Exact search volumes without spending on Google Ads

You open Google Keyword Planner to size a few hundred keywords and get "1K-10K" instead of a number. Since 2016, Google shows volume ranges to accounts with little or no ad spend (Search Engine Land). Here is a way to get the numbers for a whole list, with no ad budget and no SEO subscription.

A number per keyword, for a whole list

Paste up to 10,000 keywords, one per line, in Keyword Search Volume, CPC & Difficulty, choose the country, and get one row per keyword:

• average monthly Google searches as a number, and 12 months of monthly volumes by default (up to 8 years at no extra cost);
• CPC, Google Ads competition and the top-of-page bid range;
• keyword difficulty (0 to 100), search intent and the monthly, quarterly and yearly trend.

The data comes from a commercial SEO keyword database (DataForSEO Labs), regularly refreshed, not from your Google Ads account: no account, no spend, no login. Export to CSV or Excel, or send it to Google Sheets from n8n, Make or Zapier.

What it costs

$0.008 per keyword found (Apify Starter plan). Keywords with no data are returned with found: false and are not billed; duplicates are removed for free. 1,000 keywords that all have data: $8.00. Each run stops at the maximum cost you set.

Need new keywords, not just volumes?

Keyword Ideas Generator expands a few seed keywords into hundreds of related ones with the same metrics, like the "discover new keywords" tab of Keyword Planner.

Good to know

• Volumes are monthly averages from a keyword database, like those of SEO tools: they are estimates, close to but not always equal to what a high-spending Google Ads account sees in Keyword Planner.
• Very rare keywords may have no data: they are free.
• If you already spend on Google Ads, Keyword Planner gives exact numbers for free: use it.

Competitor facts checked on 2026-10-11 from the linked pages; prices change, check them before you decide.