Debug: upstream API calls (click to expand)
| Keyword | CPC | Competition | Trend % | Trend (12 mo) |
|---|
How it works
The CPC Checker takes a list of keywords and a country, and returns the average cost per click that advertisers pay in Google Ads, the advertiser competition score, the monthly search volume, and a 12-month trend for each. The CPC and competition come from Google Ads, surfaced through our Keywords Everywhere API, the same source the browser extension and most professional PPC tools use.
What CPC tells you. Cost per click is the clearest signal of commercial intent on a keyword: advertisers only bid real money when the clicks turn into sales. Use it to budget paid-search campaigns, to compare how expensive keywords are before you bid, and to spot which terms carry buyer intent worth targeting in SEO too.
Two paths, one tool. Submissions of 500 keywords or fewer run synchronously (you wait, results arrive in a few seconds). Larger submissions queue and process asynchronously, with a progress bar; you can leave the page and come back via the share link. Your current plan allows up to 100 keywords per submission.
Country and currency. CPC is set by advertiser demand, which varies by market, so the same keyword can cost several dollars a click in one country and a fraction of that in another. You pick the country and the currency up front, and we show every keyword's CPC on that one currency scale so you can compare markets directly.
Data source. The data source dropdown selects which upstream index supplies the numbers. The default is the one tuned for current Google data; alternative sources are useful when you're cross-checking against historical numbers or want a second opinion.
Paid plans pay their own credits. Free and anonymous visitors share a daily lookup budget pulled from a project-wide pool. Paid Keywords Everywhere plans (Bronze and above) get a larger daily budget AND pay only their own account's credits per lookup, which is why per-day caps for paid users are much higher than free.
Known limitations.
- CPC is an average, not your live auction price. The figure is Google's average advertiser cost per click; your real CPC in a live campaign depends on your Quality Score, ad rank, match type, and how aggressively competitors bid. Treat it as a planning benchmark and confirm the exact number in your own Google Ads account.
- Zero CPC is meaningful. A keyword with no CPC usually has little or no advertising money behind it, which often means informational rather than transactional intent. That is a signal, not missing data.
- Volume is averaged over 12 months. The search volume shown alongside CPC is Google's average monthly searches across the trailing year, so a keyword's seasonal peak is smoothed into its yearly average. Read the 12-month trend (click any sparkline) to see the seasonal shape behind the average.
What the columns mean
- Keyword
- The exact search query you submitted, normalized to lowercase. Signed-in visitors with credits see a star in front of each keyword to save it to their Keywords Everywhere favorites.
- CPC
- Cost per click as paid by advertisers in Google Ads, in the currency you selected, sourced from Google Ads via the Keywords Everywhere API. This is the headline metric here: a high CPC (above $5) usually signals strong commercial intent on the keyword, while empty or zero means there's little advertising activity, which often correlates with informational rather than transactional intent. It is an average benchmark; your live auction CPC varies with Quality Score, ad rank, and competing bids.
- Search Volume
- Google's average monthly searches for the keyword in the country you selected, sourced from Google Keyword Planner via the Keywords Everywhere API. Averaged over the trailing 12 months, so it reflects typical demand rather than any single month's spike. Pair it with CPC to weigh how much traffic a keyword draws against how much advertisers pay for it.
- Competition
- Google's 0-1 score for how many advertisers are bidding for the keyword in Google Ads, shown as a Low / Medium / High badge. Higher means more advertisers. It usually tracks CPC (more bidders push the price up) and is a useful proxy for commercial competition. Not the same as organic ranking difficulty, but the two usually correlate.
- Trend % and Trend (12 mo)
- Trend % is the most recent month's search volume versus the average of the prior 11 months, a quick signed read on whether demand is rising or falling. The sparkline beside it shows monthly search volume over the past 12 months, height-normalized for visual scale. Click for a large interactive chart with exact monthly values and min/max/latest highlights, useful for spotting seasonality, declining topics, or one-off spikes.
Frequently asked questions
How do I check the CPC of a keyword?
Paste one or more keywords (one per line) into the box above, pick a country and currency, and click Check CPC. For each keyword we return the average cost per click that advertisers pay in Google Ads, the advertiser competition score, the monthly search volume for the country you chose, and a 12-month trend sparkline. Small submissions (under 500 keywords) run synchronously; larger ones queue and process in the background.
What is CPC (cost per click)?
CPC is the average amount an advertiser pays each time someone clicks their Google Ads ad for a keyword. It comes from Google Ads, surfaced through the Keywords Everywhere API, so it is Google's own advertiser data, the same source most professional SEO and PPC tools use. A high CPC (above $5 to $10) signals strong commercial intent: advertisers only bid that much when the clicks convert into sales. A low or zero CPC usually means the keyword is informational, with little advertising money behind it.
What is a good CPC for a keyword?
There is no single "good" number, it depends entirely on the value of a conversion in your niche. For low-margin ecommerce a $0.50 CPC may be all you can afford, while a law firm or a B2B SaaS happily pays $20 to $50 per click because one new client is worth thousands. The right way to read it: compare the CPC against your own profit per conversion and your conversion rate. A keyword whose CPC is well below your break-even cost per click is profitable to bid on; one above it is not. Use the CPC here to budget campaigns and to spot which keywords carry real buyer intent.
How accurate is the CPC data?
The CPC comes straight from Google Ads via the Keywords Everywhere API, the same source most professional SEO and PPC tools rely on, so it is Google's own advertiser cost-per-click figure rather than a third-party estimate. It is an average over recent advertiser activity, so your live auction CPC can run higher or lower depending on your Quality Score, ad rank, match type, time of day, and how aggressively competitors are bidding that week. Treat it as a reliable planning benchmark for budgeting and keyword selection, then confirm the exact number in your own Google Ads account once a campaign is live.
Why is CPC different in different countries?
CPC is set by advertiser demand, which varies hugely by market. The same keyword can cost several dollars a click in the US, where many advertisers compete, and a fraction of that in a smaller market with fewer bidders. Currency matters too: we show the CPC in whichever currency you pick, so you can compare markets on one scale. Buyer value and competition both differ by country, so always check CPC in the specific market you plan to advertise in rather than assuming a global figure.
How do I find keyword CPC for free?
Use this tool. You can paste up to 100 keywords per submission on the Free plan with no signup required, and get the CPC, competition, search volume, and 12-month trend for each. Free and anonymous visitors share a daily lookup budget; paid Keywords Everywhere plans get a larger daily budget and pay only their own account's credits per lookup. Google's own Keyword Planner shows CPC ranges too, but it requires an active Google Ads account and gives only fuzzy top-of-page bid ranges unless you are running paid campaigns.
What is the difference between CPC and Competition?
CPC is the money figure: the average dollars-and-cents an advertiser pays per click in Google Ads. Competition is Google's 0 to 1 score for how many advertisers are bidding on the keyword, shown here as a Low / Medium / High badge. They usually move together (more bidders push the price up), but not always: a niche keyword can have only a handful of advertisers yet a very high CPC because each click is so valuable. Read the two together to gauge both how expensive and how contested a keyword is in paid search.
Does a high CPC mean a keyword is hard to rank for organically?
Not directly. CPC and competition are paid-search signals, not organic ranking-difficulty signals, so a high CPC does not guarantee the keyword is hard to rank for in the free results. In practice, though, they correlate: keywords that advertisers pay a lot for tend to be commercially valuable, which attracts more SEO effort and stronger competing pages too. A high CPC is a useful hint that a keyword is worth money, both as a clue to organic competition and as a reason to consider running ads alongside your SEO. Pair it with the search volume and trend here to prioritise which keywords to target.