AlsoAsked vs Keyword Tool in 2026: Live PAA question trees vs multi-platform autocomplete research
One is a $12-a-month specialist that maps live Google People Also Asked questions. The other pulls autocomplete suggestions and search volume from 15 platforms, starting free and topping out near $788 a month for agencies.
AlsoAsked
Keyword Tool- AlsoAsked pulls questions directly from live Google PAA boxes. Keyword Tool generates suggestions from autocomplete across 15 platforms including Google, YouTube, Amazon, and TikTok.
- Keyword Tool attaches search volume, CPC, and competition data to its keyword lists on paid plans. AlsoAsked has none of that: it is a single-purpose PAA research tool.
- AlsoAsked starts at $12/month with unlimited user seats on every tier. Keyword Tool has a free version, but its first paid tier with volume data is $88/month ($68/month billed annually).
- Keyword Tool ships an API and an MCP server from the Growth plan up, built for developers wiring keyword data into AI-assisted workflows. AlsoAsked has an API only on its $47 Pro plan, with no MCP integration.
- Neither tool offers white-label reporting on any plan, which limits both for agencies that need client-branded exports.
- AlsoAsked offers city-level international targeting at every price point. Keyword Tool researches by platform rather than by geography, with no equivalent city-level breakdown.
- Keyword Tool supports bulk keyword upload with volume data returned in one batch on paid plans. AlsoAsked reserves bulk search for its $47 Pro tier only.
AlsoAsked and Keyword Tool both start from a seed keyword, but they answer different questions. AlsoAsked asks "what is Google's PAA box saying people want to know about this topic," pulling live question trees you can hand a writer as a content brief. Keyword Tool asks "what are people actually typing into Google, YouTube, Amazon, TikTok, and a dozen other autocomplete boxes," and attaches search volume, CPC, and competition data to the answer on paid plans. AlsoAsked has no volume data at all; Keyword Tool has no PAA-style question tree. Pricing splits them further apart: AlsoAsked runs $12 to $47 a month with unlimited seats on every tier, while Keyword Tool has a genuinely useful free version but jumps to $88 a month the moment you need volume numbers, then climbs to $788 for its Agency tier. The choice comes down to whether your bottleneck is content structure or cross-platform demand data.
The tools at a glance
AlsoAsked
Live People Also Asked data with intent clustering, bulk exports, and city-level international targeting for content strategy
AlsoAsked queries Google's People Also Asked boxes in real time and renders the full branching question tree as a visual graph. It does not try to be a general keyword tool: there is no search volume, no CPC, no competition scoring. What it does instead is show you, question by question, what Google's own intent model expects a page to cover, which updates within hours of a breaking news event rather than waiting for a monthly database refresh.
The graph output doubles as a deliverable. Export it as a PNG and a writer has an immediate content outline without needing to interpret a spreadsheet of keywords first. City-level targeting across every Google-supported language is also a genuine step up from most keyword tools, which stop at the country level, and AlsoAsked does not charge extra to use it internationally.
The trade-off is that AlsoAsked answers only one question well. You still need a second tool to attach commercial value to whatever PAA questions it surfaces, and the credit system on Basic and Lite plans runs out fast for anyone doing this at volume. Bulk search and API access are locked to the $47 Pro tier, with no mid-point option between that and the $23 Lite plan.
| Feature | Basic $12/month | Lite $23/month | Pro $47/month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Credits per month | 100 | 300 | 1,000 |
| Unlimited user seats | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| City-level international targeting | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Search history | 24 hours | 1 month | 1 year |
| CSV export | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Bulk searches | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| API access | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
Keyword Tool
Multi-platform keyword research tool generating long-tail suggestions from autocomplete data across 15 search engines and marketplaces
Keyword Tool pulls suggestions directly from the autocomplete systems of 15 platforms: Google, YouTube, Bing, Amazon, eBay, the App Store, Play Store, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, TikTok, Etsy, and Perplexity. Because it queries live autocomplete rather than a modeled database, the long-tail phrases it returns tend to reflect actual queries people type, including question-based and locally modified variants that a database-driven tool can miss.
On paid plans, each keyword gets search volume, average CPC, and competition data sourced from Google Ads, plus bulk upload and CSV or Excel export. The API and MCP server, available from the Growth plan up, are the more forward-looking pieces: they let a developer pull keyword data straight into a custom application or an AI-assisted workflow without building an autocomplete scraper first.
The catch is price relative to scope. The free tier gives unlimited suggestions but zero volume data, which makes it useful for early ideation and not much else. The moment you need real numbers, the entry price is $88 a month ($68 billed annually), and it climbs to $788 for the Agency tier, all while offering no rank tracking, no site audit, and no white-label reporting for agencies delivering client work.
| Feature | Free Free | Starter $88/month ($68/mo annual) | Growth $188/month ($148/mo annual) | Scale $388/month ($308/mo annual) | Agency $788/month ($628/mo annual) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keyword suggestions | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Search volume, CPC, competition | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Bulk keyword upload | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| API access | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| MCP server access | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| White-label reports | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
Head-to-head feature comparison
| Feature | AlsoAsked | Keyword Tool |
|---|---|---|
| Primary data source | Live Google People Also Asked boxes | Autocomplete across 15 platforms |
| Search volume and CPC data | No | Yes, from Starter up |
| Platforms covered | Google only | 15 (Google, YouTube, Amazon, TikTok, and more) |
| Visual question graph export | Yes (PNG export) | No (data table and CSV/Excel export) |
| City-level international targeting | Yes, all Google-supported languages | No |
| Bulk search | Pro plan only | Yes, from Starter up |
| API access | Pro plan only | Yes, from Starter up |
| MCP server | No | Yes, Growth plan and up |
| White-label reports | No | No |
| Free tier | No (3 free searches/day, unregistered) | Yes, suggestions only, no volume |
| Starting price | $12/mo | $88/mo for volume data |
Which should you choose?
AlsoAskedKeyword ToolKeyword ToolAlsoAskedKeyword ToolAlsoAskedAlsoAskedThese tools rarely compete for the same budget line because they solve different halves of the same research problem. AlsoAsked tells you what questions a page needs to answer; Keyword Tool tells you how many people are searching for a given phrase and across which platforms. A team with a tight budget and a content-first workflow gets more out of AlsoAsked's $12 entry point than out of Keyword Tool's free tier, which withholds the one number, search volume, that makes a keyword list actionable.
Bottom line
Pick AlsoAsked if your job is turning search intent into a content outline and you already have a volume source elsewhere. Pick Keyword Tool if you need real search volume and CPC data across Google, YouTube, Amazon, and a dozen other platforms, and you can justify $88 a month for that breadth. Running both is not unreasonable for a serious content team: AlsoAsked for the question tree, Keyword Tool for the demand numbers.
Frequently asked questions
Is AlsoAsked or Keyword Tool better for finding search volume data?
Keyword Tool is the better choice for search volume because it attaches Google Ads-sourced volume, CPC, and competition data to every keyword on its paid plans starting at $88 a month. AlsoAsked has no volume data at all; it only returns the People Also Asked question tree for a topic, so you would need Keyword Tool or a similar database tool alongside it to validate demand.
Can I use AlsoAsked instead of Keyword Tool for content briefs?
Yes, AlsoAsked is arguably the stronger choice specifically for content briefs because its visual PAA graph lays out the subtopics a page needs to cover in a format you can hand a writer directly. Keyword Tool returns a flat list of autocomplete suggestions with volume attached, which is useful for prioritization but does not show the same structured question hierarchy.
Which tool is cheaper for an agency giving several writers access, AlsoAsked or Keyword Tool?
AlsoAsked is considerably cheaper for a multi-person team because every plan, including the $12 Basic tier, includes unlimited user seats. Keyword Tool does not publish per-seat limits on its site, but its pricing scales by plan tier rather than by user count, and the entry point with any volume data starts at $88 a month regardless of team size.
Does Keyword Tool cover Amazon and YouTube keyword research better than AlsoAsked?
Keyword Tool covers Amazon and YouTube directly since both are among its 15 supported autocomplete sources, complete with volume and CPC data on paid plans. AlsoAsked only queries Google's PAA feature, so it has no Amazon or YouTube research capability at all.
Is Keyword Tool worth $88 a month compared to AlsoAsked's $47 Pro plan?
Keyword Tool's $88 Starter plan is worth the extra cost if you need search volume, CPC, and competition data across 15 platforms, since AlsoAsked never provides that at any price. AlsoAsked's $47 Pro plan is the better spend if all you need is faster, larger-scale PAA extraction with bulk search and an API, because Keyword Tool has no PAA-style question tree to offer regardless of tier.
Which tool has an API for automating keyword research, AlsoAsked or Keyword Tool?
Both have an API, but Keyword Tool's is available from its $88 Starter plan and is paired with an MCP server from the Growth plan for AI-assisted workflows. AlsoAsked restricts API access to its $47 Pro plan only, with no MCP integration, so Keyword Tool has the more accessible and more modern automation path of the two.