SEODesktop

Get Your Credentials

If you don't have a DataForSEO account yet, creating one takes about two minutes and costs nothing — new accounts ship with $1 of free credit which is enough for several hundred queries.

Sign up

  1. Go to dataforseo.com and click Sign Up.
  2. Enter your email and a password.
  3. Confirm your email via the verification link.
  4. You'll land on the main dashboard.

Find your API key

  1. On the dashboard, look at the top bar for API Access (or go to Settings → API Access).
  2. You'll see two values:
    • Login — your email address
    • Password — a 32-character string. This is your API key.
  3. Click the copy icon next to the password to copy it to your clipboard.

Tip: Treat the API key like a password. Anyone with it can spend your DataForSEO credit.

Top up credit

DataForSEO is prepaid. You buy credits upfront and each API call deducts a fraction of a cent from the balance.

  1. On the dashboard, click Add Funds (or Billing → Add Funds).
  2. The minimum top-up is $25. You can pay by credit card or wire transfer.
  3. Credits never expire.

Typical pricing reference:

Endpoint classApprox. cost per call
SERP live (Google organic, depth 100)$0.002
Keyword volume (bulk, 1000 keywords)$0.075
Backlinks summary$0.02
On-page audit (single URL)$0.0025

Most agency workflows use $15–60 per month in actual spend.

Next step

Paste your email and API key into SEODesktop — see Add Email & API Key.