Keyword Planner free: how to use it without running ads, and the free tools that fill its gaps

Google Keyword Planner is free. It sits inside Google Ads, so you need a Google Ads account to open it, but you do not need to run a campaign or spend money to use it. Create the account in Expert Mode, decline the guided campaign setup, and the tool is available under the planning menu. One thing changes when you have no active spend: search volumes are shown as ranges, such as 1K to 10K, rather than as a single figure. The ranges are still Google's own data and they are perfectly usable for deciding what to write, which is what most people need from the tool.

This page covers getting into Keyword Planner at no cost and the free alternatives around it. For the method that turns a keyword list into a plan, see keyword research in five steps.

The steps, exactly

1. Go to Google's Keyword Planner page and start creating an account with a Google login.
2. When the guided setup appears, look for the option to switch to Expert Mode. This is the step people miss, and without it the interface keeps pushing you towards building a campaign.
3. Choose the option to create an account without a campaign. Confirm your country, time zone and currency, which you cannot change later, so set them to the market you work in.
4. Open Tools, then Planning, then Keyword Planner.
5. Pick one of the two modes: Discover new keywords, or Get search volume and forecasts for a list you already have.
6. Set the location and language before you read anything. The default is often wider than your market and it changes every number on the screen.

Google's own documentation for the tool covers the interface in detail, and it is worth a read once so you know which columns are measured and which are forecast.

What each column actually tells you

Column	What it is	How to use it
Avg. monthly searches	Twelve month average for your location and language, shown as a range without active spend	For ordering topics by size, not for forecasting traffic
Three month and year on year change	Direction of demand	Spotting a rising topic before it is crowded
Competition	How many advertisers bid on the term	A commercial intent signal. It says nothing about organic difficulty
Top of page bid range	What advertisers pay	The best free proxy for commercial value on the page
Ad impression share	Your own account's share, if you advertise	Ignore it for research

Two things are worth knowing about the volume figure. Google groups close variants together, so singular and plural, and sometimes a misspelling, report the same number. And the figure is an average across twelve months, so a seasonal term looks smaller than its peak and larger than its trough. Check seasonality separately rather than reading it out of the average.

Get more out of it

• Seed it with a competitor URL. Under Discover new keywords, switch to the site option and enter a competitor's category page. Google returns the terms it associates with that page.
• Use the filters. Exclude brand terms, set a minimum volume, and filter by words you must include. This turns a thousand row export into a workable list in two minutes.
• Group by page, not by keyword. Use the grouped ideas view to see which terms belong on one page. Ten variants of the same question are one page, not ten.
• Download the CSV. The export carries every column and lets you sort and tag properly. The columns worth adding yourself are listed in the keyword analysis template.
• Read intent before volume. A term with a tenth of the volume and a buying intent is worth more than a large informational term. The classification is in what a keyword is in SEO.

Seven free sources that cover what Keyword Planner leaves out

1. Search Console. The most valuable free keyword source you have, because it reports the real queries that already show your pages, with impressions, clicks and position. Start here, not with a tool. Search Console is free for any site you can verify.
2. Google Trends. Relative interest over time, by region, with related and rising queries. This is where you settle a seasonality question. Trends needs no account.
3. Autocomplete and People Also Ask. Type your term and read the suggestions, then open the questions on the results page. These are phrasings from real searches and they are free in the most literal sense.
4. Bing Webmaster Tools. Includes its own keyword research with volume figures from a second search engine, free with a verified site.
5. Your own internal site search. Every query typed into your search box is a person telling you what they could not find.
6. Sales and support transcripts. The words customers use are rarely the words in a keyword tool, and they convert better. The other sources you already own are listed in five sources you already own.
7. Free tiers of the paid suites. Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz and Ubersuggest all offer a limited number of free queries per day, and a free keyword generator with a capped result list. Rotate through them when you want a second opinion on a volume figure.

Where free stops being enough

Free covers discovery, sizing and intent, which is most of the job. Paid tools earn their money on three specific things: exact volume figures rather than ranges, a difficulty score built from the current results page, and competitor keyword sets at scale. If you are writing a handful of pages a month, free is enough. If you are planning hundreds of pages or pitching clients, buy one suite and use the free sources alongside it. How the ideas are generated either way is covered in the SEO keyword generator.

Questions buyers ask about Keyword Planner free

Is Google Keyword Planner really free?

Yes. The tool costs nothing and you can use it indefinitely without running a campaign. You need a Google Ads account to open it, created in Expert Mode without a campaign.

Why does Keyword Planner show 1K to 10K instead of a number?

Accounts without active spend see banded ranges. The bands are Google's own data and they are fine for ranking topics by size. Exact figures appear once an account is running campaigns, and a paid suite will also give you a single number.

Do I have to enter payment details?

Create the account without a campaign and you reach the tool without launching one. If the interface asks for billing information, you have been routed into campaign setup; go back and choose Expert Mode and the no campaign option.

How accurate are Keyword Planner volumes?

They are twelve month averages with close variants grouped together, which makes them reliable for comparing one topic against another and approximate for predicting the traffic a single page will get. Use them to choose what to write, and use Search Console to measure what happened.

What is the best free alternative to Keyword Planner?

Search Console for your own queries, Google Trends for direction and seasonality, and autocomplete for phrasing. Together they cover the ground for most sites at no cost.

Can I use Keyword Planner for a market I do not advertise in?

Yes. Set the location and language to the market you are researching. Your account currency does not restrict which locations you can look at.

The volume figure that does not exist yet

Keyword Planner gives a range for how often a phrase is searched on Google. There is no equivalent figure for the questions typed into assistants, because the platforms do not publish query counts.

What you can know is the answer: which names come back, and which pages are cited. That is a different kind of data, and it is free to gather by hand for a handful of phrases. Use your Planner list to pick the ten that matter most and ask each one. AI Knows Us automates that step for larger lists.