Disclosure: I run Lantern Works. Many listings (105 of 137) are affiliate/referral links; the rest are non-affiliate free tiers and vendor coupons. Affiliate status doesn't affect ordering.
Agents keep needing two boring things: search results and a picture of a web page. I compared the free options from vendor pricing pages. Anything not verified is marked as such.
Search / SERP APIs
| Provider | Free option (verified on vendor page) |
|---|---|
| Bright Data | 5,000 free credits/mo, no card (application required) |
| SerpApi | 250 successful searches/mo on Free plan |
| Tavily | 1,000 API credits every month |
| Exa | $10 credits/month + $10 onboarding bonus, no payment method; Search from $4/1k requests |
| APILayer, Scrapingdog, SERP-Tool | not verified |
Rule of thumb: raw SERP APIs (SerpApi, Bright Data) for rank tracking; AI-search APIs (Tavily, Exa) for agent retrieval.
Screenshot / headless browser APIs
| Provider | Free option (verified) |
|---|---|
| Browserbase | 3 concurrent browsers, 1 browser hour, 1k Search+Fetch |
| Browserless | 1k units/month, 2 concurrent browsers, no card |
| Hyperbrowser | 5,000 free credits |
| Kernel | $5 free usage/mo |
| Steel | $30 one-time free usage (~300 browser hrs), 90-day validity |
| ScreenshotOne | 100 free screenshots; Basic $17/mo for 2,000 |
Dedicated screenshot APIs are simpler; hosted browsers handle logins and multi-step flows.
For agents: the JSON feed
curl -s https://thelanternworks.com/deals.json | jq '.deals[] | select(.category=="search") | .title'
python3 query_deals.py --category unblock --max-price 20
No auth. Full tables: https://thelanternworks.com/compare/serp-api-comparison/ and https://thelanternworks.com/compare/screenshot-api-comparison/. Prices change, so check them at checkout.
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