Free alternatives to Helium 10 for keyword research
Helium 10 is a paid suite of Amazon seller tools, from $99 a month billed yearly. For keyword research alone, free tools cover much of the work: Amazon’s own suggestions and reports, and browser extensions that expand them. What they mostly leave out is search volume.
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1.What Helium 10 costs, and what’s free in it
Helium 10’s pricing page lists three plans:
- Platinum: $129 a month, or $99 a month billed yearly.
- Diamond: $359 a month, or $279 a month billed yearly.
- Enterprise: from $1,499 a month, billed yearly.
There is also a Free plan. Helium 10’s blog lists Cerebro, its keyword tool for competitors’ products, twice a day, plus 10 uses of Xray and 5 of Black Box. Its pricing page says Chrome extension access “is limited with the Free plan”.
Helium 10’s Search Expander is free. It shows Amazon’s suggestions with keywords before and after yours, and their search volume. You need a Helium 10 account to use it. If you’re happy to sign up, it may be all you need.
2.The four jobs of keyword research
- Find the phrases buyers type.
- Size them: how many people search each one.
- Spy: see which keywords bring buyers to a competitor’s product.
- Place them in your title, Item Highlights and Search Terms.
Free tools do jobs 1 and 4 well. Jobs 2 and 3 are where the paid suites earn their price.
3.The free options
Amazon’s search box
Free, with no account, in every Amazon store. Type your keyword, then your keyword plus each letter, and write down what Amazon suggests. It shows no numbers and takes time. How to do it.
Amazon Brand Analytics
Amazon’s own search and purchase data, in Seller Central. It comes with Brand Registry, which is free but needs a pending or registered trademark for your brand. Amazon describes it as a way to “analyze trends in customers’ searches, purchases, and more.” Without a registered brand, you can’t open it.
Product Opportunity Explorer
Also in Seller Central, under Growth. It groups search terms and products into niches, with search volume and trends for each niche. You need a Seller Central account, and seller guides say it needs the Professional selling plan, which costs $39.99 a month. So it’s free only if you already pay for that plan.
Keyword Tool
A web tool at keywordtool.io. It takes your keyword, adds letters and numbers, and reads Amazon’s autocomplete. The free version lists keywords; search volume is in its paid Pro version.
AMZ Suggestion Expander
A Chrome extension with 200,000 users on the Chrome Web Store. It adds more suggestions to Amazon’s search box. Search volume, saved keywords, a trend chart and a Search Terms builder are Pro features. Its listing names 9 Amazon stores.
Shopperwords
Our Chrome extension. Free: keywords before and after yours as you type, Deep Expand for twice as many, departments, exclude words, saved keywords and CSV export, on 22 Amazon sites, with no account. Pro, at $6.99 a month or $49.99 a year, adds estimated monthly searches, the Search Terms builder and Excel export. It has no competitor lookup and no rank tracking.
4.Side by side
| Tool | Free part | Needs | Volume |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon’s search box | Up to 10 suggestions a query | Nothing | No |
| Helium 10 Search Expander | Suggestions before and after | Helium 10 account | Yes |
| Brand Analytics | Amazon’s own search reports | Brand Registry | Partly |
| Product Opportunity Explorer | Niches of related search terms | Professional selling plan ($39.99 a month), per seller guides | By niche |
| Keyword Tool | Autocomplete keywords | None stated | Paid |
| AMZ Suggestion Expander | Expanded suggestions | Chrome | Paid |
| Shopperwords | Before and After, Deep Expand, CSV | Chrome | Paid |
“Paid” means the tool shows volume only in its paid version. “Partly” means some numbers, with conditions. Facts as of 17 October 2026.
5.What free tools don’t do
- Volume for any keyword. Amazon’s free numbers come with conditions: a registered brand, or niches instead of single keywords. Helium 10’s Search Expander needs an account. Third-party numbers are estimates.
- Competitor keywords. Seeing which keywords bring buyers to another seller’s product is a paid-suite job. Helium 10’s Free plan gives two Cerebro searches a day.
- Rank tracking over time, across many products.
- Product research, profit and inventory tools, which sit outside keyword research.
6.How to choose
- Launching your first product: start with Amazon’s search box or a free extension, then fit the words into your listing.
- Brand registered: add Brand Analytics, since it’s Amazon’s own data and costs nothing.
- Need volume on every keyword: use Helium 10’s Search Expander with an account, or a paid add-on like Shopperwords Pro.
- Tracking rank and competitors across a catalog: that’s what a suite like Helium 10 is for.
Whichever you pick, the listing rules are the same. See the Search Terms rules and the 75-character title rule, and compare our plans on pricing.
Helium 10 and the other product names here are trademarks of their owners. Shopperwords isn’t affiliated with them.