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Does a one-person business really need a $129-a-month SEO tool?
Summary
Not if your only weekly job is checking your own site. Search Console shows your impressions and clicks for free, and Google's own guidance says a small local business can probably handle much of its SEO itself. The $129 to $139 suites make sense for someone who repeats competitor research, daily rank tracking or audits across several sites, and even then the three main options differ a lot in update frequency and site limits.
The annual bill
Semrush's SEO plan is $139 a month, or $117.33 a month billed annually, which comes to $1,407.96 for the year. SE Ranking Core is $129 a month, or $103.20 billed annually, so $1,238.40 for the year. Ahrefs Lite is $129 a month. Its pricing page offers annual billing with savings of "up to 17%" but doesn't show the annual amount, and the page description elsewhere says 20%.
Tracking and site limits
Ahrefs Lite tracks 750 keywords and refreshes them weekly. SE Ranking Core tracks 2,000 daily across 10 projects, and Semrush SEO tracks 500 daily across five websites. For a freelancer with several client sites, the project count is the line to read. Ahrefs doesn't cap sites you have verified as your own, but unverified sites, including client sites you can't verify, are limited to five.
Adding a second person
Ahrefs Lite includes one user, and up to two more cost $40 a month each. SE Ranking sells extra manager seats from $16, and Semrush lists additional users starting at $45 a month.
A cheaper way in
Ahrefs Starter is listed at $29 a month. Semrush offers a seven-day free trial, and SE Ranking a 14-day trial with no credit card required.
Local shops
Google points small local businesses to its SEO Starter Guide, because the guide covers much of what a hired SEO would do. Paid tools for map rankings and business listings are covered in the local SEO tools guide.
Work out your own number: the SEO Tools Cost Calculator finds the cheapest published plan for your sites, tracked keywords and users.
Sources
Figures come from each vendor's own pricing pages and documentation. We have not tested these tools hands-on, and no ranking here is paid for.