Keyword Rank Tracker: Monitor Google Rankings for $0.003 Per Keyword (No Subscription)

Direct Answer: What Does Keyword Rank Tracker Do?

Keyword Rank Tracker is an Apify actor that checks your domain’s Google search position for any list of keywords, returning the exact rank, ranking URL, page title, and check date for each keyword you provide. You give it your domain and a list of keywords. It searches Google for each keyword, finds where your domain appears in the results, and returns structured data you can store, analyze, or feed into a dashboard.

It costs $2.50 per 1,000 rank checks under Apify’s Pay Per Event pricing. That is $0.0025 per keyword checked, with no monthly subscription, no seat limits, and no minimum commitment. Check 100 keywords once a week, and your monthly cost is roughly $1.00.

If you run a small or mid-size site and you are paying $99 to $249 per month for Ahrefs or Semrush mostly to check keyword rankings, this is worth your attention.

Try Keyword Rank Tracker on Apify

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What Keyword Rank Tracker Does

The actor takes two core inputs: a target domain and a list of keywords. From there, it handles everything.

For each keyword in your list, the actor:

1. Queries Google search for that keyword
2. Scans the results pages for any URL belonging to your domain
3. Records the position, ranking URL, page title, and timestamp
4. Returns the complete dataset in structured JSON format

There are no hardcoded defaults. You supply your domain. You supply your keywords. The actor works for any website, any niche, any language or regional Google variant you configure.

Output Fields

Each keyword check returns the following structured data:

Field	Description	Example
keyword	The keyword that was checked	"seo tools for small business"
position	Your domain’s rank in Google (1-100)	7
url	The specific URL on your domain that ranks	"https://yourdomain.com/blog/seo-tools"
title	The page title as it appears in Google	"Best SEO Tools for Small Business 2026"
dateChecked	ISO timestamp of when the check ran	"2026-04-01T08:00:00Z"
notFound	True if your domain does not rank in top 100	false

If your domain does not appear in the top 100 results for a keyword, the actor records that as not found rather than leaving a gap in your data. This lets you track when keywords enter and exit the top 100, not just when they move within it.

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How It Works

The actor runs on Apify’s cloud infrastructure. You do not need to install anything, configure proxies, or manage a browser. The full execution happens remotely.

Step 1: Input your domain and keyword list

The input is straightforward. Provide your domain (e.g., yourdomain.com) and a list of keywords, either typed directly or uploaded as a text file with one keyword per line. You can also specify the Google country and language variant if you are tracking rankings in a specific market.

Step 2: Actor runs Google searches

For each keyword, the actor queries Google and parses the search results pages. It handles pagination and result extraction automatically, scanning through the results until it finds your domain or exhausts the top 100 positions.

Step 3: Structured data is returned

Once the run completes, your dataset is available in Apify’s built-in storage. You can download it as JSON, CSV, or Excel, connect it to a Google Sheet via Apify’s integration, or push it to a webhook endpoint for custom processing.

The entire process runs in the cloud. You can close your browser after starting a run and retrieve results later.

For more on how Apify actors work and what the platform provides beyond rank tracking, see the Apify web scraping platform overview.

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Pricing vs. Ahrefs, Semrush, and Other SEO Subscriptions

This is where the math becomes compelling for small sites and specific-use tracking scenarios.

Cost Comparison Table

Tool	Monthly Cost	Keywords Tracked	Cost Per Check
Keyword Rank Tracker (Apify PPE)	Pay per use	Unlimited	$0.0025
Ahrefs Lite	$99/mo	750 keywords	$0.13
Ahrefs Standard	$199/mo	2,000 keywords	$0.10
Semrush Pro	$129/mo	500 keywords	$0.26
Semrush Guru	$249/mo	1,500 keywords	$0.17
Moz Pro Standard	$99/mo	300 keywords	$0.33
Serpstat Business	$119/mo	3,000 keywords	$0.04

Prices for Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz, and Serpstat reflect their standard monthly plans as of early 2026. These plans include many features beyond rank tracking (backlink analysis, keyword research, site audits), so the comparison is not apples to apples.

The point is not that Keyword Rank Tracker replaces a full SEO platform. It does not. The point is that if rank tracking is the primary thing you need right now, the cost difference is substantial.

At $0.0025 per check, 500 keywords checked weekly costs $5.00 per month. The same 500 keywords on Semrush Pro, which supports 500 tracked keywords at $129/mo, costs 25 times more.

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When to Use This vs. a Full SEO Subscription

Keyword Rank Tracker is the right tool in specific situations. It is not the right tool for everything.

Good fit

Small sites tracking a focused keyword set. If you are watching 50 to 300 keywords for a blog, local business site, or niche content site, the cost of a full SEO subscription is hard to justify. Pay-per-use tracking keeps costs in line with actual value.

One-time audits. Before a site migration, after a major content update, or following a Google algorithm update, you may need to check rankings across a large keyword set once, not continuously. Paying $99 for a month of Ahrefs to run a one-time audit is inefficient. Running a single Apify actor job is not.

Specific keyword sets for campaign monitoring. When you run a content campaign around a defined topic cluster, you often care about 20 to 50 specific keywords, not your full ranking profile. Targeted rank checks for campaign keywords cost fractions of a dollar.

Developers and agencies building custom tooling. If you need ranking data as input to a larger reporting or automation pipeline, Apify’s API and webhook integrations make it straightforward to pull rank data into custom dashboards without paying for a full SaaS seat.

Startups and side projects with limited budgets. A new site does not need enterprise-level rank tracking infrastructure. Track the keywords that matter, pay only for what you check.

Not a good fit

Large agencies tracking 10,000+ keywords daily. At that volume and frequency, the economics shift. A dedicated rank tracking tool with bulk pricing and pre-built reporting dashboards may cost less per check and require less operational overhead.

Teams that need backlink data, site audits, and keyword research in one place. Keyword Rank Tracker does one thing: check where your domain ranks for specific keywords. It does not analyze your backlink profile, suggest keyword opportunities, or run technical SEO audits. If you need those features regularly, a full platform subscription makes more sense.

Users who need historical data going back years. Apify stores your run results, but building a long-term historical ranking database requires you to run checks consistently and store results yourself. Established SEO tools have years of historical data already.

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How to Set Up Automated Rank Tracking

Running rank checks on a schedule requires two things: an Apify account and a scheduled task. No code is required.

Step 1: Set up your first run

1. Go to Keyword Rank Tracker on Apify
2. Click “Try for free” (new accounts get $5 in free credits)
3. In the input configuration, enter your domain
4. Add your keyword list, one per line, in the keywords field
5. Set your target country and language if needed
6. Click “Start” and wait for the run to complete

Your first run will show you the exact format of the output and confirm the actor is finding your domain in search results correctly.

Step 2: Create a scheduled run

1. From the actor page, click “Schedule” in the left sidebar
2. Create a new schedule using cron syntax or the visual picker
3. For weekly tracking: 0 8 * * 1 runs every Monday at 8 AM UTC
4. For daily tracking: 0 8 * * * runs every day at 8 AM UTC
5. Save the schedule with the same input configuration you tested in Step 1

Apify will run the actor automatically on your schedule and store results in your dataset history.

Step 3: Export or connect results

From the Apify console, each run’s dataset can be:

• Downloaded as CSV or JSON manually
• Connected to Google Sheets via Apify’s native integration (results push to a sheet after each run)
• Sent to a webhook URL for custom processing or Slack notifications
• Accessed via Apify’s API for integration with your own reporting tools

For a weekly check of 200 keywords, the Monday morning run completes in a few minutes and costs roughly $0.50. Your running monthly cost for this setup is approximately $2.00.

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Comparing Keyword Rank Tracker with Google SERP Checker

These two actors solve adjacent problems and are often used together.

Google SERP Checker extracts all results from a Google search for a keyword, returning positions 1-100 with titles, URLs, descriptions, domains, and result types including ads, featured snippets, and People Also Ask boxes. It is focused on understanding the full competitive landscape for a keyword.

Keyword Rank Tracker is focused on your domain specifically. You give it your domain and keyword list, and it tells you exactly where you rank and which URL is ranking. It does not return competitor data or full SERP breakdowns.

The practical distinction:

• Use Google SERP Checker when you want to understand who ranks for a keyword and analyze the competitive SERP structure
• Use Keyword Rank Tracker when you want to monitor your own position changes over time

Both actors operate on the same Pay Per Event pricing model on Apify. Both can be scheduled and automated through the Apify console without code.

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Who Builds This

The Keyword Rank Tracker actor is built by tugelbay and maintained with updates as Google’s search result structure changes. The actor is available in the Apify Store under Pay Per Event pricing.

Pay Per Event means you are charged per rank check completed, not per actor run or per compute unit. If you submit 100 keywords in one run, you pay for 100 checks at $0.0025 each, totaling $0.25 for that run regardless of how long it takes.

New Apify accounts receive $5 in free credits, enough to run approximately 2,000 rank checks before your first payment.

Try Keyword Rank Tracker on Apify

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Summary

Keyword Rank Tracker does one thing well: it tells you where your domain ranks in Google for the keywords you care about, at a cost that scales with actual usage rather than a fixed monthly subscription.

At $2.50 per 1,000 rank checks, it is significantly cheaper than any major SEO subscription for focused tracking use cases. It integrates with Apify’s scheduling and export infrastructure, so automated weekly reports and Google Sheets connections require no code and no additional tools.

It is not a replacement for Ahrefs or Semrush if you need the full feature set. It is an alternative to those subscriptions when rank tracking is the primary feature you would be paying for.

If you are spending $99 per month on an SEO tool primarily to check keyword positions for a set of 100 to 500 keywords, this is worth running a test against.