7 Best Bing Search API Alternatives and Replacements in 2026

The Bing Search API was retired on August 11, 2025, and there is no drop-in Microsoft replacement. If your app called it, those calls no longer work.

Microsoft closed new signups first, then decommissioned every existing instance. So there is nothing left to renew or migrate in place, per Microsoft's official retirement notice: "Bing Search APIs will be retired on August 11, 2025. Any existing instances of Bing Search APIs will be decommissioned completely, and the product will no longer be available to be used or new customer signup."

The shutdown was not a surprise. Microsoft announced it about three months earlier, in May 2025, and quietly disabled new resource creation in early 2025.

The result is simple. Teams that fed Bing results into apps, SEO tools, and AI pipelines now need a new source.

What the Bing Search API Did

The Bing Search API was a REST API that returned web, image, news, and video results as structured JSON. SERP means "search engine results page" — the list of links you see after a search. Structured JSON is data organized into clean, predictable fields (like title, url, and snippet) that code can read without extra parsing.

It was really a suite of smaller sub-APIs, each aimed at one job:

• Web Search: standard organic search results.
• Image Search: image results and thumbnails.
• News Search: current news articles.
• Video Search: video results and metadata.
• Autosuggest: query suggestions as users type.
• Spell Check: spelling correction for queries.
• Entity Search: facts about people, places, and things.
• Custom Search: results scoped to sites you choose.
• Local Business Search: nearby places and listings.

One API key gave you all of it. That breadth is exactly what makes the shutdown hard to replace.

Why Microsoft Retired It

Microsoft is moving search into AI agents instead of exposing a raw endpoint. The new idea is that search happens inside an AI assistant, not through a simple call your code controls.

This matters for planning. The official path is now a platform commitment, not a quick swap. You adopt Microsoft's AI framework rather than pointing your existing code at a new URL.

Is Microsoft's Official Replacement (Grounding with Bing Search) Enough?

Microsoft points users to Grounding with Bing Search in Azure AI Foundry. It lets an AI agent pull in live Bing results to support its answers.

The catch is what it returns. Grounding with Bing Search gives your AI agent grounded answers, not raw SERP JSON you can slot into an existing pipeline. It also expects you to run the full Azure AI Agents framework around it.

It is not cheap either. Per Grounding with Bing Search pricing, it runs $14 per 1,000 transactions.

The per-transaction price is only part of the cost. Grounding with Bing Search runs inside the Azure AI Foundry Agent Service, so you also pay for the surrounding agent usage and take on the platform setup. This is not a raw SERP API you can drop into an existing pipeline.

The verdict is honest and plain. Grounding with Bing Search is a fine fit if you are building an Azure AI agent. It is the wrong tool if you just want structured search data.

How to Choose a Bing Search API Alternative

Pick the type of tool before you pick the vendor. The right category depends on what your pipeline actually does with search results.

Score each option against these criteria:

• Output format: raw SERP JSON, clean structured JSON, or full page content — match this to what your code expects.
• Data freshness: how current the results are, which matters for news, prices, and monitoring.
• Pricing predictability: flat per-request costs are easier to forecast than token-based or usage-based math.
• AI and RAG readiness: whether results plug into LLM workflows without heavy reshaping. RAG means "retrieval-augmented generation" — feeding fresh web results into an AI model so its answers stay grounded in real sources.
• Scale and batch needs: whether you re-pull thousands of queries at once or make one call at a time.
• Compliance and lock-in: whether the tool ties you to one cloud platform or keeps you portable.

The Three Types of Alternatives

Most tools fall into one of three groups:

• SERP-scraping APIs: return Bing or Google search results as JSON, closest in shape to the old Bing API.
• AI-native search APIs: return results tuned for LLMs and semantic meaning, built for AI agents.
• Search + extraction APIs: find pages and return clean content or JSON in one call, so you skip a second scraping step.

Match your need to a group. Want a near drop-in for Bing SERP data? Look at SERP-scraping. Building an AI agent? Look at AI-native or search + extraction.

The 7 Best Bing Search API Alternatives in 2026

The table below gives you the fast comparison, followed by a short section on each tool.

1. Olostep — Structured Bing JSON Plus Extraction

Olostep returns clean, structured JSON from Bing, Google, and Brave search results. It pairs search with extraction, crawling, and batch retrieval in one stack, with no Azure lock-in.

It has a dedicated Bing search endpoint and a ready-made parser, so you get normalized fields without writing your own scraper. You can try it through Olostep's Bing Search API or the no-config pre-built Bing Search parser.

The stack goes beyond raw SERPs. The AI answers endpoint returns sourced structured JSON for RAG and agent workflows. Batches handle 100 to 100,000 URLs in about 5–7 minutes when you re-pull large datasets.

Pricing is built to forecast. You get 500 free requests to test, then plans start at $9/mo (about $1.80 per 1,000 requests) and drop to $0.399 per 1,000 on the $399 Scale plan — transparent per-request pricing with no token math.

Here is a copy-pastable request that scrapes a Bing results page and returns JSON:

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.olostep.com/v1/scrapes \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY' \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{"url_to_scrape":"https://www.bing.com/search?q=best+crm&cc=US&setlang=en","formats":["json"],"parser":{"id":"@olostep/bing-search"}}'

A sample response looks like this:

{
  "id": "scrape_a1b2c3",
  "result": {
    "json": {
      "query": "best crm",
      "organic_results": [
        {
          "position": 1,
          "title": "Best CRM Software of 2026",
          "url": "https://example.com/best-crm",
          "snippet": "A ranked list of the top CRM tools for small teams."
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

One honest limitation: Olostep depends on scraping public results, so it does not run its own search index. Best for teams that want structured Bing JSON, extraction, and batch in one place.

Disclaimer: Olostep is an independent Bing search results parser and scraper and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft. Microsoft and Bing are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies.

2. SerpApi — Closest Field-for-Field Bing Migration

SerpApi scrapes Bing plus 25+ other search engines and returns rich SERP JSON. It stands out for a documented v7-to-SerpApi field mapping guide, which makes it the closest thing to a drop-in for old Bing code.

Free tier is 100 searches per month, with paid plans from about $50–75/mo. If you want multi-engine SERP data from one integration, Olostep's SERP API covers similar ground.

One limitation: SerpApi returns SERP metadata only, not full page content, and per-search cost runs higher. Best for teams that just need Bing SERP JSON with minimal code changes.

3. Bright Data — Enterprise-Scale SERP Data

Bright Data offers a dedicated Bing SERP API with its own migration guide. It returns JSON, HTML, and Markdown, supports geo-targeting, and delivers sub-second responses.

Pricing is pay-per-success from about $0.0015 per result, which scales well for heavy volume. One limitation: it is a heavier platform priced for scale. Best for enterprise SEO and monitoring workloads that pull large result sets.

4. Brave Search API — Independent Index

Brave runs its own large, independent search index, with no dependence on Bing or Google. It is SOC 2 compliant and does not track users, which appeals to privacy-focused teams.

Pricing runs about $5–9 per 1,000 requests, with roughly 1,000 free queries per month. One limitation: it returns raw SERP JSON only, with no full-page extraction. Best for teams that want an independent index and strong privacy.

5. Firecrawl — Search Plus Full-Page Content for AI

Firecrawl finds pages and returns full, clean Markdown or JSON in one call. It also scrapes, crawls, and interacts with pages, and the core is open source.

The free tier is 1,000 credits per month. One limitation: token-based cost can be harder to predict at scale. Best for AI agents and RAG stacks that need actual page content, not just links.

6. Tavily — AI-Optimized Search for LangChain Agents

Tavily formats results for LLM context and offers native LangChain integration. That makes it easy to wire into agent frameworks.

Pricing is a flat $0.008 per credit, with 1,000 free credits per month. One limitation: it returns snippets, not structured data. Best for RAG prototyping and agent orchestration.

7. Exa — Semantic (Meaning-Based) Search

Exa uses embeddings-based semantic search, so it matches on meaning rather than exact keywords. It can also find pages similar to a URL and offers answer and research endpoints.

The free tier is 1,000 credits. One limitation: per-query credit cost varies, and full-page extraction is not built in. Best for research and discovery work.

Comparing the Alternatives on Price and Output

Here is the side-by-side view on category, output, and cost:

Watch the total cost, not just the sticker price. A cheap SERP-only API can cost more once you bolt on a separate scraper to fetch page content, so favor a bundled search + extraction tool when your pipeline needs the actual content.

The obvious Google fallback is also constrained. Google's Custom Search JSON API is closed to new customers, and existing customers must transition to an alternative solution by January 1, 2027. If you want both engines, you can pair Bing data with a Google Search API for full coverage.

How to Get Structured Bing Results Today

Switching providers is a short, four-step job:

• Pick a provider: choose the category that fits your pipeline, then the tool.
• Swap endpoint and auth: point your code at the new URL and update the API key.
• Map response fields: line up the new JSON fields with what your app expects.
• Test: run a few live queries and confirm the output matches.

With Olostep you can run that test on the 500 free requests, using the same web search API call shown earlier. Send a Bing results URL to the Scrapes endpoint with the Bing parser, and you get normalized JSON back in one request — no scraper to build or maintain.

Do You Still Need Bing Data at All?

It is fair to ask whether Bing is worth replacing. The direct API is gone, so dropping it would be the easy move.

The numbers say keep it. Per Backlinko's Bing usage data, Bing holds a 5.14% share of the worldwide search engine market as of April 2026, up from 3.94% in 2025.

That share is small but rising, and it is real coverage. Brand-monitoring, SEO, and RAG stacks that drop Bing lose visibility into a growing slice of searches.

The takeaway is clear: replace Bing, do not abandon it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Bing Search API still available in 2026?

No — it was retired on August 11, 2025, so the endpoints no longer respond and no new signups are accepted.

What is the best Bing Search API alternative?

It depends on your need: Olostep for structured Bing JSON plus extraction, SerpApi for the closest field mapping, Brave for an independent index, and Firecrawl, Tavily, or Exa for AI-native workflows.

Is Grounding with Bing Search a drop-in replacement?

No — it returns AI-grounded answers inside Azure AI agents rather than raw SERP JSON, and it costs more than the old API.

Is there a free Bing Search API alternative?

Yes — most alternatives offer free tiers, such as Olostep's 500 requests, roughly 1,000 monthly credits from Brave, Tavily, and Exa, and 100 searches per month from SerpApi.

Can I still get Bing search results after the shutdown?

Yes — third-party SERP APIs like Olostep, SerpApi, and Bright Data scrape Bing's public results and return them as structured JSON.