SYFTLY/ answers
light estimateLast updated 2026-08-20

Linkup vs SerpApi

Linkup vs SerpAPI (Google SERP API) for web search. Free/mo: 4000 vs 250 — edge Linkup Computed from public benchmarks with dated sources; updated 2026-08-20.

Head to head
Linkup compared with SerpAPI (Google SERP API) per decision axis
AxisLinkupSerpAPI (Google SERP API)Edge
Price$5 per 1000 queries$25 per 1000 queries*—
Relevance—12.28—
Latency—2400 ms—
Free/mo4000250Linkup
LLM-ready✓——

* token-/credit-priced — the headline understates real per-unit cost, so no price edge is awarded.

Strengths & caveats
LinkupLow entry price for standard search ($5/1k raw results, $6/1k with a sourced answer), clean LLM-ready output, and a recurring $20 monthly credit worth about 4000 standard queries. Deep search is 10x the standard price ($50/1k raw, $55/1k sourced), so the cheap entry price only holds for standard queries; not covered by the one independent multi-provider eval available, so its relevance/latency rank is unverified; its top SimpleQA claims are vendor self-reported (Tier 3) and conflict with rival self-reports.SerpApiGives true Google/Bing SERP data (ads, rich snippets, knowledge panels) parsed into structured JSON — the closest to 'what a human sees on Google'. Subscription-based ($25/1k entry, dropping to ~$5/1k only at high reserved volume) so not directly comparable per-query; ranked last on the independent agent relevance eval (12.28) and returns raw SERP fields, not LLM-ground-ready content.
Sources