Free Rank Tracking API in 2026: What's Free and What Isn't

Search “free rank tracking API” and you find three different things mixed together. Google’s own Search Console API, free trials of rank-tracker apps, and small free tiers on SERP APIs. They solve different problems. None gives unlimited checks on any keyword for free, but a few come close for a small list.

Every figure here comes from a vendor’s official pricing or docs page, read on 2026-10-23, plus our own sums. No product was benchmarked or trialled, so the post has no accuracy or speed numbers. Where a page printed no figure, we write “not verified.” Serpent is one of the options below, and each of its costs is shown with its working.

Four searches, one question

“Free rank tracking API,” “free rank tracker API,” “free keyword rank checker API” and “free SERP rank tracker” all ask one thing: where does my page rank for this keyword, today, without paying much? The answer depends on what you need.

• Only your own site, loosely: use the Search Console API.
• A dashboard to look at: use a free tool or a trial.
• Rows in your own database: use a SERP API, which is where the real costs are.

The options at a glance (read 2026-10-23)

One row per option. “Free” is what you get before paying. Units differ by vendor, so read the second column before the third.

Search Console API: free, official, and not a rank checker

This is the one genuinely free, official source of position data. It is also the most misunderstood, so it comes first.

What you get

Google’s Search Console API returns clicks, impressions, click-through rate and position for queries and pages of a site you manage. Google’s usage limits page lists quotas for Search Analytics: 1,200 queries per minute per site and per user, and 30,000,000 per day per project. It states no price.

The “all your data” guide adds the part that matters for tracking. The method exposes “a maximum of 50K rows of data per day per search type,” and data is “typically available after 2-3 days.” Google also says it “may drop some data” when you group by page and query.

What “position” means here

It is not the rank of a keyword at a moment. Google’s definition says the value is the topmost position your link held, “averaged across all queries in which your property appeared.” Its example: positions 2, 4 and 6 count as 2, positions 3, 5 and 9 count as 3, and the average is 2.5.

A link also needs an impression before a position is recorded. And Google adds that for your own search “your position might be different than the average,” because of search history, location and similar factors.

What it cannot do

• Show a competitor’s position, or any site you do not manage.
• Report a keyword you have not yet earned impressions for.
• Give you today’s rank, or cover any engine but Google.

Use it as a free second opinion on your own site. Our guide to why rank trackers and Search Console never match explains the gap in detail.

Free rank checkers and trials: apps, not APIs

If you want a screen to look at rather than a feed, several tools are free or free for a while. We read each tool’s own page.

Truly free tools

SEO PowerSuite offers a free Rank Tracker for Windows, Apple and Linux. Its page promises “free ranking checks without limits on the number of keywords, locations, search engines, or check-ups,” with one competitor per project and eight report templates. The page lists a Backlink API but no Rank Tracker API.

A Google Sheets add-on tracks “up to 10 keywords per day,” and its listing says Google tracking is English and US only. It needs a free key from its vendor.

Ahrefs has a free tier with Web Analytics, Site Audit and Site Explorer for sites you have verified. Rank tracking is not among the free tools it lists.

Free trials

Most paid trackers offer a trial of one to two weeks. The table shows what each page says. The “daily keywords” column is the paid plan’s allowance, not the trial’s.

Mangools says its SERPWatcher updates weekly, or daily on the Agency plan. We could not read its plan prices, so it is not in the table.

The catch is the same everywhere: a trial gives you a dashboard for a fortnight, and your history lives in someone else’s account. Few mention an API at all: AccuRanker lists an “unlimited read API” on its Expert plan, Serprobot lists API access, and Whatsmyserp’s pricing page lists its API as coming soon.

Open source and DIY: free software, not free data

The best-known open-source tracker is SerpBear. It is MIT-licensed, built on Next.js and SQLite, and its page promises “unlimited domains and unlimited keywords.” It can email you about position changes.

The software is free. The positions are not. SerpBear says it uses third-party scraper services such as SearchApi, SerpApi and HasData, or you can bring your own IP addresses. Its provider table also shows how fragile free tiers are: ScrapingRobot is listed with 5,000 free requests a month and marked “Doesn’t work Anymore.” We covered the setup in self-hosted rank tracking with SerpBear.

Why DIY rank checking breaks

These are the honest reasons. We do not cover ways around any of them.

• The upkeep never ends. A script that checks ranks needs scheduling, storage, retries and monitoring, and it is yours to fix when it stops.
• Where you ask changes the answer. Location and search history shift positions, as Google itself says on its average-position page.
• The page keeps changing. When Google dropped the 100-results parameter, tools that relied on it needed more page requests to see deep positions. See our write-up on the num=100 change.
• Rules vary by site. Check each site’s terms and ask your own counsel.

If you still want to build it, our 100-line Python rank tracker shows the storage and scheduling side against an API.

Free tiers of SERP APIs: how far do they go?

This is the closest thing to a free rank tracking API. You call a SERP API, find your domain in the results and store the position. The free allowance decides how long that works. We sized each one against a modest job: 100 keywords checked daily on one engine, which is 100 checks a day.

Bright Data’s 5,000 a month is the largest recurring free tier we read. We did not read its fine print, so check what counts as a request. SerpApi’s 250 a month covers about eight keywords daily, or 60 weekly.

Serpent’s own free pool is the smallest here. Ten calls let you see the response shape and test your parser. They do not run a tracker.

Free plugins carry the same limit. The RankMetric WordPress plugin is free with unlimited keywords, but it needs your own SerpApi key, and faster schedules use more credits. The plugin is free. The checks are not.

The near-free paid options, one by one

When the free allowance runs out, rank tracking becomes a volume problem. Here is each paid option with the same fields. For a wider vendor comparison see our rank tracking API cost guide and the list of SERP APIs with no minimum and a free tier.

1. Serpent API

• What it returns: Every organic result on GET /api/search/quick carries a 1-indexed position, on all five engines: Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo and Brave. With format=simple each row is just position, title and URL. The Rank Tracker API page describes the full response.
• Price: Web search is $0.60 per 1,000 calls on Default, with no deposit tier needed. Growth is $0.30 after one $100 deposit, Scale $0.10 after $500, and Enterprise $0.03 after $1,000. All five engines cost the same.
• How billing works: A Quick call is one charge whatever depth you ask for. Deep Search at /api/search bills one unit per page requested, so use Quick for a rank log.
• Free: 10 calls on sign-up, shared across services, plus one free run a day on the site without an account.
• Limits: Limits scale with your balance. Under $100 you get 100 calls a minute and 10,000 a day. From $100 to $499 it is 500 a minute and 50,000 a day. All bands are in the docs.
• Watch out for: It is an API, not a dashboard, so you store and chart the history yourself. Location is country-level only. The batch job route is currently unavailable, so you call once per keyword. And num is best-effort: a short call carries a delivery block.

On money, a $10 first deposit buys about 16,666 Default checks. That is five and a half months of 100 keywords daily. Deposited credits do not expire, and there is no subscription. One catch: once your lifetime deposits reach $50, later top-ups start at $100.

Cheapest? Not flatly. Enterprise at $0.03 per 1,000 is the lowest per-call rate we read today, but it needs a $1,000 deposit. At Default, $0.60 equals DataForSEO’s Standard queue and is above the per-request rates some monthly plans reach at high volume. Where Serpent Default wins is small volume with no monthly minimum, as the cost tables below show. We say “among the lowest,” not “cheapest.”

2. DataForSEO

• Price: Per its Google organic SERP pricing, a SERP of up to 10 results is $0.0006 on the Standard queue ($0.60 per 1,000), $0.0012 on Priority and $0.002 in Live mode.
• Depth: Each extra 10 results costs another base price, rounded up. A top-100 check is ten billed SERPs, which is $6.00 per 1,000 on Standard (our arithmetic).
• Free and minimums: A $1 trial credit and a sandbox with sample data. The pricing page sets a $50 minimum top-up, and funds do not expire.

3. Serper

Serper gives 2,500 free queries with no card. Its packs run from Starter at $50 for 50,000 ($1.00 per 1,000) to Ultimate at $3,750 ($0.30). Credits are valid for six months. We did not read its depth rules.

4. SerpApi and SearchApi

SerpApi has a free plan of 250 searches a month, then month-to-month plans from Starter at $25 for 1,000 up to Cloud 1M at $3,750 for a million. SearchApi gives 100 free requests, then plans from Developer at $40 for 10,000 up to Octo 1M at $1,500. It also caps you at 20% of your plan credits per hour.

5. Scrapingdog and Bright Data

Scrapingdog sells credits. A Google SERP Light request costs 5 credits and an Advance request 10. Lite is $40 for 200,000 credits, which is 40,000 Light requests, or $1.00 per 1,000. Standard is $90 for 1,000,000 credits, about $0.45 per 1,000 at full use. We did not check what Light returns.

Bright Data charges $1.50 per 1,000 successful requests pay as you go, or $499 a month including 380,000 requests and $1.30 per 1,000 beyond.

What free really costs you

Free rank tracking is cheap on day one and expensive on day ninety. These costs do not show on a pricing page.

Your time

A SERP API gives you positions. You still need a scheduler, a table, drop alerts and a chart. That is a weekend of work, then upkeep. Free apps are closed, so the time goes into clicking instead.

Gaps that look like drops

“Not found” is a fact about the window you scanned, not about your ranking. A page missing from the top 20 and a page missing from the top 100 are different observations. Store how many rows you scanned beside every position, or a short answer will chart as a crash.

Free tiers that disappear

SerpBear’s own table shows a free scraper marked as no longer working. Trials end and free credits run out, so a tool built on a free allowance can fail on a Tuesday. Plan for the paid rate from the start.

Numbers you cannot compare

Position depends on country, device, language and moment, so two tools can both be right and still disagree. Pick one source, country and depth, and compare only against yourself.

Terms and support

Free tools may not include support. Rules on automated checking differ by site, so read the terms of anything you query yourself and ask your own counsel.

The maths: keywords, frequency and engines

One formula decides every rank-tracking bill: keywords × checks per month × engines = calls. Take 100 keywords checked daily on one engine. That is 100 × 30 × 1 = 3,000 calls a month. Weekly checks are about 4 a month, so 100 keywords weekly is 400 calls.

Common tracking jobs

These use a 30-day month and Serpent’s published Web rates. The right-hand column shows the cheapest tracker apps we read that fit the same keyword count at monthly billing.

*Growth needs one $100 deposit, Scale $500 and Enterprise $1,000. For a small list, those deposits are a lot of prepaid credit, so Default is the realistic tier until your monthly spend grows.

Cost at 1K, 10K, 100K and 1M calls a month

For plans, the figure is the cheapest plan that covers the volume, and free allowances are ignored. These are sums on published rates, not quotes.

How to read it

• Plans bill a monthly minimum, so small jobs look expensive per check. Pay-as-you-go rates have no such floor.
• Serper’s 100,000 figure is two $50 Starter packs and its million is two Standard packs. Packs are one-off, so these are not monthly bills.
• Depth matters. DataForSEO bills each extra 10 results, so tracking the top 100 there is ten times the top-10 price. On Serpent Quick the price does not change with depth, but depth is best-effort.
• Tracker apps bundle a dashboard, history, alerts and reports. At 15,000 checks a month their plans work out to roughly $2 to $9 per 1,000 checks (Whatsmyserp Premium about $2.00, Ranktracker Launch $2.60, Semrush SEO $9.27 at monthly billing). An API prices the data only.

A worked example

An agency tracks 500 keywords daily on Google and Bing for one client. That is 500 × 30 × 2 = 30,000 calls a month, or $18 on Serpent Default. Five such clients cost $90. The extra cost is the one-off build, plus the dashboard you would otherwise rent.

How to choose

• Only your own site, and loose numbers are fine: use the Search Console API. It is free and official.
• You want a screen and under a few hundred keywords: try SEO PowerSuite’s free edition or a 7 to 14 day trial, then pay for an app if you like it.
• You want rows in your own database: use a SERP API. For under about 8 keywords daily, SerpApi’s free tier may do. For more, a pay-as-you-go API costs a few dollars a month.
• You track several engines or countries: price by calls, not seats. Serpent charges the same for all five engines, and country is a parameter, 112 codes in all.
• You need city-level or map-pack tracking: read our free local rank tracker API guide. Serpent’s web endpoints are country-level.
• You need pixel position or AI answers: see free SERP pixel position API and free AI rank tracker API.

If the choice is a $139-a-month app or an API plus a free weekend, the API is cheaper in cash and dearer in time.

Quick start: track one keyword with Serpent

A rank check is one GET with an API key header. These calls follow the API docs. The first asks Google (US) for the top 50 for a keyword. The second returns only position, title and URL.

curl "https://apiserpent.com/api/search/quick?q=best+running+shoes&engine=google&country=us&num=50" \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY"

curl "https://apiserpent.com/api/search/quick?q=best+running+shoes&engine=google&country=us&num=50&format=simple" \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY"

Then find your domain in the list. With format=simple, results is a flat array, so row 7 is position 7:

import os
import requests
from urllib.parse import urlparse

API = "https://apiserpent.com/api/search/quick"

def find_rank(keyword, domain, engine="google", country="us", depth=50):
    resp = requests.get(
        API,
        headers={"X-API-Key": os.environ["SERPENT_API_KEY"]},
        params={"q": keyword, "engine": engine, "country": country,
                "num": depth, "format": "simple"},
        timeout=60,
    )
    resp.raise_for_status()
    body = resp.json()
    if not body.get("success"):
        raise RuntimeError("search failed")
    rows = body["results"]            # flat list of {position, title, url}
    short = "delivery" in body        # present only when we came back short
    for row in rows:
        host = (urlparse(row["url"]).hostname or "").lower()
        if host == domain or host.endswith("." + domain):
            return {"position": row["position"], "url": row["url"],
                    "scanned": len(rows), "short": short}
    return {"position": None, "url": None, "scanned": len(rows), "short": short}

print(find_rank("best running shoes", "example.com"))

Three habits keep the log honest. Key each row by date, keyword, engine and country, so a re-run overwrites instead of double-counting. Save scanned beside position. And when short is true, store a gap, not a drop. Spread a long keyword list across the day rather than firing it all at midnight.

Run one call in the playground first if you would rather see the JSON before writing code. For a scheduled version without writing the loop, see our n8n daily rank tracker tutorial, and for many countries read international rank tracking.

Moving from a free tool

• From another SERP API: swap the URL and header, then map each field to position, title and url. Recheck your depth setting, because depth rules differ.
• From Search Console: keep it for impressions and clicks, and add the API for competitor and daily position checks.

Limits and unknowns

• Nothing here was tested. Every competitor figure comes from its published page as read on 2026-10-23. We have no accuracy, speed or success-rate results, and prices change, so check each page before you buy.
• Not verified: Mangools plan prices, Serprobot paid prices, Whatsmyserp’s free checker limits, whether Semrush’s free plan includes position tracking, Serper’s free-credit expiry and depth rules, and Bright Data’s free-tier fine print.
• Apps and APIs are not like for like. A tracker plan includes a dashboard and history. We compared price per check, not value.
• Serpent has gaps. Its free pool is the smallest here, there is no dashboard, depth is best-effort, and city-level targeting is not offered on web search.
• Positions are observations. They depend on country, language and moment, so expect small differences between any two sources.

FAQ

Is there a free rank tracking API?

Not one that checks any keyword at useful volume. Google’s Search Console API is free but covers only your own site’s averaged position. SERP APIs have small free tiers: Bright Data lists 5,000 requests a month, Serper 2,500 free queries and SerpApi 250 searches a month. Past that you pay, from about $0.60 per 1,000 checks.

Can the Google Search Console API track keyword rankings?

Only partly. It returns average position for queries and pages of a site you manage, and Google defines it as the topmost position averaged across queries. It cannot show competitors, lags by two to three days, and covers Google only. Use it as a free cross-check, not a rank tracker.

Is there a free keyword rank checker API?

There are free keyword rank checkers, but they are apps. SEO PowerSuite offers a free desktop edition and a Google Sheets add-on tracks 10 keywords a day. For an API that returns rows, the free options are the small SERP API tiers. Serpent gives 10 free calls, then $0.60 per 1,000 on Default.

How many keywords can I track for free?

It depends on the tool. SerpApi's 250 free searches a month cover about 8 keywords daily. Serper's 2,500 free queries cover 100 keywords for 25 days. SEO PowerSuite's free edition lists no keyword limit, but it is a desktop app, not an API.

How much does it cost to track 100 keywords daily with an API?

That is 3,000 checks a month. At Serpent's Default rate of $0.60 per 1,000, it is $1.80 a month, or $0.09 at Enterprise. The cheapest monthly SERP API plan we read for that volume was $40, and tracker apps start near $19.99. These figures are arithmetic from published rates.

Why does my rank differ between tools and Search Console?

Because they measure different things. Search Console averages the topmost position across all queries that earned impressions, and Google says your own search may differ because of history and location. A rank tracker records one query, place and moment. Pick one source, one country and one depth, then compare against yourself.

Sources (all read 2026-10-23)

• Google: Search Console API usage limits
• Google: getting all your Search Console data
• Google: how average position is defined
• Ahrefs: free webmaster tools
• SEO PowerSuite: Rank Tracker
• Google Workspace Marketplace: free SERP tracker add-on
• Semrush: pricing
• SE Ranking: subscription plans
• Ranktracker: pricing
• Nightwatch: pricing
• AccuRanker: pricing
• Whatsmyserp: pricing
• Serprobot: pricing
• Mangools: SERPWatcher
• SerpBear: GitHub repository
• WordPress.org: RankMetric plugin
• SerpApi: pricing
• SearchApi: pricing
• Scrapingdog: pricing
• Serper: pricing
• Bright Data: SERP API
• DataForSEO: pricing
• DataForSEO: Google organic SERP API pricing

Related reading on Serpent: free Google search API, free Bing SERP API, free DuckDuckGo API, free Brave Search API and local SEO rank tracking via API.