Google Keyword Planner alternatives are tools that give you search volumes, keyword ideas and competition levels without going through a Google Ads account, or that fix the limits of Google's own figures. Keyword Planner is still free, but it was built for people buying ads: without active spend it shows ranges instead of numbers, it merges variants of the same word, and on long searches it often returns nothing at all.
Search for this on Google UK today and the first page is mostly tool roundups and vendor pages: Marketer Milk, SE Ranking, Cocolyze, Swiftbrief, a PPC Hero list from 2014 and a Quora thread from eight years ago. Judging by their titles and descriptions, none of them tests Keyword Planner's numbers on a real set of UK keywords. Below you'll find a test we ran on 10 October 2026 on 18 UK keywords, Keyword Planner's limits documented with sources, and the alternatives ordered by the problem they solve, not by price.
Why people look for an alternative to Keyword Planner
Keyword Planner sits inside Google Ads. In the UK the query "google keyword planner" gets 8,100 searches a month on average according to the tool itself, with a peak of 9,900 in September and October 2025 and a low of 5,400 in August 2026. There are four reasons why people who use it for SEO end up looking elsewhere, and all of them are written down somewhere.
- Ranges instead of volumes. Since August 2016, accounts with low spend have seen bands such as 100-1K or 1K-10K instead of the figure, as Search Engine Land reported when Google confirmed the change. SupportHost's guide, published in July 2026, confirms that without active ad spend this is still the case.
- Merged variants. Since July 2016 the tool has grouped plurals, abbreviations and alternative spellings, and gives each the same volume as the group (Wordtracker). Search Engine Land pointed out that the grouping isn't even consistent: sometimes plurals are merged, sometimes not (source).
- The long tail disappears. Searches of four or five words, typical in B2B, often come back with no data at all. In our test this happened to 4 queries out of 8.
- Competition that's about ads. The "Competition" column measures how many advertisers are bidding on the keyword, not how hard it is to rank organically. For that you need a different metric, keyword difficulty.
On top of these there's a practical hurdle: to get in you need a Google Ads account with a payment method. SupportHost notes that Google may place a temporary hold of $1-$10 on a credit card, removed within a week. The same guide confirms you can create the account without launching a campaign and still use Keyword Planner.
The test: what Keyword Planner does with UK keywords
We queried the Google Ads API, which returns the same data as Keyword Planner, for the United Kingdom and English. Alongside it we put the estimate from DataForSEO, which corrects Google's figure with browsing (clickstream) data and tries to separate the variants. That isn't an exact measurement either: it's there to show where Google's number stops being informative.
| Pair of variants | Keyword Planner (each) | Clickstream estimate, first variant | Clickstream estimate, second variant |
|---|---|---|---|
| seo agency / seo agencies | 6,600 / 6,600 | 6,140 | 355 |
| seo consultant / seo consultants | 2,900 / 2,900 | 1,695 | 651 |
| web designer / web designers | 8,100 / 8,100 | 3,300 | 425 |
| ecommerce / e-commerce | 18,100 / 18,100 | 9,190 | 3,095 |
| seo agency london / seo agency in london | 3,600 / 3,600 | 3,023 | 143 |
In all five rows Keyword Planner returns the same volume, the same CPC and the same monthly series for both variants, figure for figure. For "seo agency" and "seo agencies" the CPC is £21.40 for both ($28.31 in the API, converted at the Bank of England rate for 8 October 2026, $1.3226 = £1). Copy the two rows into a spreadsheet and add them up, and you'll think you have 13,200 searches a month; the clickstream estimate sees about 6,500, almost all of them on the singular.
The last row is where our UK test differs from the one we ran on Italian keywords. In Italy, "agenzia seo milano" and "agenzia seo a milano" (seo agency milan / seo agency in milan) weren't merged and had different volumes, the inconsistency Search Engine Land reported. On Google UK, "seo agency london" and "seo agency in london" come out as twins with 3,600 searches each, while the estimate puts almost all the demand on the version without "in". The ecommerce case is the most useful for anyone writing content: the two spellings are distinct and the estimate splits them 75% to 25% in favour of the unhyphenated form, while Keyword Planner presents them as twins with 18,100 searches each.
On the long tail we tried eight B2B queries written the way a buyer would type them. Keyword Planner returned a volume for four: "solar pergola" (390 a month), "commercial solar panel installation cost" (30), "outdoor led wall price" (10) and "google ads consultant london" (10). For the other four, including "solar pergola price", "led screen hire for events price" and "garage management software for mechanics", there was no data. That doesn't mean nobody searches for them: it means the tool doesn't measure them.
| Keyword Planner limit | What fixes it | Starting cost |
|---|---|---|
| Ranges without active spend | Semrush, Ahrefs, KWFinder | free accounts with daily limits |
| Merged variants | Search Console on your own site, suites with clickstream data | free (Search Console) |
| Long tail with no data | Search Console, the Google Ads search terms report, Keyword Tool | free or from $68 a month |
| Competition designed for ads | keyword difficulty in Ahrefs, Semrush, KWFinder | from $29 a month (Ahrefs Starter) |
| Google data only | Microsoft Advertising Keyword Planner | free with a Microsoft Advertising account |
The alternatives, one by one
For a broader comparison, with the full price lists of the main suites, see our guide to the best keyword research tools. Here we focus on what each one does better than Keyword Planner.
Google Search Console
It's the only alternative that doesn't estimate anything: it reports the queries your site appeared for, with impressions, clicks and position. It solves the merged-variants problem, because "ecommerce" and "e-commerce" appear as separate rows with their real numbers. The limit is that it only covers searches you already appear for. How to read it properly is explained in our guide to Google Search Console.
The Google Ads search terms report
If you already run campaigns, you have the most precise source on the long tail in-house. The search terms report shows the actual searches that triggered your ads, including the ones Keyword Planner says have no volume. It's where the phrasings no tool suggests turn up. It isn't an alternative if you're starting from scratch, but it's the reason it makes sense to run SEO and Google Ads campaigns together.
Google Trends
Free, it gives no absolute volumes but indices from 0 to 100. It does two things Keyword Planner does badly: show whether a query is growing, and help you choose between two phrasings. If you have to decide between "ecommerce" and "e-commerce" for a title, Google Trends compares the two spellings directly. We cover it in our guide to Google Trends.
Microsoft Advertising Keyword Planner
Microsoft has its own planning tool, free for anyone with a Microsoft Advertising account, with historical volumes and trends according to the official page. In the UK Bing accounts for 6.08% of searches and Yahoo for 1.32%, against 91.39% for Google (StatCounter, September 2026). It's complementary data, not a replacement. The differences between the two engines are in our article Google vs Bing.
Semrush
The free account allows 10 keyword research requests a day and 10 tracked keywords, according to Semrush's own blog (December 2025). The Keyword Magic Tool is the quickest way to go from one word to thousands of variants grouped by subtopic. The limit, as the same Semrush post admits, can run out in a single research session.
Ahrefs
It has a free plan and a Starter plan at $29 a month; the full plans start at $129 (Lite) according to the pricing page, which lists prices in US dollars. The free keyword generator accepts up to ten words as input and shows local and global volumes with keyword difficulty. The metric Keyword Planner lacks is Parent Topic, which tells you whether a keyword deserves a page of its own. For a direct comparison with Moz there's Ahrefs vs Moz.
KWFinder by Mangools
Mangools presents it as a Keyword Planner alternative for SEO and points out that Google's competition column is about ads, not organic results (source). The free account doesn't need a credit card; in Zapier's July 2026 test the limit was 5 searches a day. A simple interface, suited to anyone who needs to assess a few keywords at a time.
Keyword Tool
It takes its ideas from Google autocomplete and in the free version generates more than 750 suggestions per search, with no account. Full volumes are reserved for the Pro version, which starts at $68 a month for the Starter plan (price list, published in dollars and euros only). It's useful exactly where Keyword Planner goes quiet: the long phrasings people actually type.
SE Ranking
Its keyword tool is on the first page of Google UK for this search, and on annual billing its entry plan costs less than the equivalent Ahrefs plan. The Core plan is $129 a month, or $103.20 a month billed annually (about £78 at the Bank of England rate for 8 October 2026), with a 14-day trial that doesn't ask for a card (SE Ranking pricing, checked in October 2026). For a business that wants volumes, difficulty and rank tracking in one place, it's worth trying before committing to a larger suite.
Tools for questions
AnswerThePublic and AlsoAsked don't replace Keyword Planner on volumes, but they complement it on questions. We compared them, with an analysis of 1,812 questions in Italian, in our article on AnswerThePublic alternatives.
Which one to choose, depending on what you need to do
- You need to estimate a campaign budget. Stay with Keyword Planner: CPCs and forecasts are built for this, and no alternative has direct access to the auctions. Our article on cost per click explains how to read those numbers.
- You need to choose topics for a blog. Start with Search Console for what you already capture, widen it with Semrush or SE Ranking, and check search intent by looking at the Google UK results before you write.
- You work in a technical B2B sector. Expect almost everything to sit below the measurement threshold. In the Macropix case, an Italian LED screen manufacturer described in our article on SEO for manufacturing, "monitor pubblicitario" (advertising display) has 390 searches a month in Italy and moved from position 88 to 2: small volumes, qualified leads. There, a list of long-tail keywords built with the sales team is worth more.
- You need to decide how many pages to create. The variants Keyword Planner merges should be grouped on a single page. The method is keyword clustering.
The part no tool solves
The Keyword Planner flaw that costs the most isn't the range instead of the number, it's the silent doubling. When a content plan starts from an export, twin variants end up on separate rows, each with its full volume, and become two articles competing for the same SERP. In our UK test all five pairs come out of Keyword Planner with identical volumes, ready to be added together. That's why, whichever alternative you pick, the final check is done by eye on the SERP: if two variants show the same results, they're one keyword. If you'd like someone to do this with you on a real site, it's the work we do in our SEO consultancy.
Frequently asked questions about Keyword Planner alternatives
Yes. You don't pay for the tool, but you need a Google Ads account with a payment method. Without active campaigns, or with low spend, it shows volumes as ranges (for example 1K-10K) instead of an exact number.
Because since 2016 Google has limited the data for low-spending accounts, as it confirmed to Search Engine Land at the time. With an active campaign and enough spend, volumes become specific again, although they are still rounded.
It depends on the purpose. For real data on your own site, Google Search Console. For ideas and volumes, Semrush's free account (10 requests a day) or Ahrefs' free keyword generator. To compare two phrasings, Google Trends.
Because they measure in different ways. Keyword Planner returns a rounded figure grouped by variant; the suites correct it with browsing data and their own models. In our UK test, Keyword Planner gives "seo agencies" 6,600 searches, the same as "seo agency", while the clickstream estimate puts it at about 355.
Yes. Microsoft Advertising has its own Keyword Planner, free for account holders, with historical volumes and trends. In the UK Bing has 6.08% of searches according to StatCounter (September 2026).
