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Bing Search API Retirement: What Replaced It and Your Alternatives

For more than a decade, the Bing Search APIs were the simplest official way to get web search results as JSON. Many AI products, research tools, and startups built on them, because Google never offered an equivalent.

In May 2025, Microsoft announced that "Bing Search APIs will be retired on August 11, 2025," and that existing instances would be "decommissioned completely." That happened on schedule.

What was retired

According to Microsoft's archived documentation, the retired family included the Web, Image, News, Video, Visual, Custom Search, Entity, Spell Check, and Autosuggest APIs. All public Bing Search and Bing Custom Search APIs went offline on August 11, 2025.

Grounding with Bing Search is not a drop-in replacement

Microsoft encouraged customers to move to Grounding with Bing Search, a tool inside Azure AI agents. It lets an agent use live web results when it writes an answer. It works very differently from the old APIs:

  • No raw results. Microsoft's documentation says developers and end users "don't have access to raw content returned from Grounding with Bing Search." The results go to the model, and you get the model's answer.
  • Display rules. Apps must show the cited website URLs and a link to the Bing query, in the form Microsoft specifies.
  • Usage limits. Microsoft's terms restrict how the output can be stored and used, and prohibit using it to train or evaluate AI models.
  • Price. Microsoft lists Grounding with Bing Search at $14 per 1,000 transactions.
  • Platform changes. The page now says the classic agents it runs in are deprecated and will be retired on March 31, 2027, and recommends a newer Web Search tool in the agents API.

If you used the Bing Web Search API to feed your own ranking, analytics, SEO tools, or a model you control, Grounding with Bing Search doesn't give you the data you need. It is built to answer a user's question inside an agent.

Your alternatives

What you should switch to depends on what you used the Bing API for.

You need Bing's actual results

For rank tracking on Bing, Bing SEO research, or comparing engines, you need the results Bing shows a searcher. A SERP API fetches the Bing results page and returns it as JSON. Our Bing API returns organic results and SERP features, including Bing's AI summary when it appears, with country and device targeting:

curl https://api.prismcrawl.com/v1/microsoft/search \
  -H "x-api-key: $PRISMCRAWL_API_KEY" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query": "serp api", "cc": "us", "device": "desktop"}'

To get the next page, pass the next_page_token from the previous response. Separate endpoints cover Bing News, Bing Images, Bing Videos, and Bing Shopping, which replace the matching retired APIs. The Bing SERP checker shows a full rank tracking example.

You need web results for an AI agent

If you only need relevant pages to ground an answer, any web search API works, including Google results. Our guide to real-time web data for LLM agents compares the options, and the AI agent search cost guide compares prices.

You were happy inside Azure

If your product already runs on Azure AI agents and only needs answers, Grounding with Bing Search is the official path. Check the display requirements and usage terms before you build on it.

Mapping the old Web Search API to a SERP API

Bing Web Search APIPrismCrawl Bing Search
qquery
cc or mktcc for the country
count and offsetOne page per request, then next_page_token
Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key headerx-api-key header
webPages.value[].namedata.content.results[].title
webPages.value[].urldata.content.results[].url
webPages.value[].snippetdata.content.results[].snippet

Two things work differently:

  • Pagination works by token. The old API let you ask for up to 50 results at an offset. A SERP API returns the page Bing shows, and you follow the next page token for more. The token is valid for one hour.
  • The page includes more than web links. Filter results on type if you only want organic results.

The bigger picture

The Bing retirement was part of a wider pullback from official search APIs. Google's Custom Search JSON API closed to new customers and ends on January 1, 2027. Neither company now offers a self-serve API for raw web results. Our timeline of SERP changes shows how the rest of 2025 and 2026 played out.

Frequently asked questions

When was the Bing Search API retired?

Microsoft retired the Bing Search APIs on August 11, 2025. It announced the retirement in May 2025, and existing instances were decommissioned on that date.

What replaced the Bing Web Search API?

Microsoft recommended Grounding with Bing Search, a tool for Azure AI agents. It lets an agent use web results to write an answer, but developers don't get access to the raw results, and the output carries display and usage restrictions.

How much does Grounding with Bing Search cost?

Microsoft lists Grounding with Bing Search at $14 per 1,000 transactions.

How can I still get Bing search results as JSON?

Use a SERP API that fetches Bing's results page and returns it as structured data. PrismCrawl's Bing API returns organic results and SERP features with country and device targeting, and paginates with a next page token.

Were the Bing News and Image Search APIs retired too?

Yes. The retirement covered the whole Bing Search API family, including Web, Image, News, Video, Visual, Custom Search, Entity, Spell Check, and Autosuggest.

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