For Google Ads keyword research, Google Keyword Planner is still the free starting point: ideas, search volumes, CPC ranges and forecasts. WordStream, Keyword Tool and Microsoft's planner fill gaps at no cost. Semrush and SpyFu add competitor intelligence. Should I Bid comes next: it reads the results page and tells you whether each keyword deserves your budget.
| Tool | Keyword discovery | Data (volumes, CPC, history) | Bid decision for your offer | Free access and ease of use | Total /5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Keyword Planner | 5 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 3.8 |
| Semrush | 5 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 3.6 |
| Should I Bid (our tool) | 3 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 3.2 |
| SpyFu | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3.1 |
| Keyword Tool | 4 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 3.0 |
| WordStream Free Keyword Tool | 3 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 2.9 |
| Microsoft Advertising Keyword Planner | 3 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 2.7 |
| Keywords Everywhere | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2.6 |
Four criteria, weighted by the question this page answers (finding keywords for Google Ads): keyword discovery 30%, data 25%, bid decision for your offer 25%, free access and ease of use 20%. Each score, from 1 to 5, is based on the features described on each vendor's official pages. No tool was tested in a live account. Should I Bid is our tool.
No single tool covers the whole job. Keyword research for Google Ads happens in two moves: find ideas with numbers attached, then decide which ones are worth buying. The tools in this list sit fairly clearly on one side or the other.
If you could keep only one to get started, it would be Google Keyword Planner: it's free and its data comes from Google Ads itself. Everything else depends on your situation.
Behind ‘keyword bid tools’, many advertisers want one of three different things. Mixing them up is the surest way to put budget on the wrong keywords.
Estimate first. Keyword Planner shows a CPC range for each keyword. Google Ads Help on Keyword Planner forecasts describes it as the top of page bid, with a low range and a high range based on what advertisers have paid in the past. Microsoft's planner gives cost estimates for its own network. WordStream shows a top-of-page bid range, and Keywords Everywhere shows CPC right inside Google. They all answer the same question: what does a click cost?
Decide next. A CPC does not tell you whether the click can turn into a customer. That's the job of Should I Bid's keyword intent analysis: it reads today's Google results page, ads included, compares it with what you sell and returns a score out of 100. Bid at 70 or above, Test from 50 to 69, Skip below 50. Should I Bid does not set your bid amount. It tells you whether the click is worth paying for.
Manage last. Once a campaign is live, Google Ads automated bid strategies adjust the amounts for you, such as Maximize Clicks, covered in Google's guide to adjusting keyword bids. Tools like Optmyzr optimize bids and budgets on existing accounts and manage negative keywords from search terms. They need account history, so they can't help you decide before the first click.
Free always comes with a catch. Each free option in this list has one limit worth knowing before you build a campaign on it.
Google Keyword Planner is free with a Google Ads account. It gives keyword ideas, search volumes, CPC ranges and campaign forecasts. The main catch: without active spend on the account, volumes show as ranges instead of exact numbers. It also doesn't read the real results page.
Microsoft Advertising Keyword Planner is free with a Microsoft Advertising account. It offers ideas, volumes, trends and click, impression and cost estimates, but for the Microsoft network. It gives no Google network data, so it matters mostly if you run ads on both networks.
WordStream's Free Keyword Tool costs nothing. It returns ideas from a keyword or a URL, with volume, competition and a top-of-page bid range, filtered by industry and location. The catch: 25 keywords on screen, with the full list sent as a CSV in exchange for an email address. It doesn't read the results page and gives no verdict.
Keyword Tool pulls its suggestions from Google autocomplete and 15 other platforms. Its free version needs no account; volume, CPC and Google Ads competition are reserved for Pro.
Semrush also has a free keyword tool, with volume, difficulty and search intent, plus a limited free plan. The full suite is paid, with a 7-day trial.
Should I Bid isn't an unlimited free tool either. It runs on credits (1 credit = 1 keyword analyzed) and includes free analyses to try it, with no credit card and no commitment. The plans are described on the pricing page.
A paid tool makes sense when the free list stops being enough: too many keywords, a need to watch competitors, several accounts to run. The price of each plan is in the verified prices table further down this page.
Semrush is an all-in-one SEO and SEA suite. On the Google Ads side, it offers keyword research with volumes and a search intent label for each keyword, Ads competitor analysis, competitor ad history (the Ads History report) and, in its separately sold Advertising toolkit, competitors' paid keywords and ads. It also covers backlinks, site audits and rank tracking, which makes it a natural pick for a team that handles SEO too. Its intent label is generic: it describes the keyword, not whether it fits your offer, and it gives no bid verdict. We compare the two tools on our Semrush page for Google Ads.
SpyFu is the most PPC-focused tool in this list. It shows the keywords and ads your competitors buy, with more than ten years of ad history. Its Google Ads Advisor suggests keywords based on competitors' bids, and it recommends negative keywords. Higher plans add pre-built Google Ads campaigns, and its pricing page mentions a 30-day guarantee. Its advice starts from what competitors do: it doesn't judge today's results page against your offer. To see who bids on your own keywords, Should I Bid's Competitors module lists the advertisers found on the keywords you've analyzed.
Keyword Tool Pro adds volume, CPC and Google Ads competition to its suggestions, along with a 1,000-keyword import and CSV export. Keywords Everywhere is a browser extension: volume, CPC and competition appear right inside Google, next to related keywords and ‘people also ask’ questions. It runs on annual credit subscriptions (1 credit = 1 keyword, valid for one year), and its Gold and Platinum plans add a purchase-intent filter through Keyword Keg. Neither tool gives a per-keyword Google Ads bid verdict.
We reread each vendor's official feature and pricing pages on the dates shown in the verified prices table. We did not measure volume accuracy or run a test campaign in each tool. The scores describe what each tool lets you do. They don't measure how it performs in a real account.
The weights follow the question this page answers: finding keywords for Google Ads. Keyword discovery counts for 30%, data (volumes, CPC, history) for 25%, the bid decision for your offer for 25%, and free access and ease of use for 20%. Discovery and data together carry more than half of the score.
Should I Bid is our tool. With these weights, it doesn't come first: Keyword Planner and Semrush rank ahead of it because Should I Bid provides no volumes and no CPC. It does clearly win the decision criterion, which is what it's built for. If your question is ‘which keywords should I buy?’ rather than ‘which keywords exist?’, read that column first.
Take a US bookkeeping firm that sells monthly bookkeeping to small businesses. It's weighing three keywords: ‘online bookkeeping services’, ‘bookkeeping services cost’ and ‘how to become a bookkeeper’. This example shows a line of reasoning. It is not the output of a real analysis.
In Keyword Planner, all three have volumes and CPC ranges. Nothing in those columns says which one brings in customers. A big volume on ‘how to become a bookkeeper’ might even make it look tempting.
The results page tells a different story. If ‘online bookkeeping services’ shows mostly firm offers, pricing pages and several ads, the searcher is ready to buy: that's a keyword to bid on. If ‘bookkeeping services cost’ mixes comparison articles and price lists, the person is comparing before choosing: a test with a capped budget is reasonable. If ‘how to become a bookkeeper’ shows schools, courses and career guides, the searcher is planning a career move. They won't hire a firm. Skipping that keyword saves you from paying for clicks with no buying intent.
That's the sorting Should I Bid does for you, keyword by keyword, by reading today's results page and comparing it with your offer. For the full process, see the five-check method.
With no tool budget, Keyword Planner is enough to find keywords and put numbers on them. Add WordStream or the free version of Keyword Tool to widen the list, then run your best candidates through Should I Bid's free analyses before launch.
On a small budget, pick one paid tool based on what you lack: Keywords Everywhere if you want numbers while you research, SpyFu if competitors are your biggest unknown. Keep Keyword Planner for forecasts.
For an agency, a suite like Semrush covers research and SEO for clients. Should I Bid handles multiple clients across 50 markets, with a device setting, so each account's list gets qualified before launch. Once campaigns are running, a management tool like Optmyzr takes over bids and budgets.
Keeping discovery apart from the decision stops you from building ad groups around keywords that won't convert. Here's the sequence we recommend.
If you're starting from scratch, Vision generates keyword ideas from your product or a URL, sorts them (brand, generic, questions), removes duplicates from your history and starts the analysis.
Should I Bid provides no search volumes or CPC of its own, and it doesn't set your bids. For those numbers, Keyword Planner remains the reference. We explain why in our Keyword Planner alternative.
It doesn't do SEO either: no backlinks, no organic rank tracking, no technical audit. If those matter to you, a suite like Semrush will serve you better. To compare tools that read intent, see our keyword intent tools comparison.
Its scope is narrow on purpose: help advertisers pay only for the clicks that can become customers. It's easy, because an AI reads the pages that rank for each keyword so you don't have to.
| Tool | Starting price | Details | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Should I Bid | Per credit (see Pricing page) | Per credit (1 credit = 1 keyword analyzed). 5 free analyses to try, no credit card, then paid subscription plans with no commitment and credits renewed every month. Plans described on the Pricing page. | Source |
| Google Keyword Planner | Free | Free with a Google Ads account. Exact volumes require an account with active spend, otherwise ranges. Google requires entering billing information and completing account setup to access keyword ideas. | Source |
| Microsoft Advertising Keyword Planner | Free | Free with a Microsoft Advertising account. | Source |
| WordStream Free Keyword Tool | Free | Free: first 25 keywords on screen, full list as a CSV in exchange for an email address, unlimited searches. | Source |
| Keyword Tool (keywordtool.io) | from $88/mo ($68/mo billed annually) | Keyword Tool Pro “Starter”: $88 per month billed monthly, $68 per month billed annually. Growth $188, Scale $388, Agency $788 per month. Free version without an account. 30-day money-back guarantee. | Source |
| Semrush | from $139/mo ($117.33/mo billed annually) | Entry “SEO” plan: $139 per month billed monthly, $117.33 per month billed annually. 7-day trial, limited free plan with no credit card. Separate “Advertising” toolkit: Base plan at $99 per month. | Source |
| SpyFu | from $39/mo ($29/mo billed annually) | “Basic” plan: $39 per month billed monthly, $29 per month billed annually. “Pro + AI”: $59 the first month, then $119 per month ($89 annually). 30-day guarantee. | Source |
| Keywords Everywhere | from $84/yr | Annual subscriptions: Bronze $84 per year (100,000 credits), Silver $168, Gold $480, Platinum $1,440. 1 credit = 1 keyword, credits valid one year. | Source |
| Optmyzr | from $299/mo ($209/mo billed annually) | Priced by monthly ad spend tier (25k to 500k+). “Essentials” plan (up to 25 accounts) at the first tier: $299 per month billed monthly, $209 per month billed annually (30% off). “Premium” (unlimited accounts, fair use) at the same tier: $389 per month, $272 annually. “Enterprise” on quote above 500k. 14-day trial with no credit card, no contract, 30-day money-back guarantee on a first subscription. After cancellation, the plan stays active until the end of the paid cycle, with no refund for unused days or months; the 30-day guarantee can be used only once. Overage charges may apply above the tier (with a buffer); after two consecutive months over, Optmyzr may move the account to the next tier if it costs less, with an email seven days before. | Source |
Prices verified on . Public prices observed on the vendors’ websites on the date shown. They may have changed since: the source prevails.
Our grid's top five are Google Keyword Planner, Semrush, Should I Bid, SpyFu and Keyword Tool, in that order. The ranking reflects this page's weights, where discovery and data count for more than half of the score. If your main question is whether to bid, look at the decision column rather than the total: Should I Bid leads it, ahead of SpyFu.
Google Keyword Planner, free with a Google Ads account. It gives ideas, volumes, CPC ranges and forecasts from Google Ads data, though volumes show as ranges without active spend. For a second free source, WordStream's Free Keyword Tool returns volume, competition and a top-of-page bid range. Keyword Tool's free version gives suggestions with no account needed, and Microsoft's planner is free for its own network.
For each keyword, Keyword Planner shows a top of page bid as a low range and a high range. Google Ads Help explains that these ranges come from what advertisers have historically paid for a spot among the top ads, based on your location and network settings. They help you plan a budget. They don't tell you whether the searcher wants what you sell.
Yes, it's free with a Google Ads account. One catch: exact volumes require an account with active spend; otherwise Keyword Planner shows ranges. For early research, those ranges are usually enough to rank ideas against each other. For deciding whether to buy a keyword, they say nothing about the intent of the person searching.
No. Should I Bid tells you whether to bid, not how much. It returns a Bid, Test or Skip verdict with a score out of 100, based on today's results page and your offer. The amount comes from Keyword Planner's bid ranges and your Google Ads bid strategy. Once the campaign runs, automated bidding or a tool like Optmyzr adjusts it.
Among the tools compared here, only Should I Bid gives that verdict. It reads the ads and organic results on the Google page, matches them with your company context and scores the keyword out of 100: Bid at 70 or above, Test from 50 to 69, Skip below 50. For the manual version, see how to decide keyword by keyword.
No. Keyword Planner provides ideas, volumes, CPC ranges and forecasts; Should I Bid provides none of those numbers. It reads today's results page, compares it with your offer and returns a Bid, Test or Skip verdict with a score out of 100. The two work together, as we explain in our Keyword Planner alternative.
Yes, with Should I Bid. After the analysis, you export the keywords you keep as an exact-match CSV ready for Google Ads. Exclusions are recommended once per analysis: the keywords to exclude in exact match, plus phrase-match guardrails around the keywords you keep. Then you import the file into your account.