You looked up SEMrush. It costs $139.95 a month. You checked Ahrefs. $129 a month. No free trial. You closed both tabs and decided keyword research is something only companies with marketing budgets can afford.
That is not true. It is just what the SEO tool market wants you to believe, because the big players set the price expectation. The reality is that you can build a genuinely useful SEO toolkit for under $30 a month, or even for free, if you know which tools exist and what each one actually does.
This is not a roundup of 47 tools with a sentence about each. It is six specific tools that work for small businesses, with honest assessments of what each one does, what it does not do, and who should use it. Every tool listed here costs less than $30 a month, and three of them cost nothing.
The Free Tools You Should Already Be Using
Before you spend anything, make sure you are getting value from what Google gives you at no cost.
Google Search Console
Google Search Console is the most underused free SEO tool available. It shows you which searches are actually bringing people to your website right now, how many times your site appeared in search results for each query, and how many people clicked through. If you have a website, you should have Search Console connected. It takes about five minutes to set up, and it gives you real data about your actual traffic rather than estimates from a third-party tool.
What it does not do: it does not suggest new keywords, does not show you what competitors are ranking for, and does not tell you where to put keywords on your website. It is a diagnostic tool, not a discovery tool. But it is the only tool that shows you real Google data about your own site, because it comes directly from Google.
A bakery in Portland might discover through Search Console that they are already appearing in results for "custom birthday cakes Portland" but getting almost no clicks because their page title is too generic. That single insight, available for free, could lead to more traffic just by rewriting one line of text.
Google Keyword Planner
Google Keyword Planner is free inside Google Ads. You need to create a Google Ads account to access it, but you do not need to run ads or spend money. It shows estimated search volume for any keyword you type in, along with competition levels and cost-per-click data for advertisers.
The catch: unless you are running active ad campaigns, Keyword Planner shows volume ranges instead of exact numbers. "100 to 1,000 monthly searches" is less useful than "480 monthly searches." It is also designed for advertisers, not for organic SEO (the regular Google results you do not pay for). The volume data skews toward commercial intent. That said, it is still genuinely useful for checking whether a keyword has real demand before you build a page around it.
AnswerThePublic
AnswerThePublic offers a free tier that allows 3 searches per day. Type in a keyword and it generates a visual map of every question, comparison, and preposition-based phrase people search around that topic. Type "plumber" and it shows you "how much does a plumber cost," "plumber vs handyman," "plumber near me open now," and dozens more.
What it does well: content ideas. If you are trying to figure out what blog posts to write, AnswerThePublic is one of the fastest ways to see what questions people ask about your industry.
What it does not do: it does not show search volume for those questions. You know people ask them, but you do not know how many. That matters when you are deciding which questions to answer first. The paid plans start around $11/month on annual billing if you need more than 3 searches a day, but the free tier is enough for most small businesses who check it a few times a month.
The Affordable Paid Tools Worth Knowing About
Once you have used the free tools and want more data, these are the options that stay under $30 a month.
Keywords Everywhere
Keywords Everywhere is a browser extension that adds search volume, cost-per-click, and competition data directly into your Google search results as you browse. Instead of switching to a separate tool, you see the data inline. The Bronze plan starts at $10 for 100,000 credits, billed annually at about $1.75 per month.
The nuance: credits get consumed faster than you might expect. One Google search does not use one credit. It uses one credit for your main query plus one credit for every related keyword and "People Also Search For" result shown on the page. A single search can use 30 to 50 credits. Still, 100,000 credits at $10 is remarkably cheap for a year of casual keyword research. (If you burn through credits faster, the Silver plan at $5/month gives you 400,000.)
What it does not do: it shows national data, not city-level. If you are a roofer in Memphis, Keywords Everywhere tells you "roof repair" gets 40,000 searches nationally but cannot tell you how many of those are in Memphis. For local businesses, that is a meaningful gap.
Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest costs $29 per month or approximately $290 for a lifetime deal. It provides keyword suggestions, search volume estimates, keyword difficulty scores, content ideas, and basic site audit features. The interface is cleaner and friendlier than most enterprise tools.
The same limitation applies: Ubersuggest provides country-level keyword data, not city-level. A dentist in Raleigh sees that "teeth whitening" gets 49,000 searches nationally but cannot filter to Raleigh specifically. For local businesses, this means the volume numbers are directionally useful but not precise enough to confirm local demand. Ubersuggest is best suited for someone who wants a general keyword research tool with a reasonable price and does not need granular local data.
LKR
Local Keyword Research costs $12 to $49 per credit pack. No monthly subscription. Credits never expire. This is our tool, so weight the recommendation accordingly.
What it does differently: you enter your business type and city, and get back local keyword data with specific placement instructions for each keyword, telling you where to put them on your website.
What it does not do: site audits, backlink analysis, rank tracking, competitor research, or anything in the full SEO suite category. It does one thing, local keyword research with placement guidance, and nothing else.
The honest comparison: if you need a general-purpose keyword tool you will use regularly, Ubersuggest at $29/month gives you more features. If you need local keyword data a few times a year and do not want a monthly subscription running between uses, LKR's pay-per-use model costs less over time.
The Recommended Stack for Under $30 a Month
You do not need all six tools. You need the right combination for your situation.
If you are starting from zero: Google Search Console (free) to understand your current traffic, plus one keyword research tool to find what to target. LKR ($12, one-time) for local data, or Keywords Everywhere ($10/year) for ongoing national-level data as you browse. Total: $12 to $22 for the first year.
If you want a more complete toolkit: Google Search Console (free) for diagnostics, Ubersuggest ($29/month) for ongoing keyword research and basic site audits, and AnswerThePublic (free) for content ideas. Total: $29 per month with two free tools filling the gaps.
If you want local keyword data specifically: Google Search Console (free), LKR ($12 per credit pack as needed), and AnswerThePublic (free) for blog topic ideas. Total: under $20 for a full quarter of keyword research, and you only pay when you actually need data.
The important thing about any of these combinations is when you use them. Most small businesses do not need keyword tools running every day. You do keyword research when you are building or updating your website, creating new service pages, planning blog content, or noticing that your traffic has dropped. For a typical single-location business, that is a few times a year.
The monthly subscription model that enterprise tools use assumes daily use. If you open a tool three times a year, you are paying for 362 days of access you did not need. Pay-per-use and annual credit models exist specifically for this usage pattern.
The point is not that these tools are as powerful as SEMrush or Ahrefs. They are not. SEMrush and Ahrefs are excellent platforms with enormous databases, sophisticated features, and analytics capabilities that none of these smaller tools can match.
But a dentist in Raleigh who needs to know which keywords to put on her website does not need an enormous database or sophisticated analytics. She needs a list of 10 keywords and instructions on where to put them. That costs $12, not $1,680 a year.
The most expensive SEO tool is the one you pay for and do not use. Start with what you need right now. Add more when you outgrow it. If you want to see what local keyword data looks like for your business before committing to any tool, our first search is free.
