Keyword Search Volume, Difficulty & Intent - Bulk, $4/1K

Google search volume, CPC, keyword difficulty and search intent for thousands of keywords in one run, for $4 per 1,000. No subscription, no seat, no monthly quota. Paste a list, press Start, download a spreadsheet. Keywords with no data, duplicates and invalid keywords are free.

Example output

Every keyword comes back as one row like these (example output, US / English):

Keyword	Monthly searches	CPC (USD)	Competition	Difficulty (0–100)	Intent	12-month trend
running shoes	301,000	1.09	HIGH	43	transactional	368k · 301k · 246k · 246k · 246k · 301k · 246k · 246k · 201k · 246k · 301k · 246k
project management software	201,000	40.32	LOW	51	commercial	74k · 90k · 60k · 74k · 90k · 135k · 550k · 246k · 201k · 201k · 550k
golf rangefinder	33,100	2.17	HIGH	18	transactional	40k · 60k · 49k · 18k · 18k · 22k · 22k · 22k · 27k · 27k · 18k
golf tips	2,900	0.46	LOW	15	informational	2.4k · 3.6k · 3.6k · 5.4k · 3.6k · 3.6k · 2.9k · 1.9k · 1.6k · 1.6k · 1.6k · 2.4k
asdkjqweoiu nonsense	no data					not charged

Export as CSV, Excel or JSON, or read the dataset from the API.

What you get vs. typical volume Actors

	This Actor	Typical "search volume" Actor
Monthly search volume	✅	✅
CPC	✅	✅
Competition (level and 0–1 score)	✅	usually
Keyword difficulty (0–100)	✅ included	❌ or extra
Search intent (informational / navigational / commercial / transactional)	✅ included	❌
12-month trend per keyword	✅ included	sometimes
Charged for keywords with no data	❌ free	often
Keywords per run	up to 50,000	varies

Difficulty and intent are what turn a list of numbers into a plan: they tell you which keywords you can actually rank for and what kind of page to build.

Pricing

Pay per event, no subscription:

Event	Price
Keyword with data	$0.004 ($4 per 1,000)
Run start	$0.005
Google Ads batch (up to 1,000 keywords), only on runs of 400+ keywords	$0.08
Keywords with no data, duplicates, invalid keywords	free

Worked examples:

Run	Cost
100 keywords	≈ $0.41 (start $0.005 + 100 × $0.004)
1,000 keywords	≈ $4.09 (start $0.005 + 1,000 × $0.004 + one $0.08 batch)
10,000 keywords	≈ $40.81 (start $0.005 + 10,000 × $0.004 + ten $0.08 batches)

If some keywords have no data, you pay less. You can also set a maximum cost per run in the run options, and the Actor will process only as many keywords as that budget allows, batch fees included.

For comparison, a subscription SEO suite costs $100–$140 per month before you look up a single keyword. 1,000 keywords here is the price of a coffee.

How to use it

1. Paste your keywords, one per line (the form comes prefilled with a few so you can press Start straight away).
2. Pick a location (United States, United Kingdom, Germany, …) and a language code (en, de, es, …).
3. Press Start. Small lists finish in seconds; a 1,000-keyword list in well under a minute.
4. Open the Output tab and export as CSV, Excel or JSON.

Works from the Apify API, schedules, integrations (Make, Zapier, n8n, Google Sheets) and AI agents through the Apify MCP server.

Example input

{
  "keywords": ["running shoes", "best crm for small business", "how to start a podcast"],
  "locationName": "United States",
  "languageCode": "en",
  "includeMonthlyTrend": true
}

Google Sheets → this Actor → Google Sheets (n8n)

Download the tested n8n workflow, setup guide and ten-keyword test sheet. The six-node workflow reads your sheet, collects unique keywords, runs this Actor, maps results back to every original row, and updates the sheet.

A live n8n Cloud test on October 22, 2026 enriched all ten rows with volume, CPC, competition, difficulty and intent, with no row errors. Original capitalization and punctuation were preserved.

1. Import the workflow JSON and select the same Google Sheets credential, spreadsheet and tab in both Sheets nodes.
2. Add an n8n Header Auth credential: name Authorization, value Bearer followed by your Apify API token. Keep it in the credential store; restrict the credential to api.apify.com.
3. Verify Write results back uses Map Automatically, matches row_number, and has Cell Format → Let n8n format plus Handling extra fields in input → Ignore Them. n8n can reset these settings when you select a new sheet. Do not create a row_number header yourself.
4. Start with the supplied ten-keyword fixture. The template uses 256 MB and a $0.10 maximum run charge; review both the keyword limit and spending cap before increasing them.

The HTTP node calls POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/wfhdHf2FnZO5czpWk/run-sync-get-dataset-items. Matching by row number preserves duplicate rows and original spelling. Do not sort, insert or delete rows during a run. If a request times out, check Apify Runs before retrying.

The same read → run → update pattern works in Make and Zapier.

Output fields

Field	Example	Meaning
keyword	running shoes	The keyword, cleaned (lowercase, single spaces)
searchVolume	301000	Average monthly Google searches
cpcUsd	1.09	Average cost per click in Google Ads, USD
competitionLevel	HIGH	Google Ads competition: LOW, MEDIUM or HIGH
competition	1	Competition as a number from 0 to 1
keywordDifficulty	43	How hard it is to rank organically, 0–100
searchIntent	transactional	informational, navigational, commercial or transactional
monthlySearches	[{ "year": 2026, "month": 9, "searchVolume": 368000 }, …]	Month-by-month history, newest first: 12 months on lists of 400+, often several years on smaller lists (optional)
location, language	United States, en	What the numbers apply to
source	google_ads	Where the numbers came from (see FAQ)
dataUpdatedAt	2026-10-18 15:02:03 +00:00	When a cached figure was last refreshed; empty for live Google Ads data

Keywords that can't be looked up come back with an error field and "charged": false.

Use cases

Content planning. Paste every topic idea from a brainstorm, a competitor's sitemap or a keyword-ideas tool, then sort by difficulty ascending and volume descending. The top of that list is your next month of articles. Intent tells you whether each one wants a guide, a comparison or a product page.

PPC budgeting. CPC × expected clicks across a whole keyword set gives you a realistic monthly budget before you open Google Ads. Competition level shows where bids are already crowded.

Prioritising by difficulty. New sites can't rank for difficulty 70+. Filter to difficulty under 30 with volume over 500 and you have a list of keywords you can win now.

Programmatic SEO and agencies. Score 10,000 candidate pages or a client's full keyword universe in one run and keep the CSV. No per-seat licence, so the whole team can use the data.

AI agents and automations. Call it from n8n, Make, Zapier or an LLM agent through the Apify MCP server to enrich keywords on the fly.

Limits

• Up to 50,000 keywords per run
• Up to 80 characters and 10 words per keyword
• Letters (any language), numbers, spaces and ' - . & + # / are accepted. ? ! , " are removed. Keywords with emojis or other symbols are rejected (free), because Google Ads refuses them.
• Search volume is Google's monthly average; very low-volume keywords may show 0 or no data

FAQ

Where does the data come from? Google Ads keyword data via a licensed SEO data provider. No scraping of Google. Lists of 400 or more keywords (counted after removing duplicates and invalid keywords, and after your spending limit) are looked up directly in Google Ads (source: google_ads). Smaller lists come from the provider's database of Google Ads figures, which is refreshed about once a month (source: dataforseo_labs, with the refresh date in dataUpdatedAt). That keeps small runs fast and cheap.

How is keyword difficulty calculated? It is a 0–100 estimate of how hard it is to rank on page one organically, based on the authority of the pages currently ranking. It is comparable to the difficulty scores in mainstream SEO suites, but not identical to any one of them.

How long does a run take? Small lists take seconds. Lists of 400+ keywords are queued with Google Ads; in testing a 400-keyword run finished in about 10 seconds. Very large lists or busy periods can take a few minutes.

Why did a keyword return no data? Google doesn't report volume for every keyword and location. Those rows are not charged.

Can I look up other countries and languages? Yes. Use any Google Ads location name (Germany, Canada, London,England,United Kingdom) and a language code (de, fr, es, …).

Is there a free trial? Apify's free plan includes monthly credit you can spend on this Actor, so a few hundred keywords cost you nothing to try.

Are any locations unavailable? Yes. Data for sanctioned jurisdictions (including Russia, Belarus, Cuba, Iran, Syria, Myanmar, North Korea, and occupied regions of Ukraine) isn't available, and this Actor must not be used from them.

Something looks wrong? Open the Issues tab on this page. Reports are answered within a day.

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