DataForSEO API: Setup, Pricing and Cost per Task

Credentials sit in the API Access tab of the dashboard. DataForSEO generates the API password for you, and it differs from your account password. The authentication docs set the rules for every call.

1. 1Create a free account at DataForSEO.
2. 2Verify your email, your phone or both. New accounts cannot call the API until verification is done (error 40104).
3. 3Open the API Access tab at app.dataforseo.com/api-access and note the API login and password.
4. 4Encode login:password in Base64, or copy the ready-made string.
5. 5Send a first request to the Sandbox, then switch to production.

echo -n 'YOUR_LOGIN:YOUR_API_PASSWORD' | base64

The -n flag matters. It stops the trailing newline from entering the encoded string, which would break the credentials.

curl -X POST "https://sandbox.dataforseo.com/v3/serp/google/organic/task_post" \
  -H "Authorization: Basic YOUR_BASE64_STRING" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '[{"keyword": "dataforseo api", "location_name": "United States", "language_name": "English", "depth": 10}]'

A good response carries a status code from 20000 to 29999, both for the request and for each task. Check that range before you parse anything else.

• Base64 is encoding, not encryption. Anyone with the string can decode it, so store it like a password.
• Send the credentials in the header only. Query parameters do not work, and no separate login call is needed.
• The API password and the ready-made string show for 24 hours after registration. After that, click Send by e-mail to get them again.
• Automation tools such as Make and n8n ask for the email and the API password, then build the header for you.
• Request bodies are UTF-8 JSON. Responses are JSON by default, and adding .xml to the path returns XML.
• Official clients exist for TypeScript, Python, Java, PHP and C#.

New accounts get a $1 trial credit. DataForSEO says it covers around 500 live Google SERPs, because one SERP costs $0.002 and $1 divided by $0.002 is 500. The trial pays for real calls, so its responses carry real data.

The Sandbox is free and charges nothing. It returns dummy data in the same field structure as production, so use it to wire your code, not to judge data quality.

• To use the Sandbox, change api.dataforseo.com to sandbox.dataforseo.com. The paths stay the same.
• The Sandbox has the production rate limits: 10,000 calls a minute, and up to 100 tasks per POST. Live calls carry one task each.
• Do not open several trial accounts. DataForSEO treats that as unusual activity and can pause the account (error 40201).
• The trial is $1. The $50 figure is the minimum top-up, and it is real money.

You add a balance with a $50 minimum top-up. Each request draws from that balance. The balance never expires, and the top-up is not a subscription fee.

• Set daily spending limits for the whole account, or for one API or endpoint. Auto top-up is optional.
• Pay by card, PayPal or Amazon Pay. Bank wire and ACH are available for payments of $5,000 or more.
• DataForSEO refunds first-time purchases of API credits within 30 days, with no questions asked. Database purchases are excluded.
• Identical tasks count as a user-side error, and DataForSEO does not refund them.
• The price depends on the API, the endpoint, the mode and the request parameters.
• Units vary by endpoint: tasks, results, rows or pages.
• Queued tasks are billed when they are set. Fetching a finished result is free.
• For high volume or several APIs, ask sales for a custom estimate.
• Some countries and territories are barred, including Russia, Iran and North Korea. Read the terms of service before you sign up.

These are DataForSEO list prices in October 2026. For the Google Organic SERP API, the DataForSEO pricing pages list three modes:

Priority costs 60% of the Live price. Live costs 3.33 times Standard at the same depth ($0.002 divided by $0.0006). Location, language and device do not change the price, and you can mix modes across tasks.

• Use Standard for scheduled work. A weekly rank check can wait for the queue.
• Use Live only when a person waits on the result, such as an on-screen check.
• Priority is set per task with the priority field. The price is in the table above.
• Google Ads keyword data has Standard, at $0.06 per task in 1 to 3 hours, and Live, at $0.09 per task in about 7 seconds. It has no Priority option.
• Labs and Backlinks run on Live only. On-Page Site Crawl is a crawl job, while Instant Pages and Content Parsing are single Live calls.
• The help center says it plainly: the faster you want the results, the higher the price.

Read each row as the price for one billing unit. Some APIs add a second charge per item, keyword, domain or row. Labs uses one rate for most endpoints, and its exceptions have their own rows.

• If Google returns fewer results than the depth, DataForSEO refunds the difference.
• Labs clickstream data doubles the request cost on the endpoints that support it.

On-Page parameters add a fixed amount per page on top of the $0.00015 base. The parameters stack, but browser rendering already includes the other two, so do not add their fees again.

The full list of limits is on DataForSEO's rate limit page. More than 100 tasks in one POST returns error 40006 for the extra tasks, so split larger lists. Too many simultaneous queries return error 40209, and the per-minute limit returns error 40202.

On-Page Instant Pages, Content Parsing (Live) and Page Screenshot take up to 20 tasks per request.

The price of Google Ads search volume is the same for 1 keyword or 1,000 keywords, so fill every task to its limit.

• One keyword, one location and one device make one task. Desktop and mobile are two tasks.
• A Labs item is one returned keyword or domain. DataForSEO does not charge for keywords it leaves out of the results.
• A Backlinks summary or bulk call returns one row per target.

Each keyword at depth 10 is one SERP. One weekly run is 100 tasks, and a single POST carries up to 100 tasks.

Depth is the biggest lever. Top 100 costs ten times top 10 for the same keywords, so track deep only where page 2 or 3 movement changes a decision.

A keyword with one search operator costs 5 x $0.0006 = $0.003 per SERP, five times the plain price. A $50 deposit would fund this weekly job for about 16 years.

That is $1.056 for 1,000 keywords, about $0.001 per keyword. The SERP pulls are 57% of the total ($0.60 divided by $1.056).

Keyword overview takes 700 keywords per task, so 1,000 keywords need two tasks: 2 x $0.012 + 1,000 x $0.00012 = $0.144. Clickstream data doubles that call to $0.288.

Live Google Ads search volume is capped at 12 requests per minute. At 1,000 keywords a request, that is 12,000 keywords a minute. A bigger job belongs on Standard, which returns in 1 to 3 hours.

Labs data refreshes every 30 to 90 days for most endpoints, so a daily run mostly repeats the same data.

The bulk call costs $0.0258, about $0.03. Fifty Summary calls cost $1.2018, about $1.20, which is 46.6 times the bulk call ($1.2018 divided by $0.0258).

Bulk endpoints take up to 1,000 targets per request. A domain target returns the root domain with all of its subdomains. Fifty Summary calls also need at least two waves under the 30-simultaneous limit, while one bulk call needs one slot.

Browser rendering is the expensive setting. The official example prices 10,000 pages at $1.50 on the base rate and $51 with browser rendering.

Set max_crawl_pages to cap the spend. Its value times the per-page rate is the most a task can cost, so 1,000 pages at the browser-rendering rate cannot exceed $5.10.

In our own OpenSEO setup, a 1,000-page site audit on the basic crawl costs $0.15 (1,000 x $0.00015).

• Set a daily cost limit for the account, or for one API or endpoint. Going over returns error 40203. Change the limit in the API settings to continue.
• Duplicate-task limits apply per hour and per day. Errors 40205 and 40206 mean you hit one of them.
• Identical tasks count as a user-side error, so de-duplicate before you post.
• Use the tag field to label each task with a client or project. The response returns the tag, so you can match results to clients.
• The response documentation lists total tasks cost in USD. Log that number on every run.
• You pay when a queued task is set. If you stop polling for the result, the task is still billed.

Read the status code first. Codes from 20000 to 29999 mean success.

A Standard task ID can fetch the result again for 30 days. Live responses other than SERP JSON are not kept, so save those yourself.