If you want competitor research inside your own scripts or a coding agent, a SpyFu API alternative needs three things: an endpoint you can call without a sales call, a price you can predict per request, and output an agent can read. seogeoaeo.ai ships all three on every plan, through both MCP and REST. This comparison looks at it next to SpyFu's API from a developer's point of view, using only what each vendor publishes.
What SpyFu says about its API #
SpyFu's home page has a section called "Build with the SpyFu API", which describes fast, documented endpoints to customize your stack and automate exports. SpyFu also offers SpyFu GPT, which brings its data into ChatGPT. We could not load SpyFu's pricing page in October 2026, so we cannot tell you which plans include the API or what it costs. Check spyfu.com before you plan a build around it.
What seogeoaeo.ai exposes #
seogeoaeo.ai treats each check as a tool with a slug. The same slug is the MCP tool name and the REST path segment.
- MCP:
https://seogeoaeo.ai/api/mcp, Streamable HTTP, stateless, POST only. Send a bearer API key. - REST:
POST /api/v1/tools/{slug}/runswith{ "input": {...} }. - Keys: created at seogeoaeo.ai/api-keys, prefixed
sga_, shown once, spending the workspace's credits.
A competitor ads lookup from the shell:
curl -X POST https://seogeoaeo.ai/api/v1/tools/competitor-google-ads/runs \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $SEOGEOAEO_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"input":{"url":"https://www.example.com","market":"all"}}'
The SpyFu jobs, as API calls #
| Job | Slug | Credits | Key inputs |
|---|---|---|---|
| A rival's Google ads | competitor-google-ads |
15 | url ,market (orall ) |
| A rival's organic keywords | competitor-keywords |
35 | url ,market |
| Keywords they rank for that you do not | keyword-gap |
85 | url ,competitor ,market |
| Who competes with you in Google | competitor-finder |
38 | url ,market |
| Keyword volume and CPC, up to 100 per run | keyword-metrics |
33 | keywords (newline list),market |
| A site's size: keywords, visits, links | domain-overview |
50 | url ,market |
| Active Facebook and Instagram ads | meta-ad-finder |
5 | query ,mode |
| A company's LinkedIn ads | linkedin-ad-finder |
5 | company |
Markets are 20 country codes, from us, gb and de to br, jp and ae.
The details that matter in a pipeline #
Cost caps. Every call accepts maxCredits. If the run would cost more, it is refused with a 402 max_credits_exceeded instead of charging you. Useful when an agent decides which tools to call.
Safe retries. Pass an idempotencyKey and a retry after a timeout does not charge twice.
Refunds on failure. A run that ends in a 502 (tool_failed) or 503 ( unavailable) gets its credits back.
Readable output. Each successful run returns findings plus improvementTips: a status, a plain-text summary, a prioritized tip list and a verify step. An agent can act on the tips without parsing a dashboard export.
Balance checks. GET /credits or the free check-credits MCP tool tells a script whether it can afford the next batch.
Rate limits. A 429 comes with a Retry-After header, so backoff is easy to write.
Predictable errors. Every error comes back as { "error": { "code", "message" } }. The codes are short and stable: invalid_request, unauthorized, insufficient_credits, not_found, run_in_progress and the rest, so a client can branch on the code instead of parsing text. A tool that has been merged into another returns the new slug in replacement, which keeps old scripts from silently breaking.
Pricing you can put in a spreadsheet #
Plans are $29 a month for 2,000 credits, $69 for 5,000, $199 for 22,000 and $499 for 130,000. API runs cost the same as runs in the browser, and MCP and REST come with every plan. A nightly job that pulls Google ads for five competitors costs 75 credits a night, about 2,250 a month, which fits the $69 plan. A weekly keyword gap against two rivals is 170 credits a week.
Side by side #
| seogeoaeo.ai | SpyFu | |
|---|---|---|
| API access | MCP and REST on every plan | Lists an API; plan details not confirmed here |
| Price model | Credits per run, price shown first | Subscription, check spyfu.com |
| ChatGPT or agent use | Any MCP client: Claude Code, Cursor, Codex | SpyFu GPT in ChatGPT |
| Bid keywords for a rival | No | Yes, as SpyFu's estimate |
| Ad history | Recent ads and how long each has run | Ad test history, 18+ years of data by SpyFu's count |
| Rank tracking | No | Yes |
| Countries | 20 | 38, SpyFu says |
When SpyFu's API is the better call #
If your product needs a rival's estimated paid keywords, long ad history or daily rank data, seogeoaeo.ai does not have those, and SpyFu says it does. Build on SpyFu in that case.
If you need ads, organic keywords and gap reports on demand, with per-call costs you can cap, start with the seogeoaeo.ai agent setup and a $29 plan.