Google Search Console is the first tool every website owner should set up, before any paid subscription. It's free, it's from Google, and it shows you what Google knows about your site.
Best for
Every website owner. GSC should be connected to every site from day one
Skip it if
You need competitor research, keyword discovery, or backlink analysis. GSC doesn't do any of those
Google Search Console pricing plans
| Plan | Billed monthly | Billed yearly, per month | Year 1 total, monthly billing | Year 1 total, yearly billing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | not published | Free | Free |
First-year figures are list prices before tax, add-ons or extra seats. "Not published" means the vendor's page did not show that option; it is not assumed to be free. Swipe sideways to see every column.
Not sure which plan covers your sites and keywords? Use the plan finder
- Checked on vendor siteGoogle Search Console: prices read from support.google.com on .
What Search Console reports
Google Search Console
Performance
- Queries
- Clicks and CTR
Indexing
- Indexed and excluded pages
- Sitemaps
Experience
- Core Web Vitals
Alerts
- Manual actions
- Security issues
Strengths and drawbacks
What you get
- Free, directly from Google with first-party data on how Googlebot sees your site
- Shows exactly which queries trigger your pages and average ranking positions
- Index coverage reports identify pages Google can't crawl or has excluded
What holds it back
- Only shows your own site data: no competitor research whatsoever
- Data is sampled and limited to 16 months. Not suitable for deep trend analysis
- No keyword discovery. You only see queries you already rank for
The verdict
Google Search Console is the single most important free SEO tool available. Connect it on day one. It's not a substitute for paid tools but it's essential regardless of what else you use.
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Google Search Console compared with its rivals on price
Each row shows the cheapest plan that publishes its site and keyword limits, so the prices compare like with like.
| Tool | Price of that plan | Sites or projects | Tracked keywords | Full comparison |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Search Console | free | not published | not published | This page |
| SemrushSEO plan | £113.40/mo | 5 | 500 | Semrush vs Google Search Console |
| UbersuggestIndividual plan | £29/mo | 1 | 125 per project | Ubersuggest vs Google Search Console |
Prices are shown in the currency each vendor published. Swipe sideways to see every column.