Google’s Trends API Alpha is real, gated, and relative. Trends MCP is a different product key with a live board plus other platforms.
Updated 2026-08-26
Google now has an official Trends API Alpha. Search Central posted it on 24 July 2025. As of 26 August 2026, developers.google.com/search/apis/trends is still an application form, not a self-serve Cloud SKU. Trends MCP is a different product on a different key. pytrends was archived 17 April 2025. SerpApi scrapes Trends pages. The hosted Google contract agents can call today without a Google Alpha grant is Google Trends API.
Older posts that open with “there is no official Google Trends API” are stale. This page exists so that sentence stops being copied.
Google’s announcement and the current docs page agree on the contract that is public. Consistently scaled search interest, comparable across requests, still not absolute counts. A rolling window of 1800 days (about five years). Daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly aggregations. Region and subregion breakdowns defined in ISO 3166-2. Data through about two days ago. The Trends website rescales 0-100 on every request and caps on-page comparisons (eight terms on the 26 August 2026 docs page). The Alpha is meant to join and extend series without pulling the entire history each time.
Access is application-gated. Google asked for developers with a concrete use case who can start soon and send feedback. Rechecked 26 August 2026: the docs page still says applications are open and the API is not open to everyone yet. Google has not published a public Alpha price or quota on that page. This file will not invent one.
A 404 at developers.google.com/trends/api on the same day is a reminder that there is no public GA reference at that URL. Use Search Central’s blog post and /search/apis/trends until Google ships a fuller reference.
Trends MCP talks to https://api.trendsmcp.ai/mcp with a Bearer tmcp_live_ key, or to Claude.ai OAuth at https://www.trendsmcp.ai/mcp. It does not sit in front of a Google Cloud Trends credential. A team that receives Alpha access should use Google’s client for Google-official series. That team can still use Trends MCP for the live board and for platforms Google’s Alpha does not cover.
What Trends MCP returns for Google:
get_top_trends type Google Trends: ranked snapshot, default limit 25, max 200, as_of_ts. Category boards use Google Trends by Category plus an official name.get_growth / get_trends source google search: weekly 0-100 series, about five years where points exist, volume when attached. REST series mode is get_time_series. The source string is not google trends.get_top_trends(type="Google Trends", limit=25)
get_growth(keyword="air fryer", source="google search, tiktok", percent_growth=["3M", "12M"])
Adding tiktok is a second billed source. Google’s Alpha, as documented, is Google Search interest. MCP query title: MCP for Google Trends. Mechanism: how MCP servers get live Google Trends data.
Empty Trends MCP history: not_found or data_unavailable. Connecting is free. Calling is not. Free 100 requests per month. Starter $19 / 1,000. Pro $49 / 5,000. Business $199 / 25,000. Annual 20 percent off. Pricing.
Google’s Alpha announcement covers interest series, aggregations, and geo. It does not describe a live Trending Now board as part of that Alpha. If Google adds that surface later, recheck the docs. Until then, the agent-shaped live board is type Google Trends on this host.
pytrends scraped the public Trends frontend into pandas. GeneralMills archived it on 17 April 2025. That archive did not stop installs. get_growth pulled 26 August 2026, recent_date 2026-08-22 unless noted, keyword pytrends, source google search: 12M 68 to 7 (minus 89.71 percent). Source python (PyPI): 12M 19.1 to 85.2 (plus 346.07 percent), recent_volume 341991 on 2026-08-17. Search for the library name fell. Downloads rose. The production problem was never “nobody imports it.” The production problem was HTML. Full swap write-up: pytrends alternative.
SerpApi is still a scrape of Trends pages, delivered as JSON through SerpApi’s plan. Free 250 searches. Starter $25 per 1,000. serpapi.com/pricing (accessed 26 August 2026). Related queries and geo widgets some scrapers return are why a scrape still exists after an official Alpha. Trends MCP does not claim those scrape fields as first-class tools.
Glimpse remains the Chrome overlay with absolute volume on Google’s own UI. That vs is Trends MCP vs Glimpse. Alpha does not replace Glimpse in the browser. Trends MCP does not replace Glimpse in the browser.
Alpha’s published advantage is consistent scaling. Two requests can be joined. The website cannot do that honestly because each plot is 0-100 in its own window. Trends MCP’s Google keyword series is also an index (0-100 where the pipeline supports it) plus volume when present. Volume can be null. Do not treat either product’s relative score as Keyword Planner.
The live board is a different object. Type Google Trends is a ranked snapshot with as_of_ts. It is not a five-year weekly series. Agents that ask “what is trending on Google right now” need that board. Agents that ask “how did this phrase move over 12 months” need source google search or, if they have a grant, Google’s Alpha.
Geo is the other published Alpha gap. ISO 3166-2 region and subregion are in Google’s Alpha write-up. Trends MCP’s basic google search call is not a city picker. If the ticket is subregion interest from Google, apply for Alpha and recheck Google’s fields. If the ticket is TikTok versus Google on one keyword, Alpha is incomplete even after a grant.
Google has not published an Alpha price or quota. The rows below only quote figures checked on 26 August 2026 for products that list them.
| Path | What it is | Access | Google-official | Live board | Other platforms | Price quoted this run |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Trends API Alpha | Cloud Alpha for search interest | Application-gated (26 Aug 2026) | Yes | Not in the announcement | No | Not published |
| Trends MCP | Hosted MCP plus REST | Self-serve key | No | Type Google Trends | Yes | Free 100 req/mo; Starter $19 / 1k |
| pytrends | Archived frontend scraper | GitHub archive 17 Apr 2025 | No | Via scrape, when it worked | No | Free library, unpaid maintenance |
| SerpApi Trends | Scrape of Trends pages | SerpApi plan | No | Whatever the endpoint returns | No | Free 250; Starter $25 / 1,000 |
| Glimpse | Chrome overlay on the Trends UI | Glimpse plan | No (overlay on Google’s site) | Trends website, in a browser | No | Free 10 searches/mo; paid from $99/mo |
SerpApi and Glimpse prices: serpapi.com/pricing and meetglimpse.com/google-trends/alternatives, both accessed 26 August 2026. Trends MCP annual billing saves 20 percent. Do not paste a guessed Alpha quota next to those rows.
A bake-off that only measures Google-official lineage will crown Alpha for teams that get in. A bake-off that needs TikTok this week, or a live board in Cursor today, will crown Trends MCP. Run the bake-off that matches the ticket. Recheck Google’s access page before writing “still no API” in 2027. That sentence is already wrong.
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