Bing Custom Search API
Site search software
- Features
- Ease of use
- Ease of management
- Quality of support
- Affordability
- Market presence
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Pay-as-you-go
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Free version
Small
Medium
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- Media and communications
- Real estate and property management
- Transportation and logistics
What is Bing Custom Search API
Bing Custom Search API is a Microsoft-hosted search API that lets developers embed web search results into applications and websites with the ability to scope results to a defined set of sites or topics. It is used for building site- or domain-focused search experiences, knowledge portals, and internal tools that need web-indexed content without operating a search infrastructure. The service is consumed via REST APIs and is typically managed and billed through Microsoft’s cloud ecosystem. It differentiates from self-hosted search stacks by relying on Bing’s web index and managed relevance rather than customer-managed indexing pipelines.
Managed web-index search
The API uses Bing’s existing web crawl and indexing, so teams do not need to run crawlers, indexers, or search clusters. This reduces operational work compared with self-managed search engines. It is well-suited when the content to search is already publicly accessible on the web.
Domain and topic scoping
Custom configuration can constrain results to specific websites or a defined topical scope, supporting site-focused search experiences. This helps reduce irrelevant results compared with unrestricted web search. It can be used to power search across multiple related domains without building a unified index.
API-first integration model
The product is delivered as a REST API, making it straightforward to integrate into custom applications and workflows. Developers can control query submission and result rendering in their own UI. This approach fits teams that want search as a service rather than a full packaged search UI.
Limited indexing control
Because results come from Bing’s web index, customers have less control over crawl frequency, indexing timing, and document-level ingestion than with systems that ingest and index first-party content directly. Content changes may not appear immediately if Bing has not recrawled the pages. This can be a constraint for time-sensitive or frequently changing content.
Not ideal for private content
The service is primarily oriented to searching publicly accessible web content and scoped domains, not secured intranet repositories or authenticated application data. Use cases requiring fine-grained access control and per-user authorization filtering typically need a different architecture. Teams may need additional layers to prevent information exposure in results.
Dependency on vendor policies
Availability, pricing, quotas, and feature set are controlled by Microsoft and can change over time. Applications become dependent on an external search provider’s API behavior and terms. This can introduce long-term platform risk compared with running an open-source or self-hosted search stack.
Plan & Pricing
Pricing model: Pay-as-you-go (transaction-based) Free tier/trial: Free tier: 1,000 transactions free per month (official Microsoft Bing Search APIs free allocation). No vendor-page evidence of a separate time-limited free trial for Bing Custom Search API. Example costs (from Microsoft Bing Search API pricing page — Bing Search v7 offerings):
- Free: 1,000 transactions free per month (3 TPS).
- S1: $25 per 1,000 transactions (250 TPS) — includes Web, Image, News, Video, Entity, Autosuggest, Spell Check.
- S2: $15 per 1,000 transactions (100 TPS) — includes Web, Autosuggest, Spell Check.
- S3: $18 per 1,000 transactions (100 TPS) — includes Web, Image.
- S4: $18 per 1,000 transactions (100 TPS) — includes Web, Video.
- S5: $18 per 1,000 transactions (100 TPS) — includes Web, News.
- S6: $15 per 1,000 transactions (100 TPS) — includes Web, Entity.
- S7: $20 per 1,000 transactions (150 TPS) — includes Web, Image, Video.
- S8: $22 per 1,000 transactions (150 TPS) — includes Web, Image, News, Video.
- S9: $15 per 1,000 transactions (30 TPS) — Visual Search.
Notes:
- Microsoft lists "Bing Custom Search" as a feature/offering on its Bing APIs pages but does not publish a separate, dedicated per-transaction price labeled specifically "Bing Custom Search API" on a standalone product pricing page. The above S-tier prices are the official Bing Search API v7 pricing table (Microsoft) and are the published transaction-pricing options for Bing search offerings.
- Microsoft also publishes a separate "Grounding with Bing Custom Search" add-on (for Azure AI Foundry / Web Knowledge Source) priced at $14 per 1,000 transactions (150 TPS, up to 1M transactions/day) — this is a distinct, official Grounding-with-Bing offering, not the legacy Bing Custom Search API instance.
- Official Microsoft pages include a notice that "Bing Search and Bing Custom Search APIs will be retired on 11 August 2025"; new deployments are not available and existing resources will be disabled. Confirm and plan migrations accordingly.
Discount options: Microsoft references enterprise/volume arrangements and contacting sales for high-volume or custom pricing; Azure purchase channels and enterprise agreements may affect final pricing.
Seller details
Microsoft Corporation
Redmond, Washington, United States
1975
Public
https://www.microsoft.com/
https://x.com/Microsoft
https://www.linkedin.com/company/microsoft/
