Bright Data Alternative: 5 SERP APIs Tested (2026)

Bright Data — often typed as one word, brightdata — is a proxy network with a SERP-data product layered on top. The proxy stack (72M+ residential IPs, mobile carrier IPs, and ISP IPs across 195+ countries) is the actual product, and the SERP API is a convenience wrapper over that infrastructure. That structure is exactly right when you need proxies. It is overkill when you only need parsed Google SERPs.

So if you’re shopping for a Bright Data alternative (or a brightdata alternative — same question, different spelling), the real fork is whether you need raw proxies or a parsed SERP API. Most teams searching for Bright Data alternatives in 2026 fall into one of two camps: they want cheaper proxy infrastructure, or they never wanted to manage proxies and parsers at all — they want structured Google SERP data (organic, ads, AI Overview, People Also Ask) returned as clean JSON. We tested five alternatives that cover both camps.

The 5 best Bright Data alternatives at a glance

Tool	Model	Entry price	Google SERP rate (~1k)	AI Overview parsed
cloro	Parsed AI-native SERP API	$100/mo (500 free credits)	$1.25–$2.00 /1k (n=10 + AIO)	✅ deep, default
Bright Data	Proxy + SERP layer	PAYG; Business ~$999/mo	~$1–$1.50 /1k (Google, high end)	⚠️ via Web Unlocker, DIY parse
Oxylabs	Proxy + SERP Scraper API	$49/mo	~$2 /1k results	⚠️ parsed SERP, limited AIO
ScraperAPI	Credit-based scraper	$49/mo (1k free credits)	25 credits/call ($12 /1k Google)	❌ no AIO
Decodo (ex-Smartproxy)	Budget proxy + SERP API	from ~$0.32 /1k	$0.32–$0.95 /1k	❌ no AIO
Apify	Actor marketplace	pay per actor + compute	actor-dependent	⚠️ via community actor

The alternatives split on two axes that matter for a Bright Data replacement: whether you get parsed SERP JSON or raw access you parse yourself, and whether onboarding is self-serve or an enterprise sales motion. Bright Data sits at the raw-access, sales-led end of both. Every alternative below moves you toward one or the other.

What Bright Data is actually built for

Bright Data is one of the largest proxy networks on the planet, and its SERP API rides on that infrastructure. Onboarding reflects the enterprise posture: most teams submit company details and a use case, clear a KYC/compliance review (some plans require corporate registration), talk to sales about volume, and sign an agreement before API access is provisioned. Pay-as-you-go exists, but committed plans (the Business tier lands near $999/month, per Bright Data’s published SERP pricing) are where the effective rate drops. That procurement rigor is part of why regulated enterprises trust Bright Data — and pure friction for a developer who just wants JSON back.

Where the proxy network earns its keep

For the right workload, nothing in this list replaces Bright Data one-for-one:

• Workloads that need a diverse proxy mix (residential, datacenter, mobile, ISP) routed through specific countries or cities.
• Compliance-bound enterprises that need SOC 2 and GDPR documentation tied to proxy provenance.
• Custom infrastructure deals with negotiated SLAs and dedicated account management.
• Brand-protection and market-research crawls where the proxy layer matters as much as the parsing layer.

If your problem is “we need tens of gigabytes of residential bandwidth per day through country-specific IPs,” Bright Data is a category leader and you should keep it.

Where the proxy stack becomes overhead

For a team that only needs parsed Google SERPs, most of that infrastructure is cost you carry without using:

• You bring the parser. Bright Data’s SERP API returns access to the page; AI Overview detection, citation extraction, People Also Ask hydration, and ad-sitelink handling are code you write and maintain as Google’s layout shifts.
• The bill is multi-axis. Bandwidth per gigabyte, a SERP CPM, session costs on some endpoints, and geo premiums on harder countries — several line items to reconcile monthly.
• Time-to-first-call is measured in days. The enterprise onboarding path runs 3–5 business days for most teams before the first request.

That’s the gap the alternatives below close — either by being a cheaper proxy, or by removing the proxy-and-parser problem entirely.

The 5 real Bright Data alternatives, tested

1. cloro — best for parsed, AI-native SERP data

cloro’s SERP API is the inverse of Bright Data: there is no proxy product to subscribe to and no parser to build. One endpoint family returns parsed JSON for Google Search and News, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, plus ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot, Gemini, and Grok — with the actual cited source URLs each AI surface used. Where a proxy hands you HTML to parse, cloro returns organic results, ads, AI Overview (with citations), and People Also Ask in a single response.

That cross-surface coverage is the 2026 differentiator: tracking classic rank without tracking AI citations now misses half the SERP. cloro also fits existing pipelines through n8n, Zapier, LangChain, and MCP, with synchronous calls plus async/batch and webhook delivery for large query sets.

Pros: Deepest AI Overview parsing in this list, returned by default. One API across Google and every major AI surface. Self-serve signup with a free 500-credit trial. No proxy or parser to maintain.

Cons: Focused on search intelligence — it doesn’t sell a raw proxy pool or ship vertical Maps/Jobs/e-commerce scrapers the way Bright Data does. Newer than the longest-running proxy vendors.

Pricing: Credit-based from $100/month (Hobby, 250,000 credits at $0.40 per 1,000 credits), scaling down to $0.31 per 1,000 on the largest self-serve tier and $0.25 on a custom Enterprise contract. A Google call is 3 credits at n=10, +2 with AI Overview — see the comparison card above for the per-1,000-call cost, and the pricing page for full tiers.

2. Oxylabs — closest like-for-like proxy + SERP infrastructure

If what you actually want is a cheaper version of Bright Data’s core offering, Oxylabs is the nearest match: a 100M+ IP residential and datacenter pool with a dedicated SERP Scraper API on top. The key difference is accessibility — the SERP Scraper API is self-serve from around $49/month (roughly $2 per 1,000 results at the entry tier, per Oxylabs’ SERP Scraper API pricing), so you skip much of Bright Data’s sales motion while keeping enterprise-grade infrastructure.

Pros: Proxy scale in the same league as Bright Data. Self-serve entry tier. Parses SERP results rather than handing back raw HTML.

Cons: Still fundamentally proxy-first; AI Overview parsing is limited versus purpose-built SERP APIs. Higher tiers move back toward enterprise pricing and contact-sales.

Pricing: SERP Scraper API from $49/month; per-result rates in roughly the $2.00–$2.80 per 1,000 range depending on plan and volume (Oxylabs pricing).

3. ScraperAPI — developer-friendly proxy with structured endpoints

ScraperAPI is closer to a developer product than an enterprise proxy: one API key, proxy rotation and retries handled for you, and structured JSON endpoints for popular targets including Google Search. It’s a strong Bright Data alternative for teams that want proxy-backed scraping without the procurement overhead.

The catch is the credit model. Plans are denominated in credits, and difficult targets cost more — Google’s structured-data endpoints bill at 25 credits per request (ScraperAPI’s published pricing). On the $49/month Hobby plan (100,000 credits) that’s about 4,000 Google SERP calls, an effective rate near $12 per 1,000 for Google specifically. There’s no structured AI Overview field.

Pros: Self-serve, developer-first, with a free 1,000-credit tier and a 7-day trial. Structured Google endpoints (organic, ads, PAA, related) out of the box.

Cons: Credit weighting makes Google SERP calls expensive relative to a flat per-call SERP API. No AI Overview parsing. Costs vary by target difficulty.

Pricing: Hobby $49/month (100,000 credits; Google = 25 credits/call). Free 1,000 credits plus a 7-day, 5,000-credit trial (ScraperAPI pricing).

4. Decodo (formerly Smartproxy) — cheapest self-serve SERP scraping

Decodo is the budget answer. It’s a self-serve proxy network with its own SERP Scraping API, and on raw per-request price it undercuts everyone here: the Core tier starts around $0.32 per 1,000 requests, with higher tiers landing near $0.88–$0.95 per 1,000. If your only goal is “the cheapest way to pull Google results at volume” and you’re comfortable parsing them yourself, Decodo is hard to beat on headline rate.

Pros: Lowest per-request SERP price in this comparison. Self-serve with a 7-day free trial. Genuinely easy to start.

Cons: No structured AI Overview parsing — you handle SERP-element extraction. Smaller ecosystem and documentation than Bright Data or Oxylabs.

Pricing: SERP Scraping API from ~$0.32 per 1,000 (Core) up to ~$0.95 per 1,000 on higher tiers (Decodo’s published pricing); 7-day free trial.

5. Apify — actor marketplace for custom scrapers

Apify is a different shape again: a marketplace of pre-built “actors” (scrapers) plus the compute to run them. Community actors cover Google SERP and even AI Overview, so you can assemble a scraping pipeline without writing everything from scratch — but you’re picking, configuring, and maintaining third-party actors rather than calling one managed endpoint with an SLA.

Pros: Huge library covers far more than SERPs (any site with an actor). Flexible, and cheaper than Bright Data for mixed, occasional scraping.

Cons: You inherit third-party actor maintenance — actors break when sites change. Cost is composed from platform subscription, compute, proxy, and per-run fees. AI Overview depends on whichever community actor you choose.

Pricing: Platform subscription (Starter around $39/month, per Apify’s published pricing) plus compute and per-actor fees; effective Google SERP cost is actor-dependent.

Bright Data alternatives: per-call price and parsing compared

Headline proxy CPMs mislead, because the number that matters is total delivered cost — the per-1,000 rate plus the engineering you spend turning raw access into parsed SERP rows. A $0.32/1,000 proxy that needs a parser you build and maintain is not cheaper than a $2/1,000 API that returns structured JSON if that parser costs you weeks.

Vendor	Model	Google SERP rate (~1k)	You parse?	AI Overview
cloro	Parsed SERP API	$1.25–$2.00 (n=10 + AIO)	No	✅ default
Bright Data	Proxy + SERP layer	~$1–$1.50 (Google, high end)	Mostly	⚠️ DIY / Web Unlocker
Oxylabs	Proxy + SERP Scraper API	~$2.00 /1k results	No	⚠️ limited
ScraperAPI	Credit scraper	~$12 /1k Google (25 cr/call)	Partial	❌
Decodo	Budget proxy + SERP API	$0.32–$0.95	Yes	❌
Apify	Actor marketplace	actor-dependent	Depends	⚠️ community actor

Headline takeaways:

• Cheapest raw rate: Decodo ($0.32–$0.95/1k) — but you parse the SERP yourself and get no AI Overview field.
• Closest infrastructure swap: Oxylabs — Bright Data-class proxy scale, self-serve from $49/month.
• Lowest total delivered cost for parsed Google + AI Overview: cloro, because the AI Overview parser, citation extraction, and PAA hydration are already done — nothing to build or maintain.
• Most expensive for Google specifically: ScraperAPI, where the 25-credit weighting pushes the effective Google rate near $12/1k.

For the price-only view see Cheapest SERP API 2026; for the full managed-API roundup see Best SERP APIs in 2026.

Migration playbook: Bright Data → cloro

If you’re moving off Bright Data specifically to stop maintaining proxies and parsers, the switch is small:

1. Proxy + your parser → one parsed endpoint. Delete the AI Overview detection, PAA hydration, and ad-sitelink parsing you built on top of Bright Data’s raw access. cloro returns those as structured fields.
2. Sales-led onboarding → self-serve. No KYC review, MSA, or account-manager ticket. Sign up, get a key, and pull a real parsed Google SERP with the free 500-credit trial.
3. Multi-axis bill → per-call credits. No bandwidth ledger, session costs, or geo premiums to reconcile — one credit rate per call.
4. Add AI-surface coverage for free. The same integration that reads Google also reads AI Overview, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot, and Gemini, so AI-citation tracking is one API, not a second vendor.

What you can’t migrate to cloro: a raw residential/datacenter proxy pool, or scraping of arbitrary non-SERP sites. If that’s your real requirement, keep Bright Data or move to Oxylabs/Decodo — cloro is a SERP API, not a proxy.

Decision tree: which Bright Data alternative to pick

• Need a raw proxy pool, just cheaper or more self-serve than Bright Data? Oxylabs for enterprise-scale infrastructure, or Decodo for the budget, self-serve tier.
• Want proxy-backed scraping with a developer-first API and structured Google endpoints? ScraperAPI.
• Need to scrape many site types, not just SERPs, and don’t mind maintaining actors? Apify.
• Never wanted to manage proxies or parsers — you just need parsed Google SERPs with AI Overview, plus ChatGPT/Perplexity/Gemini citations through one API? cloro.
• Cheapest possible per-request rate and you’ll parse the HTML yourself? Decodo.

The bottom line

Bright Data is a proxy infrastructure company with a SERP API on the side, and the best Bright Data alternative depends on which half of that you actually need. If you need the proxies, Oxylabs and Decodo are the like-for-like swaps — one at enterprise scale, one at budget. If you need proxy-backed scraping with a friendlier developer experience, ScraperAPI or Apify fit.

But if the reason you’re leaving is that you never wanted to run proxies and maintain SERP parsers in the first place, the answer isn’t another proxy — it’s a parsed SERP API. cloro returns organic results, ads, AI Overview with citations, and People Also Ask in one self-serve call, across Google and every major AI surface, with a free 500-credit trial to baseline your own keywords before you commit.