Google Autocomplete API

The Google Autocomplete API for developers

Get the raw suggestion strings Google offers as a query is typed — up to 10 per call, localized by language — at half the cost of a full search: 0.5 credits per query. It returns suggestion text only, with no search-volume or CPC data attached, so pair it with a keyword-volume source rather than expecting one.

GET/api/v1/search/web?q=postgres+connection+pooling&num=3
200 OK0.17s1 credit85,000 results
{  "searchTime": 0.17,  "totalResults": 85000,  "page": 1,  "organic": [    {      "position": 1,      "title": "31.10. Connection Pools and Data Sources",      "link": "www.postgresql.org/docs/…",      "domain": "postgresql.org",      "snippet": "For an environment without an application se…"    },    { "position": 2, "domain": "medium.com", … },    { "position": 3, "domain": "stackoverflow.blog", … }  ],  "credits": 1}

What does a Google Autocomplete API return, and does it include search volume?

No — and that's worth saying plainly. Searlo's /search/suggestions endpoint returns the same suggestion strings Google shows as you type, up to 10 per call, for 0.5 credits per query ($0.15 per 1,000). The response is raw suggestion text: no search volume, no CPC, no trend score. It's a keyword-expansion input, not a keyword-research suite.

That distinction matters because the phrase "autocomplete API for keyword research" gets used for a real, specific technique — using suggestions as a seed-expansion tool, not as a volume source — and this page is honest about which half of that job the endpoint does.

Cost per query
0.5 credits (=$0.15 per 1,000) our pricing
Free to start
3,000 credits (~6000 autocomplete calls), no card our pricing
Suggestions per call
Up to 10 (limit, default 10)
What's NOT in the response
Search volume, CPC, or a trend score — suggestion text only
SerpAPI Google Autocomplete
Sold as a separate engine; $15.00 per 1,000 on the Developer tier applies uniformly across SerpAPI's engines serpapi.com/pricing

Third-party figures on this page last verified against the sources linked above. Prices change; if you find one of these stale, tell us and we will correct it.

"Google autocomplete api" pulls a real, distinct audience: SerpAPI (serpapi.com/google-autocomplete-api) and DataForSEO (dataforseo.com's Google Autocomplete SERP API, plus a dedicated blog post on using it for keyword research) both sell this as its own product, separately from their general search APIs — and the people searching for it skew toward SEO and content teams building keyword lists, not toward developers who just want search results.

Searlo's /search/suggestions endpoint is a thin, honest match for that: one GET request with a seed query (q), a result cap (limit, up to 10), and a language (hl) returns the literal array of strings Google's own autocomplete would show. It costs 0.5 credits per query — half the rate of a full search — because there is less work behind a single suggestion call than a full result page.

What it deliberately doesn't do is estimate demand. There's no volume number, no CPC, no trend line in the response — just the suggestion text Google offers. That's a real limitation worth stating up front rather than discovering after integrating: this endpoint expands a seed term into more terms; it doesn't tell you which of them matter.

Features

  • Same suggestions Google shows

    The literal autocomplete list Google renders as a query is typed, returned as a JSON array of strings.

  • Seed-expansion at scale

    Loop one query through the alphabet as a suffix and you turn one seed term into hundreds of real long-tail phrases.

  • Localized by language

    hl sets the language Google localizes suggestions to, so results match the market you're targeting.

  • Half-price queries

    0.5 credits per call instead of the usual 1 — the lightest-weight endpoint on the API.

  • $0.15 per 1,000 queries

    Half of Searlo's $0.30 headline rate, because a suggestions call costs half a credit.

Get started in one request

One GET request returns an array of suggestion strings for one seed query. The pattern below — the "alphabet soup" technique — turns one seed into a long list by looping the same call through a suffix per letter.

curl -G "https://api.searlo.tech/api/v1/search/suggestions" \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
  --data-urlencode "q=best running shoes for" \
  --data-urlencode "limit=10" \
  --data-urlencode "hl=en"
import string
import requests

API_KEY = "YOUR_API_KEY"
BASE = "https://api.searlo.tech/api/v1/search/suggestions"

def suggestions(q, limit=10, hl="en"):
    resp = requests.get(
        BASE,
        headers={"x-api-key": API_KEY},
        params={"q": q, "limit": limit, "hl": hl},
    )
    return resp.json()["data"]["suggestions"]

# One call.
print(suggestions("best running shoes for"))

# "Alphabet soup" expansion: one seed term becomes up to 260 long-tail
# phrases (26 letters x up to 10 suggestions each), deduplicated.
seed = "best running shoes for"
expanded = set()
for letter in string.ascii_lowercase:
    for s in suggestions(f"{seed} {letter}"):
        expanded.add(s)

print(f"{len(expanded)} unique long-tail phrases from one seed term")
const API_KEY = "YOUR_API_KEY";
const BASE = "https://api.searlo.tech/api/v1/search/suggestions";

async function suggestions(q, limit = 10, hl = "en") {
  const params = new URLSearchParams({ q, limit: String(limit), hl });
  const resp = await fetch(`${BASE}?${params}`, {
    headers: { "x-api-key": API_KEY },
  });
  const data = await resp.json();
  return data.data.suggestions;
}

// "Alphabet soup" expansion: one seed term becomes many long-tail phrases.
const seed = "best running shoes for";
const expanded = new Set();
for (const letter of "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz") {
  const results = await suggestions(`${seed} ${letter}`);
  results.forEach((s) => expanded.add(s));
}

console.log(`${expanded.size} unique long-tail phrases from one seed term`);

Searlo vs SerpAPI

SerpAPI and DataForSEO both sell autocomplete as its own product. Searlo prices it as a lighter-weight call within the same API, at half the cost of a full search.

Capability comparison between Searlo and SerpAPI
CapabilitySearloSerpAPI
Price per 1,000 queries$0.15$15.00 (Developer tier, uniform across engines)
Free credits to start3,000 (~6000 calls)250/month
Suggestions per callUp to 10Not verified
Search volume / CPC includedNo — suggestion text onlyNot verified

The alphabet-soup technique, honestly

Google's autocomplete only ever returns a handful of suggestions per call — this endpoint caps at 10, matching Google's own UI. The way SEO tooling gets real keyword volume out of that constraint is by looping: take a seed phrase, append every letter of the alphabet (or every two-letter combination — "aa", "ab", ... — for a seed that's already common), and call suggestions once per suffix. Twenty-six calls against a-z can turn one seed into over a hundred distinct long-tail phrases once you deduplicate.

This is real, substantive work an API makes practical — twenty-six manual searches in Google's own search box would take longer than the twenty-six API calls, and the API calls are trivially scriptable into a batch job. It is not, however, a shortcut to search-volume data: the alphabet-soup technique tells you what people type, not how often. Pair its output with a volume or trend source before prioritizing which of the resulting phrases to target.

  • Single-letter suffixes (a–z) for a rare seed term
  • Two-letter prefixes (aa, ab, ...) for a seed that already returns 10 generic suggestions
  • Question-word prefixes ("how", "why", "can", "does") for content-ideation angles instead of alphabet order
  • Always deduplicate — the same long-tail phrase surfaces under multiple suffixes

What this endpoint is not

It's not a keyword-research suite, and this page won't pretend otherwise. There is no search-volume figure, no CPC estimate, no difficulty score anywhere in the response — just the suggestion strings themselves, exactly as Google's own autocomplete dropdown would show them. If a project's requirement is "how many people search this per month," this endpoint answers a different question and needs to be paired with a real volume data source.

What it is good at: generating the candidate list a volume tool then scores, surfacing real user phrasing for content ideation, and powering a search-as-you-type UI where Google's own suggestion set is the point.

What people build on the Autocomplete API

  • Long-tail keyword expansion via the alphabet-soup technique, feeding a separate volume tool
  • Content-ideation lists built from real user phrasing rather than guesses
  • Search-as-you-type UI for an internal search box or storefront
  • Competitive content-gap research — what people ask around a competitor's brand terms

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Does the Autocomplete API return search volume or CPC?

No. The response is the raw suggestion strings Google's autocomplete shows — no volume, CPC, or trend score attached to any of them.

What does it cost?

0.5 credits per query — half the rate of a full search — which works out to $0.15 per 1,000 queries.

How many suggestions come back per call?

Up to 10, set by limit (default 10). That matches how many Google's own autocomplete dropdown typically shows.

Can I get results for a specific language?

Yes — hl sets the language Google localizes suggestions to (default en).

What is the "alphabet soup" technique?

Looping a seed query through a-z (or two-letter prefixes for a common seed) as a suffix, one call per letter, then deduplicating the combined results into a much larger long-tail keyword list than one call returns.

Is this the same as Google Keyword Planner?

No. Keyword Planner (and similar tools) attach search-volume and competition data to keywords; this endpoint returns only the suggestion strings themselves. Use this to generate candidates, a volume tool to score them.

Is there a free tier?

Yes — the same 3,000 free credits every Searlo account starts with cover this endpoint too, at 0.5 credits per call.

Why does this cost less than a regular search?

Suggestions is 0.5 credits per query versus 1 credit for web, image, news, scholar and patents search — it's priced as the lightest-weight call on the API.