Bulk Google search volume for a keyword list

You have a list of keywords and want the monthly Google searches for each one. The free ways to get it, what each one really tells you, and when a paid bulk lookup is worth it.

Sources and limits checked on 28 October 2026.

A list of 50, 500 or 5,000 keywords is a common starting point: topics for a content plan, product names, an export from another tool. The question is always the same: how many people search for each of these a month? Google gives part of the answer away for free. This guide shows the free routes first, says honestly where each one stops, and only then covers paid bulk lookups.

Disclosure: Quarrywise, the publisher of this site, makes and sells the keyword search volume tool described near the end. The free methods need nothing from us.

What "search volume" means

Almost every search volume number you will see, free or paid, comes from Google Keyword Planner or is modelled on it. Google's own help page explains three things worth knowing before you compare numbers:

It is an average. By default the number is the monthly searches averaged over the last 12 months, so a seasonal keyword shows a middle value that no single month had.
It is rounded. Google says the statistics are rounded, so volumes for several locations may not add up.
Close variants are merged. "running shoe" and "running shoes" usually share one number. If two keywords in your list return the same figure, that is often why.

So treat search volume as an order of magnitude for planning, not as a traffic forecast. A keyword with 1,000 searches a month will not send you 1,000 visits, even at position one.

Free option 1: Google Keyword Planner

Keyword Planner is part of Google Ads and costs nothing to use. You need a Google Ads account.

In Google Ads, open Keyword Planner from the Tools menu.
Choose Get search volume and forecasts.
Paste your keywords, or upload a CSV file with one column headed Keyword. Google allows at most 80 characters and 10 words per keyword.
Submit. The plan's historical metrics show the average monthly searches for each keyword, for the location you set.

The catch: ranges. Accounts that spend little or nothing on ads often see a range such as 1K–10K instead of an exact number. In 2016 a Google AdWords community manager announced that "advertisers with lower monthly spend may see a limited data view" in Keyword Planner (reported by Search Engine Journal, August 2016). Google has not published a spending threshold.

When ranges are enough: when you only need to sort topics into "worth writing about" and "almost nobody searches this". A range of 10–100 against 10K–100K settles most content decisions. Ranges are not enough when you need to rank keywords inside the same band, report numbers to a client, or feed exact figures into a spreadsheet or a model.

Free option 2: Google Search Console

If the keywords are about your own site, Search Console is the most honest free data you have, because it counts what actually happened. But it is not search volume:

Impressions count how often your site appeared in Google results for a query. A query where you rank on page three shows few impressions even if many people search it.
It only covers queries your site already appeared for. It says nothing about topics you have not written about yet.
Rare queries are hidden for privacy (Google calls them anonymized queries).
Exporting from the report gives at most 1,000 rows. The Search Console API gives up to 25,000 rows per request and up to 50,000 rows a day per site and search type.

Use it to find queries where you already get impressions but few clicks. Those are often the cheapest wins. Use it as a lower bound of demand, never as a volume figure.

Free option 3: Google Trends

Google Trends shows interest on a scale of 0 to 100, relative to all searches in the place and period you pick. It shows no absolute numbers. It is good for seasonality ("when do people search for this?") and for comparing a few terms with each other. It cannot tell you whether a keyword has 50 or 50,000 searches a month.

Free option 4: the Google Ads API

If you build software, the Google Ads API has a method for exactly this job: GenerateKeywordHistoricalMetrics. Google's docs say it takes up to 10,000 keywords per request and returns the average monthly searches, monthly volumes for up to four years, competition and top-of-page bids. Close variants are merged, so you may get fewer results than keywords sent.

The API itself is free, but access is the hurdle. You need a Google Ads account and a developer token, and Google's access rules say the planning services are restricted at the Explorer level: you must apply for Basic or Standard access to use them. Plan for an application and a review, not an afternoon.

Free option 5: free tiers of keyword APIs

Some keyword APIs have a free allowance. For example, seodata.dev said on its homepage on 28 October 2026 that it offers 20 lookups a day without an account, and 50 a day (500 a month) with a free account. For a list of a few dozen keywords, a free tier like that may be all you need. The same page offers unlimited lookups for USD 4.99 a month; if you look up more than about 2,500 keywords a month, that costs less than our pay-per-keyword price below. Check each service's limits, country coverage and data source before you rely on it.

When a paid bulk lookup makes sense

Paying for search volume is worth it when all of these are true:

you need exact monthly numbers, not Keyword Planner ranges;
your list is longer than a free tier covers, from a few hundred to thousands of keywords;
you need it now and then, so a monthly subscription to an SEO suite or a data API is not worth it;
you do not want to apply for Google Ads API access or keep an ad budget running just to see exact numbers.

It is not worth it when the free options above already answer your question, when your list is small enough for a free tier, or when you look up very large lists every week. In that last case a direct subscription with a keyword data provider may cost less per keyword than any pay-per-use tool, ours included.

What "no data" means, and why it is not zero

Google says keywords with very low search volumes, and keywords it considers sensitive, "aren't discoverable or forecastable" in Keyword Planner. Some tools and APIs then return a volume of 0. That looks like "nobody searches this", but it can also mean "there is no data for this keyword". The difference matters: if you average volumes or sort by them, a false 0 pulls a keyword to the bottom of your list.

Whatever tool you use, check how it reports a keyword without data. A good tool tells you, row by row, which numbers were measured and which are missing.

Our tool: Google Keyword Search Volume API on Apify

Our Google Keyword Search Volume API on the Apify Store is for the paid case above. You paste a list and get one table back.

Input: up to 10,000 keywords per run, one per line. Case, extra spaces and match-type symbols such as quotes and brackets are removed, and duplicates are looked up and charged once.
Output per keyword: search volume (the source's 12-month average of monthly searches, rounded the way Keyword Planner rounds), cost per click in a currency you choose and advertiser competition (0 to 1, about paid search, not SEO difficulty). Download it as JSON, CSV or Excel, or read it through the Apify API.
Monthly values: off by default, and not for timing. The tool can add the source's 12 monthly values per keyword, but in our check on 28 October 2026 they looked older than their month labels: about 1 month in the United States and Global data, often 2 to 3 months (for some keywords more) in Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. Unrelated keywords also shared identical spikes, which can raise the 12-month average too. Use those values for rough direction only; for seasonality, Google Trends above is the better free source. The section "Known data issue: source data age" on the tool's Store page gives the examples.
Markets: Global, United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and South Africa only. Other countries are not available from our data source, and the tool does not estimate them. There is no language setting.
Data source: Google Keyword Planner data from the Keywords Everywhere API, used with the provider's permission. With the optional cli source, the Keyword Planner data is blended with clickstream data, at the same price. Quarrywise is not affiliated with Keywords Everywhere or Google.
No data stays empty. A keyword the source has no data for gets status: "no_data" and empty (null) numbers, never a made-up 0.

An input looks like this:

{
    "keywords": ["keyword research", "content marketing", "email marketing"],
    "country": "us",
    "currency": "usd",
    "dataSource": "gkp",
    "includeTrend": false
}

Price when this guide was written: USD 2.00 per 1,000 keyword rows (USD 0.002 per keyword), the same on every Apify plan, plus Apify's small start fee per run. The Store page always shows the current price.

You pay for keywords the source answered, including an explicit "no data" answer, because the source bills us for those too.
Duplicates, invalid keywords (for example longer than 80 characters or more than 10 words) and failed lookups are free.
The tool respects the maximum charge you set for a run: it looks up only as many keywords as that amount pays for, and tells you how many were left out.

To be fair about price: some other tools on the Apify Store charge a flat fee per batch of up to 1,000 keywords. From about 125 keywords, some of those can cost less than ours, so compare before a large run. Ours charges per keyword, which suits small and uneven lists, and it reports missing data as missing.

See the keyword tool on the Apify Store

FAQ

Is Google Keyword Planner free?

Yes. It is part of Google Ads, and you need a Google Ads account. Accounts with little or no ad spend often see volume ranges instead of exact numbers.

Why do tools show different volumes for the same keyword?

They use different sources, months, locations and rounding. Some blend in clickstream data, some merge close variants and some do not. Compare keywords within one tool, not numbers across tools.

Is search volume the same as the traffic I will get?

No. Your traffic depends on your position, the other results and ads on the page, and how many searches end without a click. Search volume tells you the size of the demand, not your share of it.

Can Search Console replace search volume data?

Only for queries your site already shows up for, and only as a lower bound. It cannot tell you the demand for a topic you have not covered yet.

Does your tool cover Germany, France or other countries?

No. It covers Global plus the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and South Africa. For other countries, use Keyword Planner or a provider that covers them.

Quarrywise is independent and isn't affiliated with or endorsed by Google, Keywords Everywhere, seodata.dev or Apify.