SERP API response time is 2–3 seconds depending on query complexity and filters. Reader API typically takes 3–5 seconds for lightweight pages, as it performs full headless browser rendering to execute JavaScript and extract complete content — heavier pages with complex JS frameworks may take longer. All requests are routed through geo-distributed infrastructure for optimal performance.

We support Google and Bing search engines. Specify the search engine using the "t" parameter in your API request (t=google or t=bing).

SearchCans works with any language that can make HTTP requests: Python, JavaScript/Node.js, Java, PHP, Ruby, Go, C#, etc. We provide code examples for all major languages in our documentation. You can also test directly in our API Playground.

Reader API converts any URL into clean, LLM-ready Markdown with preserved semantic structure. Returns title, content, metadata, images, and links in structured JSON format. Perfect for RAG pipelines, AI training data, and content analysis. Check our API documentation for detailed usage.

Reader API outputs LLM-ready Markdown with lossless conversion, while web scraping requires custom parsers for each site. Our managed infrastructure handles browser rendering, anti-bot bypass, and structured output — no maintenance needed on your end.

Yes! Headless browser rendering is enabled by default (b parameter defaults to true). This executes JavaScript and extracts complete content from dynamic sites like React or Vue applications. For simple static HTML pages, you can set b=false for faster processing.

You get title, LLM-ready Markdown content, author, publish date, images, links, word count, reading time, and metadata—all in structured JSON format, ready for LLM training, RAG systems, or database storage.

The Reader API offers a multi-tier Proxy Pool for overcoming access restrictions. Set proxy: 1 (Shared Pool, +2 credits), proxy: 2 (Datacenter, +5 credits, 98% success rate), or proxy: 3 (Residential, +10 credits, highest success rate). Best practice: start with standard mode (proxy: 0), then escalate only when you encounter access errors. See documentation for the full proxy tier comparison.

Absolutely! SearchCans is specifically designed for AI agents, LLMs, and chatbots. Our API provides structured data perfect for ChatGPT, Claude, LangChain, and other AI applications. Many developers use us for RAG systems and real-time knowledge augmentation.

Yes. Reader API is ideal for collecting LLM training data at scale. Extract millions of articles as clean Markdown with preserved structure and metadata. Enterprise-grade infrastructure ensures reliable extraction at rates as low as $0.56/1K.

Yes! We provide integration guides for LangChain, LlamaIndex, and other AI frameworks in our documentation. You can use SearchCans as a tool for AI agents to access real-time web information.