Keyword Search Volume, CPC, Difficulty & Intent

Get Google keyword metrics in bulk without a subscription: monthly search volume, CPC, competition, keyword difficulty, search intent, trend, year-over-year change and seasonality for up to 10,000 keywords per run, in 28 countries.

Paste a keyword list, pick a country, and download the results as CSV, Excel or JSON, or pull them through the API. You pay only for keywords that come back with data.

What you get for each keyword

Field	Description
search_volume	Google's average monthly searches over the last 12 months
median_monthly_searches	The typical month: unlike the average, not inflated by one-off spikes
has_spike	true when a recent month was at least 4× the typical month, so the average overstates demand
cpc	Average cost per click in USD
competition, competition_level	Advertiser competition, 0–1 and LOW / MEDIUM / HIGH
low_top_of_page_bid, high_top_of_page_bid	Top-of-page bid range in USD
keyword_difficulty	How hard it is to rank in the organic top 10, 0–100
search_intent, secondary_intents	informational, navigational, commercial or transactional
monthly_searches	Search volume for each of the last 12 months
trend_direction, trend_monthly_pct	rising / stable / falling over the last 12 months, with the typical monthly change
yoy_change_pct	Typical month this year vs. the year before (median-based, so spikes don't distort it)
is_seasonal, peak_month	true when demand peaks in the same month (±1) in at least two of the last three years, and which month
source	database (full metrics) or google_ads_live (live Keyword Planner lookup)

Why this actor

• No subscription, no deposit. Popular keyword tools charge a monthly subscription. Here 1,000 keywords cost $6, and you pay only when you run it.
• Difficulty and intent are included, not sold as extras.
• No charge for keywords without data. Keywords Google has no data for are listed in the run summary and never billed.
• Spike-proof trends. Google's monthly numbers often contain one-off spikes: a keyword searched 12,000 times a month can show 1.5 million for a single month. Typical volume, trend, year-over-year change and seasonality are calculated so a single spike can't distort them, and spikes are flagged.

How to use it

1. Paste your keywords, one per line.
2. Choose a country. The language defaults to the country's main language.
3. Click Start and download the dataset when the run finishes.

Input example

{
  "keywords": ["keyword research", "seo tools", "best running shoes"],
  "country": "US"
}

Output example

{
  "keyword": "iphone",
  "country": "US",
  "language": "en",
  "search_volume": 1220000,
  "cpc": 6.45,
  "competition": 1,
  "competition_level": "HIGH",
  "low_top_of_page_bid": 2.6,
  "high_top_of_page_bid": 5.14,
  "keyword_difficulty": 89,
  "search_intent": "informational",
  "secondary_intents": [],
  "median_monthly_searches": 1220000,
  "has_spike": false,
  "trend_direction": "stable",
  "trend_monthly_pct": 0.0,
  "yoy_change_pct": 22.0,
  "is_seasonal": true,
  "peak_month": "September",
  "monthly_searches": [
    {
      "month": "2024-12",
      "search_volume": 1500000
    },
    {
      "month": "2025-01",
      "search_volume": 1220000
    },
    {
      "month": "2025-02",
      "search_volume": 1220000
    }
  ],
  "source": "database",
  "data_updated_at": "2025-03-06 03:08:24 +00:00"
}

(monthly_searches is shortened here; you get all 12 months.)

A SUMMARY record in the run's key-value store lists how many keywords had data and which ones did not.

Pricing

Pay per event, no monthly fee:

Event	Price
Run start	$0.02
Keyword with data	$0.006 ($6 per 1,000)
Live lookup batch (optional, up to 1,000 missing keywords)	$0.15

Example: 500 keywords where 480 have data cost $0.02 + 480 × $0.006 = $2.90.

Set a maximum cost per run in the run options. The actor checks that limit before it starts, processes only as many keywords as fit, and never goes over it.

Use cases

• SEO content planning: find keywords with real volume and low difficulty, grouped by intent.
• PPC budgeting: estimate CPC and competition before you launch a Google Ads campaign.
• Search arbitrage and media buying: compare CPC across keywords and countries to pick profitable terms.
• Seasonal planning: see which months your topics peak and which topics are rising.
• Market research: compare demand for products, brands or features across 28 countries.
• AI agents and automations: call it from the Apify API, Make, Zapier, n8n or an MCP client.

Supported countries

United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, India, Singapore, South Africa, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, Mexico, Italy, Portugal, Brazil, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Czechia, Ukraine, Turkey and Japan.

Need another country? Open an issue on the actor's Issues tab.

FAQ

Where does the data come from? From DataForSEO, a licensed provider of Google keyword data. Keywords are answered from its database of Google keyword data, which includes difficulty and intent. Optionally, keywords missing from the database can be checked live in Google Keyword Planner.

Why is a keyword missing from my results? Google has no search data for very rare phrases, typically long ones with six words or more, and for a few restricted topics. Such keywords are listed under keywords_without_data in the SUMMARY record and are not charged. In our tests the database covered about 95% of short and mid-length keywords and 85% of questions, but only a quarter of very long phrases.

Should I enable live lookup? Usually not. Keywords missing from the database almost always have no Google data at all, so live lookup rarely adds rows. It can help with brand-new or trending terms the database hasn't picked up yet. It costs $0.15 per batch of up to 1,000 missing keywords.

Why do live results have no difficulty or intent? Google Keyword Planner provides volume, CPC and competition only. Difficulty and intent come from the keyword database.

Are volumes exact? They are Google's monthly figures from Keyword Planner data, which Google rounds into buckets (for example 1,000, 1,300, 1,600). Use median_monthly_searches when you need the typical month and search_volume when you need Google's own average.

Is there a limit? Up to 10,000 keywords per run, each up to 80 characters and 10 words. For more, start several runs or schedule them.