What You Actually Get Without Paying in 2026
The free-versus-paid question is usually framed as a quality gap. It is closer to a volume gap. Most free keyword options in 2026 return real Amazon data; what they ration is how much of it you can pull in a day and whether you can get it out as a file.
The other thing worth saying up front: as of October 2026, the two strongest free sources are not third-party tools at all. They sit inside Seller Central, and a large number of sellers who pay for keyword software have never opened either one.
"Before you price a keyword subscription, work out whether you are buying data you do not have, or buying a faster way to move data you already own."
— Maya Patel, PPC & Advertising Specialist
Search Query Performance, inside Brand Analytics. As of October 2026, Brand Analytics is reported to carry no separate fee for brand owners enrolled in Brand Registry on a Professional selling account. Search Query Performance reports the queries that reached your products broken down by impressions, clicks, cart adds and purchases. That is Amazon's own measured data about your listings rather than a third-party estimate. The gate is Brand Registry, which is reported to require a registered trademark or a pending application plus brand-representative permissions, so resellers and sellers without an enrolled brand are outside it. Confirm your own access in Seller Central.
Product Opportunity Explorer. Reported as free in Seller Central under Growth, requiring a Professional selling account, and as of October 2026 reported not to require a trademark. It groups customer search terms into niches with demand and competition metrics, and niche metrics are reported to refresh at the start of each week. For sellers without Brand Registry, this is the closest free equivalent to Amazon-sourced search data.
Everything after this is a third-party estimate of Amazon search volume. That is not a criticism, it is just what the category is. Treat the numbers as directional and compare them against your own Search Term and Search Query Performance reports whenever you can.
Free Tiers and Paid Plans Side by Side
Figures below are as reported in October 2026, rounded, and shown in the currency each vendor publishes. Plans, allowances and promotional rates change often and vary by billing term and region. Confirm on each vendor's own pricing page before subscribing.
| Source | What the free access is built around | Reported free allowance | Paid entry (as reported, Oct 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brand Analytics (Amazon) | Search Query Performance on your own listings, from Amazon's measured impressions, clicks, cart adds and purchases. | Reported as included for Brand Registry brand owners on a Professional account. | No separate fee reported |
| Product Opportunity Explorer (Amazon) | Customer search terms grouped into niches, with demand and competition metrics refreshed weekly. | Reported as included with a Professional selling account. | No separate fee reported |
| Helium 10 | Keyword discovery and reverse-ASIN research inside a broad seller suite. | Free plan reported at 2 Cerebro runs a day tracking up to 20 keywords, 5 Black Box uses and 10 Xray uses. | Platinum $129/mo or $1,188/yr |
| Jungle Scout | Guided product and keyword research with filtering by estimated demand and competition. | Reported as a paid product with trial access rather than a standing free tier. | Starter from $29/mo, $348/yr |
| Keepa | Long-run price and rank history, used to read demand behind a keyword rather than the keyword itself. | Free account reported to include the price-history charts, the browser extension and alerts, with tracking reported around 200 products. | Pro €29/mo or €290/yr |
| Keyword Tool Dominator | Amazon autocomplete harvesting, scored by a 0 to 100 popularity figure rather than a volume estimate. | Reported at 2 free searches a day, no sign-up required. | See vendor site for current plans |
| Keyword Tool (keywordtool.io) | Autocomplete-sourced keyword ideas across Amazon marketplaces; search volume and CPC sit in the Pro tiers. | Free use reported for suggestion generation. | Pro Basic $89/mo, $69/mo annual |
*Allowances and pricing as reported in October 2026, rounded, in the currency each vendor publishes. The "built around" column describes each source's primary emphasis and is not a statement about what any other tool does or does not include. Free allowances in particular are changed frequently and without announcement. Confirm current limits and pricing on each vendor's own site.
Run the Free Stack First, Then Decide
The cheapest way to find out whether you need a paid plan is to work free for one full cycle and record where you got stuck. Work through this in order.
Your Free-First Keyword Checklist
Check what Amazon already gives you
Open Search Query Performance if you are brand registered, and Product Opportunity Explorer either way. Both are reported as carrying no separate fee as of October 2026. Confirm what your own account shows before buying an estimate of the same thing.
Harvest buyer language from autocomplete
Amazon's own search box, plus a free autocomplete tool, gives you the phrasing shoppers actually type. Popularity scores are not search volumes; use them to rank phrases against each other within one result set, not as absolute demand.
Spend your daily free runs on competitors, not on yourself
If a free plan gives you two reverse-ASIN runs a day, point them at the two closest competitors rather than at listings whose data you can already pull from Seller Central for nothing.
Write down what you could not finish
Keep a note for two weeks of every task the free stack blocked: the export you could not run, the twentieth ASIN you could not check, the terms you could not track. That list, not a feature comparison, is the business case for a subscription.
Price the plan against one month of ad waste
Entry plans here run from roughly $29 a month to $129 a month as reported in October 2026. If better keyword coverage trims a comparable amount of wasted spend in a month, the subscription is paying for itself. If your ad spend is small, the free stack is probably still correct.
One caveat worth stating plainly: every third-party platform here publishes estimated Amazon search volume rather than Amazon's own figures, and estimates differ between platforms for the same keyword. Paying more changes whose estimate you read and how much of it you can move, not whether it is an estimate.
The Bottom Line on Free vs Paid Keyword Tools in 2026
Start with the two sources reported to carry no separate fee: Search Query Performance inside Brand Analytics if you are enrolled in Brand Registry, and Product Opportunity Explorer with a Professional selling account. Both are Amazon's own data rather than a third-party estimate, and both are routinely skipped by sellers already paying for keyword software.
A paid plan is mostly buying volume: reverse-ASIN at catalogue scale, bulk export, and tracking across more terms. Entry pricing runs from roughly $29 a month to $129 a month as reported in October 2026, with Keepa Pro at €29. Work free for one cycle, write down exactly what you could not finish, and buy against that list. Confirm all current limits and pricing on each vendor's own site, since free allowances change without notice.
On our sourcing: This article summarizes publicly reported pricing, plan allowances and product positioning as of October 2026, drawing on vendor pricing pages, Amazon's own seller documentation and independent industry reporting from that period. Each figure quoted was cross-checked against more than one source. Helium 10 Platinum at $129 per month or $1,188 per year and Diamond at $359 per month or $3,348 per year are taken from Helium 10's own published pricing explainer; the free-plan allowance of 2 Cerebro runs a day tracking up to 20 keywords, 5 Black Box uses and 10 Xray uses is as reported on that same page, and independent write-ups quote slightly different daily figures, so confirm the current allowance in the product itself. Reporting on the status of Helium 10's lower-priced Starter tier is inconsistent between sources and we were unable to confirm its current availability to new sign-ups; check Helium 10's pricing page directly. Jungle Scout entry pricing, Keepa Pro at €29 per month or €290 per year, Keyword Tool Dominator's reported two free searches a day and keywordtool.io Pro pricing are as reported for 2026 and rounded. Sources also disagree on whether the free Sonar keyword tool remains available, so we have left it out of the comparison above rather than state a status we could not confirm. Brand Analytics and Product Opportunity Explorer access conditions are as reported and vary by account type, marketplace and Brand Registry status; verify your own access in Seller Central. Descriptions state what each source is built around and are not claims about features any other tool does or does not offer. AMZToolHub may earn a commission from some links, which does not affect the comparisons above.
About the Author: Maya Patel
Maya is AMZToolHub's PPC & Advertising Specialist. She has managed over $18M in Amazon ad spend across 80+ brands and tests every major advertising and analytics tool so sellers don't have to.