Free App Keyword Research: What You Can Actually Do Without Paying
Free app keyword research is possible with competitor listings and store autocomplete. Here is the honest workflow, its limits, and when a paid tool is worth it.
You can do **free app keyword research** without a paid subscription. The stores publish their search results, competitors publish their listings, and autocomplete exposes real query phrasing. What you cannot get for free is exact search volume, because the stores do not publish it to anyone.
This guide covers the free workflow, the limits you should expect, and the point where paying for data starts to make sense.
Key takeaways
- Competitor listings and store autocomplete are the two strongest free sources.
- Free tools can show suggestions and competition, not exact search volume.
- A spreadsheet is enough for the first pass; the bottleneck is judgement.
- Rank checks can be done manually or with an on-demand tool.
- Pay for data only when you have a repeatable process that needs more coverage.
Source 1: competitor listings
Open three to five competitor pages in the store. Copy the title, subtitle, and description into a document. Mark the phrases that appear in more than one listing. Those repeated phrases are the category's shared vocabulary and the best free seed list you will find.
Also look at what competitors do not say. A gap can be an opportunity: a use case everyone ignores, a user group nobody addresses, or a plain-language explanation missing from the category.
Source 2: store autocomplete
Type each seed into Google Play and the App Store search field. The dropdown is generated from real queries. Record the suggestions, then append modifiers: `free`, `for beginners`, `offline`, `tracker`, `log`, `planner`, or a user type. Repeat in the country you care about.
- Use the store, not Google web search.
- Change the storefront country if you target more than one market.
- Capture exact phrasing; word order matters in how people search.
- Stop when new variants stop appearing.
Source 3: the search results themselves
Search each phrase and look at the top ten results. Are they large brands, mid-sized apps, or weak listings? Do their titles contain the phrase? Do they look maintained? This is your free competition check. It is not a difficulty score, but it is enough to spot phrases where a small app has no realistic path.
What free research cannot tell you
| Question | Free answer | Why |
|---|---|---|
| How many monthly searches? | No reliable number | Stores do not publish query volume |
| How hard is this phrase? | A rough read from the results | No official difficulty metric exists |
| What does a competitor earn? | No | Requires private data |
| Which phrase converts best? | Only through your own tests | Conversion depends on your listing and audience |
| What should I write? | Yes, with judgement | You can see the field limits and the query |
Be sceptical of any free tool that reports a precise monthly volume for store search. It is usually a web-search proxy or a modelled estimate presented without error bars.
A free workflow that still produces a decision
- Build a list of 40–80 phrases from competitors and autocomplete.
- Remove anything your app cannot honestly satisfy.
- Search each phrase and note whether the top results are strong or weak.
- Tag each phrase as High, Medium, or Low relevance to the app's core job.
- Choose one phrase for the title, one for the subtitle or short description, and a few for the description.
- Check rank after shipping and record the result.
That process is slower than a paid database, but it is not less honest. In fact, the manual pass often produces better relevance judgements because you are looking at the actual results instead of a score in isolation.
When paying makes sense
Pay when you have more apps than you can research manually, when you need consistent historical rank data across many markets, or when a team needs shared reporting. Do not pay to avoid thinking. A paid tool with no positioning decision is just a more expensive list.
If you want to see how the scored-shortlist step works, read app keyword research. If you are comparing tools, the ASO tools guide covers what to evaluate beyond the price.
Frequently asked questions
Can I get App Store search volume for free?
Not exact volume. Apple and Google do not publish store query counts. Free tools can show autocomplete suggestions and competition, and paid tools model demand, but any precise number is an estimate.
Is Google Keyword Planner useful for ASO?
Only as a rough language signal. It measures web search, not store search, and the intents differ. Store autocomplete and competitor listings are more relevant.
How long does free keyword research take?
A focused first pass for one app and one country takes a few hours. The time goes into filtering and judging relevance, not collecting phrases.