Frequently Asked Questions

Getting started is simple. Sign up for a free account at dashboard.searlo.tech, grab your API key from the dashboard, and make your first search request in under 5 minutes. Our quickstart guide walks you through everything step by step.

Our REST API works with any language that can make HTTP requests. Use JavaScript, Python, Go, Ruby, PHP, Java, C#, or any other language you prefer. The documentation has copy-paste examples for cURL, Python and Node.js, and there are official SDKs for JavaScript/TypeScript and Python.

No! Signing up is free and includes 3,000 free credits, once, valid for one year. No credit card required. You only need to add payment information when you buy a credit pack.

Most developers integrate Searlo in under 30 minutes. Our API is designed to be intuitive with clear documentation. Simple use cases can be implemented in just a few lines of code.

Yes. Every new account gets 3,000 free credits once, at sign-up, with no credit card; new users' credits are valid for one year. It's perfect for prototyping, personal projects, and testing the API before buying a credit pack.

Web search, image search, and news search each cost 1 credit per successful call. Other endpoints are priced in credits too, and the API reference lists the cost of each one. Credits come in one-time packs, not a monthly plan, and new users' credits are valid for one year.

When your credits run out, the API returns a 402 status code; buy another credit pack to continue. We email you when your balance is low. A 429 means you hit a rate limit, not your credit balance.

Credit purchases are non-refundable except where required by law. If you run into a billing error or a technical issue on our end, contact support and we'll look into it.

There is no monthly or annual billing to discount: credits are sold as one-time packs, and the rate per 1,000 credits falls as the pack gets larger.

Every plan, including the free credits, gets the same limits: there is no tier to upgrade, and buying credits adds credits, not rate. X-RateLimit-* headers in every response show your current limits. The limits guard the service; they are not a capacity promise. For sustained high volume, tell us your volume first and we will reserve capacity for it.

Web search returns in about 1 second at the median and 2.5 seconds at p90, measured on production traffic in September 2026. Image search takes about 1.5 seconds at the median.

Yes. Use the page parameter to move through results and limit (1 to 10) to set how many results each page returns.

We support JSON (default) and our optimized TOON format, which uses about 63% fewer tokens than the JSON response (per the format reference in the docs).

Yes: official SDKs for JavaScript/TypeScript and Python. The REST API also works with any HTTP client.

Web, images, news, videos, shopping, maps, places, reviews, Scholar and patents, plus full results pages (parsed, or as HTML), rank checks, AI answers from ChatGPT, Copilot and Gemini, web data (scrape, crawl, map, extract) and email verification. The API reference lists every endpoint and what it costs.

Yes. Use the gl parameter for the country (e.g., 'us', 'gb', 'de') and hl for the language (e.g., 'en', 'es', 'fr'). Targeting is by country and language: city-level targeting is not available yet, and a city location returns 400 without charge.

Yes. Pass safe=active to filter explicit results or safe=off to turn filtering off; any other value returns HTTP 400. We recommend safe=active for user-facing applications.

Results are fetched when you call, so they reflect the results page at that moment. An identical recent request can be served from a short-lived cache.

All traffic is encrypted in transit (HTTPS, with HSTS). API keys are stored only as SHA-256 hashes and passwords only as bcrypt hashes. You can export your data, delete your search history or delete your account from the dashboard, and SOC 2 Type II is on our compliance roadmap. The security page has the details.

We keep a log of your queries as your account's request history, for up to 10 years unless you delete it. We never sell your data or use it for advertising. You can delete your history, or request deletion of your data, at any time.

Searlo runs on servers in the EU, and GDPR data rights are built in: you can export your data, delete your search history or delete your account from the dashboard. For a Data Processing Agreement, contact [email protected].

You can generate a new API key from your dashboard at any time. We recommend rotating keys regularly and using different keys for development and production.

Every account gets the same support: live chat on this site and email at [email protected]. Enterprise contracts can add agreed response times.

Yes. Enterprise contracts can include custom credit volumes, volume pricing, an SLA and agreed support response times. Contact sales for a quote.

Every API family is checked once a minute from a separate server. The live record, with uptime and incident history, is public at status.searlo.tech. Custom SLAs are available on enterprise contracts.

Yes. Every account starts with 3,000 free credits and the same limits as a paid pack. For a larger evaluation, contact our sales team and we will agree a pilot.