Most lists of free keyword research tools tell you what each tool claims to do. We wanted to see what happens when you type the same query into all of them, pay nothing and create no account. So on 5 November 2026 we prepared nine searches and looked at 15 tools. Without an account, six gave us data and eight did not, and we ran Sistrix through our own account as a reference. Only Keyword Tool and Soovle returned results for all nine queries, and only keyword-tools.org showed a search volume for all three queries in a single country.
This article replaces our 2016 list. Several of those tools have since closed or moved on to something else, and the section on them below says what happened to each one.
Which tool for which job
No free tool does the whole job, so choose by the question you have. The reasons in this table come from our test or from the vendor's own page. It is not a ranking.
| Your question | Where to look | Why |
|---|---|---|
| How many monthly searches does a phrase get in one country? | Google Keyword Planner | The number comes from Google. You need a Google Ads account with billing details. |
| The same question for the US, without an account | Keyword Tool | No sign-up and a country selector. It showed the number for 2 of our 3 US queries and hid the third. |
| Hundreds of variations on a phrase | Keyword Tool, TheSEOTools | Between 24 and 515 phrases per search, no sign-up. |
| A list with volumes beside each phrase | Wordtracker | 100 rows with volumes on our first search. Our second attempt ended at a paywall. |
| What people really type in your country | Google Autocomplete | Google says predictions reflect real searches. It gives no volumes. |
| Whether a topic is rising or falling | Google Trends | A 0 to 100 scale relative to all searches, with no absolute numbers. |
| Which queries your site already appears for | Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools | Clicks and impressions for your own site, so it can't help with topics you aren't visible for yet. |
The finding we would keep from all this: when two tools show the same number, they are often not confirming each other.
Our test: nine queries in one evening
In the competing articles we read, we found tool descriptions and hands-on impressions, but no table running the same queries through several tools. So we built one.
How we ran it
- When: 5 November 2026, between 18:40 and 19:15 Central European Time.
- Queries: three per market, in descending Keyword Planner volume. US:
seo audit,free keyword research tool,what is keyword difficulty. Germany:seo audit,was ist cross selling,keyword recherche kostenlos. Spain:auditoria seo,buscador de palabras clave,que es aso. - Browser: an automated browser with no one signed in. We made first attempts and then the measuring run, each in new sessions over the same connection. When a tool asked for an account, showed a verification check or ran out of allowance, we stopped. We created no accounts and did not try to get around any check.
- Reference values: Google Keyword Planner and Sistrix, pulled the same day through our own access. Google's own sources don't count towards the 15 tools. From Sistrix we used the
trafficfield in its API. We found no definition of that field, so we treat it as Sistrix's estimate and not strictly as search volume.
Results: search volume
| Market and query | Keyword Planner | Sistrix (traffic) | Keyword Tool | keyword-tools.org |
|---|---|---|---|---|
US: seo audit | 3,600 | 600 | 3,600 | not measured |
US: free keyword research tool | 2,400 | 2,000 | 2,400 | not measured |
US: what is keyword difficulty | 140 | 200 | hidden | not measured |
Germany: seo audit | 590 | 2,150 | 720 | 590 |
Germany: was ist cross selling | 390 | 250 | hidden | 390 |
Germany: keyword recherche kostenlos | 170 | 150 | hidden | 170 |
Spain: auditoria seo | 480 | 950 | 480 | Spain not offered |
Spain: buscador de palabras clave | 110 | 150 | hidden | Spain not offered |
Spain: que es aso | 90 | 80 | hidden | Spain not offered |
"Hidden" means Keyword Tool shows the row with the placeholder 88,888 in place of a number. For keyword-tools.org, the US reads "not measured" because our script failed to select that country, which says nothing about the tool.
Two more tools gave a single figure. Wordtracker showed 5,100 for seo audit in the US, and its counter then read 2 more free searches. Our second attempt, in a new session, ended at its paywall with the counter at 0, so we don't know what it really allows. Ubersuggest states one search without an account and showed 320 for seo audit, but its sign-up prompt covered the location selector, so we don't know which market that number belongs to and left it out of the table.
Results: variations
| Market and query | Keyword Tool | TheSEOTools | Autocomplete | Soovle |
|---|---|---|---|---|
US: seo audit | 474 | not measured | 10 | 26 |
US: free keyword research tool | 165 | not measured | 10 | 13 |
US: what is keyword difficulty | 33 | not measured | 10 | 10 |
Germany: seo audit | 447 | 515 | 10 | 26 |
Germany: was ist cross selling | 54 | 156 | 7 | 22 |
Germany: keyword recherche kostenlos | 24 | 69 | 5 | 5 |
Spain: auditoria seo | 94 | 170 | 10 | 12 |
Spain: buscador de palabras clave | 34 | 110 | 10 | 21 |
Spain: que es aso | 242 | 233 | 10 | 17 |
TheSEOTools keeps finding phrases as it runs, and we counted what it had after 45 seconds. Six searches in, it sent us to a sign-in page with an image check, which is why the US rows are empty. We queried Autocomplete with language and country set. Soovle has no market setting, so seo audit returns the same list for Germany and the US. Its figures count distinct phrases across the columns that responded.
How to read these tables
Matching numbers are not confirmation. Keyword Tool and keyword-tools.org showed seven figures between them, and six match Keyword Planner exactly. Keyword Tool says on its own site that its Google data comes straight from Keyword Planner. keyword-tools.org names no source on the page we read. Three tools with one number may be a single source seen three times.
Independent sources sit far apart. For seo audit, the Sistrix field shows 3.6 times the Keyword Planner figure in Germany and 0.17 times in the US. The same query drifts in opposite directions. Wordtracker, which says its searches come from its own data, shows 5,100 for the US, against 3,600 in Keyword Planner and 600 in Sistrix. That is a factor of 8.5 between two tools for one query in one country, though part of the gap to Sistrix may come from its field measuring something else. The longer tail differs as well: free seo audit reads 2,500 in Wordtracker and 1,300 in Keyword Tool.
This test can't say who is right. We have no true value to compare against. Our own Search Console doesn't help, because we barely appear for these nine queries in the target markets, so it measures our visibility and not demand. That's why the table has no Search Console column, and why there is no "most accurate tool" in the conclusion.
The default country changes the number. Keyword Tool starts on "Global". Left as it was, seo audit showed 27,100. With the US selected, 3,600. Copy the first number without checking the selector and you're comparing a worldwide figure with your market.
A placeholder looks like data. In the free version of Keyword Tool, the summary and most rows read 88,888 and 88%. That is the slot for the paid figure, and it corresponds to no real search. A careless screenshot or export can turn it into a number someone quotes.
More phrases don't mean more demand. TheSEOTools found 515 variations of seo audit in Germany and Autocomplete found 10. They measure different things: one combines your phrase with letters and queries many times, the other returns the predictions for a single request. Quantity also says little about fit. For free keyword research tool, Autocomplete suggested "ryan robinson" and "india" alongside "ahrefs" and "google".
Limits of this test
- It is one evening and one pass per query, and the numbers can change.
- We used an automated browser. Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz and WordStream stopped it with a check or a 403 response, and a person at a keyboard might get a different result. We haven't tried that by hand.
- Seobility accepted the query but showed no results, and its counter stayed at 3 of 3. We don't know whether our script was the cause.
- Keyword Planner values appear rounded, and we don't know what period Sistrix uses for its estimate.
What each free version allows and what comes next
This table combines what we saw in use with what the pricing pages say. Everything was checked on 5 November 2026. Prices are the ones displayed to us from Spain, in the currency each page used. Several pages show promotions, so check again before you decide.
| Tool | Without an account | Limit seen or stated | Shows volume? | First paid plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keyword Tool | Yes | None in 10 searches | Partly, the rest hidden | $68 a month (Starter, with annual discount) |
| Wordtracker | 1 search measured | Counter at 2 after the first; second attempt hit a paywall with the counter at 0 | Yes | Keyword search: $10 for the first month, then $24. AI reports: $49 a month or $392 a year |
| Ubersuggest | 1 search | 3 a day with a free account, per its notice | Yes | €290 one-off (Individual, promotion shown) |
| keyword-tools.org | Yes | Counter of 5 checks; Germany and US only | Yes | No plan shown; footer names seobility GmbH |
| Soovle | Yes | None seen; up to 6 search engines at once | No | No plan shown |
| TheSEOTools | Yes | Sign-in after 6 searches | Not seen | Describes itself as free |
| Seobility | Not measured: no result | 3 a day without an account, 5 with a free one | Not measured | €59.90 a month plus VAT (Premium) |
| Semrush | Not measured: verification | Button shows (3/3) | Its page says yes | €134 a month (€112.52 billed annually) |
| Ahrefs | Not measured: verification | Not measured | Its page says yes | €27 a month (Starter) |
| WordStream | Not measured: 403 to our browser | Not measured | Not measured | Could not read it |
| KWFinder (Mangools) | No: asks for an account, shows sample data | Not measured | Not measured | €37.70 a month billed annually (€452.40) |
| Moz | Not measured: verification | States 3 searches a day | Its page says yes | $49 a month (Starter) |
| DinoRANK | No: no search box visible | Not measured | Not measured | €39 a month (Starter), €33 billed annually |
| Ultimate Keyword Hunter | Not measured: Windows program | Free edition: 10 sites, Google only, per its site | Not measured | $99.99 one-off (Professional) |
| Sistrix | No: measured with our account | Not applicable | traffic field, no definition found | €119 a month plus VAT |
We didn't install desktop software for this test, which is why Ultimate Keyword Hunter stays unmeasured.
What the search engines give you themselves
These sources are worth knowing first, since some third-party tools draw on the same data.
Google Keyword Planner
Google calls it a free resource for advertisers. Its help page adds that you must finish setting up your Google Ads account with billing details before you can reach basic features such as keyword ideas. It gives estimates of monthly searches and of what ads would cost. There are two routes in: discovering new keywords from an idea, or getting volume and forecasts for a list you already have.
It was built for planning campaigns, and its forecasts depend on bid and budget. Values appear rounded and change a lot with the location you choose, as the section on markets shows. That is fine for judging an order of magnitude, and weak ground for arguing over 140 versus 200 searches.
Google Search Console
The performance report shows clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position for your own site, covering the past three months by default. It is the most direct source on what happens to you and a limited one for research, because you only see queries you already appear for. Our test ran into exactly that when we tried to use it as a volume reference.
It earns its place after publishing. The Queries dimension groups data by what people typed, and read together with country and position it tells you whether a page is getting impressions from the audience you wanted.
Google Trends
Trends works from a sample of searches, normalises it by place and time, and scales the result from 0 to 100. Two regions with the same value can therefore have different total volumes. Very low-volume terms appear as 0. Google also adds statistical noise, most visible on small queries, so a one-off spike isn't evidence of real searching. Internal searches made by AI Mode and AI Overviews are filtered out. Use it to compare and to see direction, and don't read it as a count. Google itself suggests comparing with common terms to judge scale.
Google Autocomplete
Google says predictions reflect real searches. Its systems look at common queries but also at location and trending interest, and individual words and phrases can come from patterns found across the web. You get ideas with no numbers, 5 to 10 predictions per query in our test. Signed-in users may also see personalised predictions, so a private window helps you avoid your own.
Bing Webmaster Tools
Microsoft describes Bing Webmaster Tools as free, and its Keyword Research feature as showing the phrases searchers use with their search volumes. Its June 2025 guide says the dashboard fills with data once your site is verified, so you can't use it straight away, and we didn't measure it. Set it up alongside Search Console anyway, because you get the same kind of view of a second search engine.
Eight tools for English-language research
This selection follows what ranks for this topic in English and what we could check. We name a data source only where the vendor states it.
Keyword Tool
It let us do the most without an account: pick country and language and search, with no visible cap in 10 searches. The vendor says it queries autocomplete on 17 platforms and takes Google data from Keyword Planner. The free version shows the full phrase list and few numbers. For seo audit in the US, only 2 of the rows we saw had volumes, out of 474 phrases. Change the country first, because the default is "Global", and don't mistake 88,888 for data. Separate tabs for questions and prepositions are handy when you're looking for how-to headings.
Wordtracker
The one search we got was generous: 100 rows with volume, competition and a KEI score, with the note "Up to 4572 more keywords available". The site says searches come from its own data, which is why its numbers are worth comparing with Keyword Planner. Its counter then read 2 more free searches, but our second attempt, in a new session, ended at a paywall with the counter at 0. Keyword search was offered at $10 for the first month and $24 after that. The home page now leads with reports on how brands appear in AI answers, at $49 a month or $392 a year, so check what you are buying if you only want keywords.
Ubersuggest
It puts a lot on one screen for each keyword: volume, difficulty, cost per click, trend and ideas split into autocomplete, questions and prepositions. Without an account you get one search, and then a sign-up prompt takes over the page. The prompt offers 3 daily searches with a free account and mentioned 159 suggestions for our query. That suits someone checking a few keywords a day. The pricing page has tabs for monthly, yearly and one-off payment. We read the one-off prices, shown as a limited-time offer, and not the monthly ones.
Semrush
Its free Keyword Tool promises volume, difficulty, cost per click and intent for a limited number of suggestions, without creating an account, and the button reads (3/3). Our automated browser was told it couldn't be verified as human, so we have no numbers of our own. The SEO plan was €134 a month, or €112.52 billed annually. For three one-off lookups it's worth trying by hand.
Ahrefs
Its free keyword generator covers Google, Bing, YouTube and Amazon, and the company cites a database of over 8 billion queries. A Cloudflare check appears before the search runs, and our test stopped there. Its page showed a Starter plan at €27 a month and Lite at €119. It's another candidate for a manual try, and it would add one more independent figure next to Keyword Planner, though we can't say how far apart they would be.
Moz
Moz offers a preview of Keyword Explorer with a country selector, promising top suggestions, monthly volume, organic click-through rate and difficulty, with a stated limit of 3 searches a day, and cites over 1.25 billion keyword suggestions. A Cloudflare check sits in front of the search, and our test stopped there. Moz gives $49 a month for its entry-level plan aimed at a single website, and $99 for Standard.
KWFinder
From Mangools. Entering a keyword took us to a dashboard with a registration overlay on top. The table underneath was clearly sample data: "mangools.com/blog/featured-snippets" repeated down the page, and a side panel for "seo agency" where we had asked for seo audit. Don't read anything into those numbers. A free account is offered. The Basic plan showed at €37.70 a month, billed as €452.40 a year.
Soovle
Now owned by SEO.com, according to its own page. It sends your query to up to six search engines at once, among them Google, Amazon, Yahoo, Bing, YouTube and Wikipedia, and shows no volumes. In our test, two columns, Google among them, read "Service currently unavailable" for all nine queries. There's no country setting. It can still help you see how people search outside Google, on video or shopping sites, and results can be exported.
A worked case: what a number doesn't tell you
free keyword research tool has 2,400 monthly searches in the US on Keyword Planner and 2,000 on Sistrix. Keyword Tool also shows 2,400. It looks like solid agreement on a clear need, and an obvious target for a roundup like this one.
Now look at what Autocomplete adds: "ahrefs", "google", "wordstream", "for etsy", "for youtube", "for amazon". Some of those people want one named product, and others want to sell on a specific platform. Nothing in the volume column separates them. The results page does: the top positions go to tools you can use immediately, and articles get what's left. A number that big doesn't tell you there is room for your page.
Laying the variants side by side helps. Wordtracker showed these figures for phrases built on seo audit in the US:
| Phrase | Monthly searches (Wordtracker, 5 Nov 2026) | What it seems to want |
|---|---|---|
seo audit | 5,100 | Unclear |
free seo audit | 2,500 | A free check |
seo audit tool | 720 | Software |
seo audit checklist | 600 | To do it themselves |
technical seo audit | 540 | A specialist topic |
The last column is our interpretation and not a value from the tool. It shows that 5,100 searches aren't 5,100 readers for one page. A checklist and a software page answer different queries, and the smaller numbers help you decide which to write first.
Search Console tempts you the other way round: impressions look like demand when they may not be. An invented example: a guide gets thousands of monthly impressions at position 60, nearly all from countries where you don't sell, and hardly any clicks. That tells you Google tried it for those queries. It doesn't tell you your audience is looking for it or that anyone read it.
| Signal | What it shows | What it doesn't prove |
|---|---|---|
| Keyword Planner volume | Estimated searches for that phrase in that place | What the searcher wants |
| Estimate from a tool with its own data | What that tool calculates with its method | That it is more accurate than another |
| Two tools with the same number | That they agree | That they are independent sources |
| Search Console impressions | That your site appeared in results | That your audience searches for this or saw you |
| Position in a third-party tool | Where that tool found you when it checked | That real people see your page in that spot |
| Autocomplete prediction | That it is searched for or fits web patterns | How often |
| Google Trends value | Relative interest in a place and period | How many searches there are |
A five-step workflow that costs nothing
- Collect variations. Type your idea into Google in a private window, then run it through Keyword Tool with the right country selected. With
seo audityou'll see "free", "tools" and "meaning" straight away, which are three different intentions. - Check the volume. Use Keyword Planner if you have a Google Ads account, otherwise whatever Keyword Tool reveals. Note the source and the country, so you don't compare markets by accident later.
- Open the results page. See what dominates: tools, shops, guides or definitions. If the top results are tools people can use at once, an article has less room, as with this very topic.
- Compare the trend. Put a similar phrase next to it in Google Trends and look at the shape of the curve, without reading it as volume. Ignore a lone spike on a small query.
- Review after publishing. A few weeks later, check in Search Console which queries and countries you appear for, and keep impressions and clicks apart.
Markets and language
Volume depends on the location you pick, and English is spread over many countries. In Keyword Planner, free keyword research tool has 2,400 monthly searches in the US and 720 in the UK. seo audit has 3,600 and 1,000, and keyword research tool 3,600 and 720. The UK is not a fixed fraction of the US: 30% for the first, 28% for the second and 20% for the third. A US figure scaled down by habit will mislead you, so query each market. We didn't measure Canada, Australia or India.
Check the selector every time, too. Keyword Tool defaults to worldwide, and Soovle has no market option at all. A list of suggestions in English says nothing about which English-speaking country it came from.
When a paid tool is worth it
This test doesn't support recommending a brand. What the limits we saw do show is when the free route stops working:
- More than 3 to 5 lookups in a row. That's where the free allowances stated by Ubersuggest, Semrush, Moz, Seobility and keyword-tools.org end.
- You need volumes for the whole list. With hundreds of phrases, a free tool that reveals a handful of numbers stops being useful.
- You work across several countries. Checking each market by hand multiplies the time, and some free tools offer only two.
- You want to track positions or competitors over time. Nothing we tested for free does that.
Entry plans priced in euros ran from €27 to €134 a month in our check, on different terms. Annual billing lowers them: DinoRANK from €39 to €33, Semrush from €134 to €112.52, and Mangools comes to €37.70. Before paying, try your own keywords and compare with Keyword Planner. If the tool shows the same numbers, you're paying for convenience, which may be fine. If it shows different ones, you'll have to decide which figure to work with, and it's better to know that up front.
What came off the 2016 list
| Tool | Status on 5 November 2026 |
|---|---|
| Niche Laboratory | The domain redirects to unrelated sites. Entry and link removed. |
| Google Correlate | Google announced its shutdown for 15 December 2019, citing low usage. |
| Keyword Shitter | Connection refused on two attempts. We don't know whether that's permanent. |
| LSIGraph | Its page says it is now SurgeGraph, an AI writing tool. |
| OnPage / Ryte | Ryte now describes itself as a website user experience platform. We dropped the keyword recommendation. |
Frequently asked questions
Is Google Keyword Planner free?
Google calls it a free resource for advertisers, but its help page says you must complete your Google Ads account setup with billing details to reach basic features such as keyword ideas. We used our own account, so we haven't tested how a brand-new account with no running ads behaves.
Can you use Keyword Planner without a campaign?
The help page we read asks for billing details and doesn't say a campaign must be running. We didn't test whether a new account sees the same detail as one that spends money, so try it on your own account before relying on it.
Is Ubersuggest free?
Only in part. We got one search without an account, and its notice offers 3 searches a day with a free one. The rest sits behind a trial or a paid plan. On 5 November 2026 its pricing page showed one-off payments from €290 as a promotion.
Does Google Trends show search volume?
No. Google explains that it normalises the data and scales it from 0 to 100 as a proportion of all searches. Two regions with the same value can differ in total volume. To estimate scale, compare with a term whose volume you know, and be wary of spikes on small queries.
Why do two tools show such different volumes?
They can use different data or methods, and many explain little about either. For seo audit in the US we saw 3,600 in Keyword Planner, 600 in the Sistrix traffic field and 5,100 in Wordtracker. Check the country as well: Keyword Tool's "Global" setting showed 27,100 for the same query.
Can you compare keyword difficulty scores between tools?
Not directly. For seo audit we saw difficulty 60 in Ubersuggest (market unclear), competition 27 in Wordtracker (US) and competition 51% in keyword-tools.org (Germany). The labels, markets and scales differ, and none of them tells you how hard it would be for your own site. Use one tool's score to compare phrases within that tool.
How do you do keyword research for free?
Start with what your customers ask, type it into Google and write down the predictions. Look up volume where you can, then check which kinds of page rank. If the results page doesn't match what you offer, a high number won't help you much.
Sources
All pages were read on 5 November 2026 unless stated otherwise. The test figures are our own, with Keyword Planner and Sistrix values pulled through our access.
- Google Ads Help: Use Keyword Planner
- Google Ads Help: About Keyword Planner forecasts
- Google Ads: Keyword Planner
- Search Console Help: Performance report
- Trends Help: FAQ about Google Trends data
- Google Search Help: How autocomplete predictions work
- Google Correlate, archive copy of 4 December 2019
- Bing Webmaster Tools: overview
- Bing Webmaster Blog, June 2025: Start using Bing Webmaster Tools
- Keyword Tool Pro: data source and plans
- Wordtracker: own data and AI reports and keyword search
- Ubersuggest: pricing
- Semrush: free Keyword Tool and pricing
- Ahrefs: free keyword generator and pricing
- Moz: Keyword Explorer and pricing
- KWFinder and Mangools pricing
- Soovle on SEO.com
- TheSEOTools: Keywords Suggestion Tool
- keyword-tools.org
- Seobility: keyword tool and pricing
- DinoRANK: plans
- Ultimate Keyword Hunter
- Sistrix: pricing
- LSIGraph: notice about SurgeGraph
- Ryte
Further reading on the concepts: keyword research, keyword, search volume, keyword difficulty, long-tail keyword, SERP and Google Search Console.
How this article was made
This article was first published in February 2016. It was rewritten from scratch in November 2026 with AI assistance, from the test described above and the vendors' own pages, and reviewed before publication.
