▸ Founding-member pricing
Keyword research tool pricing that pays for itself
Founding rates, and they stay yours for as long as you keep the subscription. Pick a plan, pay by card, and your account is working a minute later. Cancel from your account page at any time. No free tier: the free taste is the live demo.
Save 50% with yearly billing
Starter
Solo creators and freelancers
$24$49/mo
billed yearly · $288 a yearbilled monthly · $24/mo yearly
- Keyword discovery and AI clustering
- Content plans with article briefs
- Difficulty and volume bands
- 40 keyword plans a month
- 1 project, 1 seat
- CSV export
Most popular
Growth
In-house marketers and small teams
$49$99/mo
billed yearly · $588 a yearbilled monthly · $49/mo yearly
- Everything in Starter
- 200 keyword plans a month
- 5 projects, 3 seats
- Saved plans your whole team can reopen
- CSV and Markdown export
Agency
Agencies and multi-site operators
$149$299/mo
billed yearly · $1,788 a yearbilled monthly · $149/mo yearly
- Everything in Growth
- 800 keyword plans a month
- 25 projects, 10 seats
- A separate workspace per client
- White-label exports under your own name
Enterprise
Large teams and organizations
$299$598/mo
billed yearly · $3,588 a yearbilled monthly · $299/mo yearly
- Everything in Agency
- 1,600 keyword plans a month
- 60 projects, 25 seats
- PO invoicing, billed yearly or monthly
- Named contact for onboarding and support
Yearly billing costs half of paying monthly. Founding rates are locked in for as long as you stay subscribed, and you can cancel from your account page whenever you like. Volume and difficulty are directional bands, not measured counts.
▸ The honest math
What the incumbent stack costs
A typical content team pays for a big-suite subscription it uses at maybe ten percent: Ahrefs from about $129/mo, Semrush from about $139/mo, both credit- or seat-limited, plus a separate clustering tool at $58 or more. The synthesis, deciding what to write, still happens by hand. The honest comparisons: Ahrefs, Semrush, Ahrefs vs Semrush, Ubersuggest, and the whole field priced together in the best keyword research tools roundup.
For a business buyer the frame is simple: replace a $129 to $499 per month stack, and cut time-to-first-article from days of spreadsheet work to an afternoon.
Monthly cost, like for like
Incumbent prices are public list prices, checked at source August 31, 2026. We compare price and category capabilities only, never fabricated benchmarks.
▸ Keyword research pricing, annualized
What keyword research costs per year, monthly against annual
Keyword research costs between $29 and $140 a month if you buy a tool, and the annual discount across this category clusters tightly between 16 and 20 percent. In practice, committing to a year saves you about two months. Below is every vendor’s entry plan at both billing terms, with list prices checked at source on August 31, 2026.
| Entry plan | Monthly list | Annual, per month | Paid up front for a year | You save |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| KeywordPilot Starter (founding) | $49 | $24 | $288 | 50% |
| KeywordPilot Growth (founding) | $99 | $49 | $588 | 50% |
| Ubersuggest Individual | $29 | no annual plan published | $348 | none |
| Surfer Discovery | $59 | $49 | $588 | 17% |
| Moz Pro Standard | $99 | $79 | $948 | 20% |
| SE Ranking Core | $129 | $103.20 | $1,238 | 20% |
| Ahrefs Lite | $129 | not published per tier | not published | up to 17% |
| Semrush Pro | $139.95 | $117.33 | $1,408 | 16% |
Two things the table gives away
The cheapest way in, Ubersuggest at $29, is the one plan with no annual discount at all. It sells a lifetime deal instead, which pays back in about ten months. And Ahrefs is the only vendor here that will not publish a per-tier annual rate, advertising “up to 17%” without saying which tiers reach it, so you cannot budget an Ahrefs year from the pricing page alone.
When annual billing is the wrong call
Saving 20% is real money, but you are paying twelve months up front for software you have used for a week. If you are still deciding between two tools, or your site is new enough that your keyword set will look different by spring, the monthly rate is cheap insurance. Annual pricing rewards a decision you have already tested, not one you are still making.
Figures are public US list prices read at each vendor’s own pricing page on August 31, 2026, in USD. Annual totals are the vendor’s annual per-month rate times twelve. We compare price and published allowances only, never fabricated benchmarks. See the full field in the best keyword research tools roundup, or the per-vendor detail on Semrush pricing, Moz Pro pricing and SE Ranking pricing. Buying for a whole team instead? Compare SEO software for agencies.
▸ Pricing questions
Asked before you did
How much does keyword research cost?
Keyword research software costs $29 to $140 a month. Ubersuggest is the cheapest real entry at $29, Moz Pro starts at $99, Ahrefs and SE Ranking at $129, Semrush at $139.95, and KeywordPilot Starter at $49, or $24 a month on founding annual pricing. Paying annually saves 16 to 20 percent across the category, and 50 percent on KeywordPilot.
Is there a free plan?
No. The free demo is the free taste, and it is genuinely useful: a real run of the engine on any seed you type, no account needed. A paid plan is what adds projects, saved plans, exports and seats.
When will I be charged?
When you pick a plan. You pay for the first period at the checkout, then it renews until you cancel. Yearly is charged once for the year, monthly once a month.
What does "locked in" mean exactly?
The founding rate on your tier stays yours for as long as you keep the subscription, even after public prices go up.
Can I switch tiers later?
Yes, up or down at any time, from the plan page in your account. Moving up starts immediately and what you have already paid is prorated; moving down rides into your next invoice. The founding rate follows you to the new tier.
Can I cancel?
Yes, in one click from the plan page in your account. You keep the plan until the end of the period you have paid for, and nothing renews after that.
▸ Final approach
Lock in the founding rate.
Pick a plan today and the price on this page is yours for as long as you keep it.
Free demo, no account. Paid plans from $24/mo billed yearly.