The price advertisers pay per click in paid search — also used to estimate the commercial value of organic keywords.
Cost Per Click (CPC) is the amount an advertiser pays each time a user clicks their ad in Google Ads or another PPC platform. In organic SEO, CPC data is used to estimate the commercial value of a keyword — a keyword with a high CPC indicates strong advertiser competition and high purchase intent.
In B2B, CPCs for commercial keywords are often very high — commonly $20–$100+ per click for software categories, and even higher for financial services, legal, or enterprise technology. This makes the ROI case for organic search particularly compelling in B2B: if you can rank organically for keywords that cost $50+ per click in paid, the traffic you earn 'for free' has very high commercial value.
CPC data from tools like Ahrefs and Semrush is estimated based on Google Keyword Planner data and auction patterns. It's directionally accurate but not precise. Actual CPCs vary by bidder, quality score, match type, and time of day.
Our CPC vs. Organic Click Value research analysed 50 B2B keywords to estimate the annual equivalent paid value of ranking #1 organically — useful for building the business case for SEO investment.
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