Comparison
SerpKite vs Tavily
Both are built for agents. Tavily searches its own index and returns cleaned content; SerpKite returns what Google shows, formatted for LLMs.
We make SerpKite
Summary
The short version
Tavily won the default-search-tool slot in many agent frameworks with extracted content and answers. SerpKite gives agents Google's actual ranking, People Also Ask and knowledge graph, in Markdown, for roughly a tenth of the list price.
Choose Tavily if…
- You want a generated answer and extracted chunks without handling pages yourself.
- Your framework template already wires in Tavily and you don't want to change the tool.
- Google's ranking specifically doesn't matter for your use case.
Choose SerpKite if…
- You want the results a person sees on google.com, including People Also Ask and the knowledge graph.
- Cost matters: $0.80 vs $7.50 per 1k at entry, $0.60 vs $5.00 at 100k.
-
You want to control content fetching:
include_content=Nor/webpageonly when needed. - You want no query logs (results cached ≤ 24 h, no identity) and no training use of your queries.
Differences
What actually differs
Source
Tavily uses its own index and re-ranking. SerpKite parses Google's logged-out results page.
Answers
Tavily can generate an answer. SerpKite returns Google's results and answer box as shown and never generates text itself.
Price
Tavily lists $7.50 per 1k at entry and $5.00 around 100k a month, with monthly credits. SerpKite is $0.80 and $0.60, with no expiry.
Content
Tavily returns content chunks per result. SerpKite returns Google snippets, plus full-page Markdown with include_content at +1 credit per page.
Features
Feature comparison
| SerpKite | Tavily | |
|---|---|---|
| Real Google results | Own index | |
| Google web + core verticals News, Images, Maps, Shopping, Scholar… | ||
| ChatGPT / Perplexity / Gemini answers | Planned | |
| Bing / DDG / Brave / Yandex | Planned (Q1 2027) | |
| Markdown output | ||
| Resolved final URLs (post-/goto) | Guaranteed | n/a |
| Page content in the same call | include_content | |
| Async batch + webhooks | 50% off | |
| Official SDKs TypeScript, Python, Go; LangChain and CrewAI tools | TS, Python, Go | Python, JS |
| Official MCP server | ||
| Credits never expire | ||
| Spend caps and per-key limits | ||
| Failed / empty results free | Incl. empty-200 detection | |
| Public status with latency | p50 / p95 | |
| No query logs / DPA SerpKite: No query logs · results cached ≤ 24 h, no identity | Default | |
| Legal shield | No (honest policy) | |
| SOC 2 | Planned |
Check = yes, cross = no, dash = not verified. SerpKite rows marked "Planned" are on the roadmap, not live.
Price
Price per 1,000 Google searches
| SerpKite | Tavily | |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | 2,500 on signup + 1,000/mo, no card | 1k/mo |
| Entry, ~$50 pack $ per 1k searches | $0.80 | $7.50 |
| ~100k searches / month $ per 1k | $0.60 | $5.00 |
| ~1M searches / month $ per 1k | $0.60 | enterprise |
| Best public list price $ per 1k | $0.60 | |
| Credit expiry | Never | Monthly |
Public list prices for Google web search, verified on vendor pages on 2026-09-28. "Entry" is the ~$50 pack or plan (SerpKite also has a $10 pack at $1.00 per 1k). SerpKite's self-serve packs stop at 500K credits; larger volumes are quoted on request. Expiring credits raise the effective price if you don't use them in time. See SerpKite pricing.
Verdict
Our take
If you want a single call that searches and summarizes, Tavily is convenient. If your agent should reason over what Google actually ranks, and you want to pay a fraction per query, use SerpKite with format=markdown.
Try it
One request to compare for yourself
curl https://api.serpkite.com/v1/search \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $SERPKITE_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"q":"best espresso machine 2026","country":"us","format":"markdown"}'1 credit per page of 10 results, SERP features included. Run it in the playground without signing up.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Start building
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2,500 free credits, then 1,000 every month. No credit card.