Google Keyword Search Volume, CPC & Keyword Ideas

Google keyword research in one call. Give it keywords and get monthly search volume, CPC, advertiser competition, keyword difficulty, search intent and trend for each one. Or give it a topic and get related keyword ideas and long-tail suggestions with the same metrics.

No SEO-tool subscription, no Google Ads account, no API key. Works for 94 countries. Results come back in seconds as clean JSON, sized for AI agents and for bulk lists alike.

What you can ask it

• "What is the monthly search volume and CPC for these 200 keywords in the US?"
• "Give me 50 keyword ideas around 'home espresso machine', with difficulty and intent."
• "Which long-tail keywords contain 'crm for startups' and have at least 100 searches a month?"
• "Compare search demand for these product names in Germany, in German."
• "Is interest in 'ai agents' growing? Show the yearly trend and 12-month history."

Three modes

Mode	You give	You get	Lookups
metrics	Up to 5,000 exact keywords	Metrics for exactly those keywords, in the same order	1 per 700 keywords
ideas	Up to 200 seed keywords describing a topic	Related keywords for the topic, most relevant first	1
suggestions	Up to 20 seed phrases	Long-tail keywords that contain each seed, highest volume first	1 per seed

Input

Only keywords is required.

Field	Type	Default	Description
keywords	array of strings	required	Keywords to measure, or seeds to expand. Max 80 characters and 10 words each.
mode	string	metrics	metrics, ideas or suggestions.
country	string	US	Two-letter country code. 94 countries supported.
language	string	country's main language	Two-letter language code, for countries with several languages (for example CA: en/fr).
max_results	integer	50	ideas and suggestions only: maximum keywords returned (per seed in suggestions). Max 1000.
min_search_volume	integer	0	Return only keywords with at least this many monthly searches.
include_monthly_searches	boolean	false	Add the search volume of each of the last 12 months.
include_ai_search_volume	boolean	false	Add ai_search_volume: an estimate of how often each keyword is used in AI assistants per month.

Example: metrics for a keyword list

{
    "keywords": ["keyword research tool", "ai agents", "web scraping api"],
    "country": "US"
}

Example: 50 keyword ideas for a topic

{
    "keywords": ["home espresso machine"],
    "mode": "ideas",
    "max_results": 50,
    "min_search_volume": 100
}

Output

One record per keyword:

{
    "keyword": "keyword research tool",
    "search_volume": 14800,
    "cpc_usd": 6.42,
    "competition": 0.31,
    "competition_level": "LOW",
    "keyword_difficulty": 71,
    "search_intent": "commercial",
    "low_top_of_page_bid_usd": 1.85,
    "high_top_of_page_bid_usd": 9.6,
    "trend_monthly_pct": 0,
    "trend_quarterly_pct": 22,
    "trend_yearly_pct": 49,
    "country": "US",
    "language": "en",
    "source": "keyword_database",
    "seed_keyword": null,
    "metrics_available": true,
    "data_updated_at": "2026-09-20 10:00:00 +00:00",
    "note": null
}

Field	Meaning
search_volume	Average monthly Google searches in the selected country over the last 12 months.
cpc_usd	Average cost per click in Google Ads, in USD.
competition, competition_level	Advertiser competition in Google Ads: 0 to 1, and LOW / MEDIUM / HIGH.
keyword_difficulty	How hard it is to rank in the organic top 10, from 0 (easy) to 100 (hard).
search_intent	informational, navigational, commercial or transactional.
trend_*_pct	Change in search volume versus the previous month, quarter and year.
metrics_available	false when the keyword has no data. Those rows are returned but not charged.

A small run summary is saved to the key-value store under OUTPUT, with an outcome field: COMPLETE, NO_DATA, PARTIAL_SPENDING_LIMIT, SPENDING_LIMIT_TOO_LOW, PARTIAL_PROVIDER_ERROR or FREE_PLAN_LIMITED.

AI search volume (optional)

People now ask AI assistants what they used to type into Google. Set include_ai_search_volume to true and every keyword also gets ai_search_volume, an estimate of its monthly use in AI assistants, next to its Google search volume. With include_monthly_searches you also get the last 12 months in ai_monthly_searches.

It costs one extra keyword-lookup per batch and one extra keyword-result for each keyword that has AI data. Keywords without AI data, and countries where the data is not available, are not charged for it.

Pricing

Pay per event. You pay for what you get, and nothing else: platform usage is included.

Event	Price	When
keyword-lookup	$0.03	Each lookup sent to the keyword database (see the "Lookups" column above).
keyword-result	$0.005	Each returned keyword that has metrics.
apify-actor-start	$0.00005	Once per run.

Examples: metrics for 10 keywords cost $0.08. 50 keyword ideas cost $0.28. Metrics for 700 keywords cost $3.53.

• Keywords with no data, and keywords filtered out by min_search_volume, are not charged.
• A lookup that fails on our side is not charged.
• Set a maximum cost per run and the Actor requests only what that limit can pay for, then stops cleanly.

Free Apify plan

Try it for free. Each free run returns real search volume, CPC and difficulty for your first 3 keywords, marked with a note. The other keywords, and the ideas from ideas and suggestions modes (from Google Autocomplete), come without metrics. Paid Apify plans get metrics for everything, because every lookup has a real data cost. The free preview depends on availability and can be paused at times. Nothing is charged on the free plan.

Use from AI agents (MCP)

Connect the Apify MCP server with this Actor enabled:

https://mcp.apify.com?tools=hirepulse/keyword-search-volume

Tips for agents:

• For a known list of keywords use mode: "metrics". One call handles up to 5,000 keywords.
• For discovery use mode: "ideas" with a small max_results (20 to 50) and a min_search_volume to keep the answer short.
• Leave include_monthly_searches off unless the user asks for history.
• Check metrics_available on each row, and read OUTPUT.outcome to know whether the run was complete.

Works with your stack

No extra setup on our side: this Actor is available everywhere Apify is.

Where	How
Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, VS Code, GitHub Copilot	Add the MCP URL above. The agent can then call the Actor as a tool.
n8n, Make, Zapier, Gumloop	Use the Apify app, choose "Run Actor", pick hirepulse/keyword-search-volume and paste the JSON input. Send the rows on to Google Sheets, Airtable, Slack or email.
LangChain, OpenAI Agents SDK, Vercel AI SDK, Google ADK	Use Apify's official integration to expose this Actor as a tool in your own agent.
Any code or script	One HTTP call, shown below.

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/hirepulse~keyword-search-volume/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"keywords": ["ai agents", "web scraping api"], "country": "US"}'

Ideas for automations:

• Weekly: check the search volume of your target keywords and append the numbers to a Google Sheet.
• Before writing an article: let your agent pull 30 keyword ideas for the topic and pick the ones with low difficulty.
• In a content pipeline: reject topics whose main keyword has fewer than 100 monthly searches.

Data source and freshness

Metrics come from the DataForSEO keyword database, which is built on Google Ads search data and refreshed regularly. Each row carries data_updated_at. Search volume is a 12-month average, as in Google Keyword Planner.

Limitations

• Google search data only. No Bing, YouTube or Amazon volumes.
• Very new or very rare keywords may have no data yet. They are returned with metrics_available: false and are free.
• Keywords are matched in lowercase. Punctuation variants may be treated as different keywords.
• Country-level data only. No city or region breakdown.
• Each country supports specific languages. An unsupported combination is rejected with a clear message before anything is charged.

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