# Surf, free: Web search API

> Searches web pages, articles, and content by keyword.

Surf's web search API on its Free tier plan. It costs $0.00 per 1,000 searches. It returns 1 of the 6 key fields we check: Text.
We rank 399 plans by price. [Octen's top-up from $5](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/octen/top-up-from-5-base-post-pulse-search-pulse-search/llms.txt) is the cheapest paid plan per 1,000 searches: $0.10.
[Context.dev](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/context-dev/500-monthly/llms.txt), [Serpex](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/serpex/top-up-from-50/llms.txt) and [Firecrawl](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/firecrawl/top-up-from-5-pay-as-you-go-on-scale/llms.txt) are the best web search API providers in our benchmark.

- This page: https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/surf/free
- [Best web search API in 2026](https://datacircle.dev/best-web-search-api.txt)
- Get it: https://docs.asksurf.ai/pricing
- Request: `GET https://api.asksurf.ai/gateway/v1/search/web`
- API key: not needed
- Its API docs: https://docs.asksurf.ai/data-api/search/web
- Sold by: Surf (https://asksurf.ai)
- Checked: 2026-10-28

## In the answer

- Completeness: 17%
- Text: ✓

## Price

- $ per 1,000 searches: $0.00
- Billing: free

## Aggregators

- Aggregators: none

## Charges

- Also pays for: from the same budget: 120 other calls

## Overage

- Units cap: hard

## Not found

- $ per 1,000: $0.00

## In their words

- Their pitch: Searches web pages, articles, and content by keyword.

## Data

- Keep data: no limit
- Use data: "a. Use and Restrictions of Output Subject to your compliance with these Terms, you may use the Output for personal or non-commercial purposes. If you wish to use the Output for any commercial purpose, you must obtain our prior written consent. [...]" "c. Prohibited Conduct You agree not to: Infringe upon the privacy, intellectual property, or other rights of third parties. Decompile, reverse engineer, probe, or interfere with the operation of the Services. Use the Services to create competing models or products. Use automated tools (e.g., crawlers or scrapers) to extract data or content. Misrepresent how content is generated or circumvent platform usage policies. Use the Services for unauthorized commercial purposes or sublicense them to others. Submit data that is subject to special protection or considered highly sensitive. You agree to comply with usage frequency limits and other access rules as outlined in our documentation. You must not use VPNs, proxies, automation scripts, or other methods to circumvent platform access restrictions. [...]"

## Plan

- Pay: $0
- You get: 30 credits a day

## Rate limit

- Concurrent: no limit
- Batch: 1

## Speed

- Answer: in the call
- Median: 1.24 s

## The call

- You send: q. Optional: limit, offset, site, include_content
- Method: GET
- Path: /gateway/v1/search/web

## About the plan

- Plan: Free tier
- Who can get it: anyone, with no sign-up: every IP gets the credits

## The 12 fields the plan's answer can hold

title, URL, description, content, total results, has more results, limit, offset, watermark, credits used, cached, empty reason

## Surf's plans (6)

- [Surf, free](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/surf/free/llms.txt): $0.00 per 1,000, 17% complete
- [Surf, top-up from $20](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/surf/top-up-from-20/llms.txt): 17% complete
- [Surf, contact us, Growth](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/surf/contact-us-growth/llms.txt): 17% complete
- [Surf, contact us, Plus](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/surf/contact-us-plus/llms.txt): 17% complete
- [Surf, contact us, Pro](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/surf/contact-us-pro/llms.txt): 17% complete
- [Surf, contact us, Starter](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/surf/contact-us-starter/llms.txt): 17% complete

## Surf's calls for this API (1)

- `GET /gateway/v1/search/web`: [Surf, free](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/surf/free/llms.txt)

## Surf's APIs (2)

- [Surf: company funding API pricing, 6 plans](https://datacircle.dev/company-funding-apis/surf/free/llms.txt)
- [Surf: web search API pricing, 6 plans](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/surf/free/llms.txt)

## Surf: web search API alternatives

- [Context.dev, free](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/context-dev/free/llms.txt): $0.00 per 1,000, 17% complete, live
- [Serpex, free](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/serpex/free/llms.txt): $0.00 per 1,000, 17% complete, live
- [Firecrawl, free, POST /v2/search, Search with Content Scraping](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/firecrawl/free-post-v2-search-search-with-content-scraping/llms.txt): $0.00 per 1,000, 50% complete, 2 days
- [ScrapingDuck, free](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/scrapingduck/free/llms.txt): $0.00 per 1,000, 33% complete
- [LangSearch, free](https://datacircle.dev/web-search-apis/langsearch/free/llms.txt): $0.00 per 1,000, 33% complete

## Sources

From each provider's own pricing page and docs, and from what providers tell us. We read this row from these pages on 2026-10-28.

- https://asksurf.ai/terms-of-service
- https://docs.asksurf.ai/data-api/overview
- https://docs.asksurf.ai/data-api/search/web
- https://docs.asksurf.ai/pricing