Compare / Keyword Insights alternatives
Keyword Insights alternative? Seven tools for what comes after the groups.
Looking for a Keyword Insights alternative usually means the groups were fine, but the next step was not. You still had to work out which of your pages owns each group, and every keyword, brief and article spent credits. Here are seven options with entry prices and one limitation each, our own tool first and labelled as ours.
Prices checked 21 Oct 2026 on each vendor's pricing page. Spot an error? Email us and we'll fix it.
Why people look. Where Keyword Insights stops short.
From the Keyword Insights home and pricing pages, checked 21 Oct 2026.
Credits run down
Grouping costs 1 credit per keyword, a brief 100, a Writing Assistant article 200 and an AI Writing Agent article 1,200. Basic includes 10,000 a month.
Groups are not decisions
A group tells you which keywords belong together. It does not say whether a page you already own should take them.
One seat on Basic
Basic at $58 a month is 1 seat. Team sharing starts on Professional at $99 for 3 seats.
Yearly price not shown
The pricing page says yearly billing saves 20%, but shows no yearly figures.
Seven options. The Keyword Insights alternatives, with their limits.
| Tool | Best for | Entry price | One limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| SerpDad (our tool) | Grouping on the live top 10, then giving every keyword one owner page among the pages you already have | $15 a month per workspace, locked for life, plus your own provider fees | You need your own DataForSEO and AI provider accounts, which bill you separately. No AI writing agent, and no customers to show yet. |
| Surfer SEO | A live content score, with a Topical Map that shows coverage gaps from Search Console | $49 a month billed yearly | The map refreshes every 14 days, and the editor works one page at a time. |
| Frase | Topic clusters, briefs, AI writing and publishing in one tool | $39 a month billed yearly | A content calendar arrives on Professional. Starter is 1 seat, 1 site and 10 articles a month. |
| MarketMuse | Planning from an inventory of your existing content | Free plan with 10 queries a month. Paid plans have no public price | Paid plans go through a demo, and briefs are capped at 5 to 20 a month. |
| NeuronWriter | A budget editor with a content planner on every plan | $23 a month | Project and document caps. Integrations start on Gold at $69 a month. |
| Clearscope | Query discovery and draft grading for large teams | $129 a month | It grades pages. It does not group keywords into a plan. |
| A spreadsheet | Small lists you can check by hand | Free | Every SERP check is manual, and the sheet cannot tell you when two pages compete. |
Weighing the sheet seriously? Read SerpDad vs spreadsheets, or test two keywords with the SERP overlap checker.
Decision matrix. Pick a Keyword Insights alternative by the job.
| If you need to | SerpDad | Keyword Insights | Frase | MarketMuse |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Group keywords by shared top 10 results | Yes: 3 or more shared URLs means one page, adjustable | Yes, by SERP similarity, adjustable | Topic clusters | Its own topic model |
| Check groups against pages you own | Yes: New page, Optimize #N, Ranks #N or Pages compete | Reports show a ranking URL per group | Audit pages on every plan | A site inventory on paid plans |
| See the evidence behind each call | Every decision links to the shared URLs | You read the groups | We could not find this | We could not find this |
| Write the article | Drafts only from sourced brief items, signed off by name | Writing Assistant and AI Writing Agent, paid in credits | Yes, and it can auto-publish if you switch that on | It says it does not write for customers |
| Pay for usage | At cost, to DataForSEO and your AI provider, with an estimate first | Credits | Monthly caps, optional overages | Ask sales |
The math. 1,797 keywords, two ways.
On Keyword Insights Basic, grouping 1,797 keywords uses 1,797 of the 10,000 credits in a $58 month. Each brief after that is another 100.
SerpDad is $15 a month for the first 30 workspaces, locked for life. Our own run of those 1,797 keywords cost $13.10 in provider fees, paid straight to DataForSEO and our AI provider, and SerpDad showed the estimate ($4.32 to $14.77) before it spent anything. Briefs in that run cost $0.18 in AI fees.
Keyword Insights includes the search data in its credits, so this is not a like for like price. It is what our run cost. Try your own numbers in the run cost calculator.
Our Run 2, in numbers
Be fair. Keep Keyword Insights if this is you.
Your site is new
If every group becomes a new page anyway, there is nothing to check against. Its grouping does the job without provider accounts.
You want the data included
Credits cover the search data. With SerpDad you open DataForSEO and AI provider accounts, and they bill you.
You want Reddit and Quora threads
Keyword Insights surfaces Reddit, Quora and YouTube conversations to join. SerpDad does not.
Want both? Export your keywords from Keyword Insights and run the same list in SerpDad. Where a group says new article and SerpDad says Optimize #N, you have a page to fix instead of a page to write. See how in import keywords.
Questions and answers.
Can't find the answer? Email us.
What is the best Keyword Insights alternative?
It depends on the next step you need. To check groups against pages you already own, SerpDad. For writing and publishing in one tool, Frase. For planning from a content inventory, MarketMuse. For the lowest price editor, NeuronWriter.
Does SerpDad group keywords the same way?
Close to it. Both read the live top 10. SerpDad puts keywords that share 3 or more of the same top 10 URLs on one page, and you can change the threshold. Then it checks each page against the ones you own.
Is SerpDad cheaper than Keyword Insights?
On the subscription, yes: $15 a month for the first 30 workspaces, locked for life, against $58 for Basic. You also pay DataForSEO and your AI provider directly. Our run of 1,797 keywords cost $13.10 in those fees.
Does SerpDad write articles like Keyword Insights?
It writes briefs from each page's own top 10, and drafts only from sourced brief items, with a named person signing off. It has no AI writing agent and never publishes for you.
Where do these prices come from?
Each vendor's own pricing page, checked on 21 Oct 2026. Prices change, so check before you buy, and email us if one is out of date.
Past the groups.
Into a page plan you can defend.
Your first plan is free up to 1,000 keywords, with briefs for the top 5 pages. No card needed.