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Is there a cheaper tool that can do what Ahrefs does?
Summary
Yes, but the cheaper options cut different things. Ahrefs' own Starter plan and Ubersuggest both start at $29 a month and suit one small site. If what bothers you is that Ahrefs only refreshes rankings weekly, SE Ranking Core tracks 2,000 keywords daily for the same $129 as Lite.
Where the $129 goes on Lite
Lite gives you five unverified projects (unlimited verified ones), 750 tracked keywords, 100,000 crawl credits a month and up to 25,000 pages per project in Site Audit. One user is included, and two more can be added at $40 a month each. Keyword rankings update weekly on every plan, Enterprise included.
Staying at $29
Ahrefs Starter keeps you inside Ahrefs with much less room:
- 200 credits a month (Lite has 1,000)
- one unverified project and 50 tracked keywords
- no exports and one month of historical data
- no extra users, and monthly renewal only
Ubersuggest's smallest plan tracks 125 keywords per project with weekly updates, exports up to 2,000 rows per report and keeps three years of link history. Its three plans sit between US$29 and US$99 a month. Its FAQ says the numbers are estimates built from several data providers, so don't expect its backlink counts and search volumes to line up with what you saw in Ahrefs.
If you need rankings every day
Moving up an Ahrefs plan doesn't change the weekly schedule. SE Ranking Core, at $129, tracks 2,000 keywords daily across 10 projects, and its pricing page lists keyword, competitor and backlink research as unlimited. Semrush SEO costs $139 for 500 daily keywords and five websites.
If Site Audit is all you use
Screaming Frog is a desktop crawler licensed per user at $279 a year, or $265 each for five to nine licenses. Crawl size on the paid version is limited by your computer's memory and storage, not by monthly credits. Sitebulb is the other desktop option; its Lite plan is for one user and audits up to 10,000 URLs.
Work out your own number: the SEO Tools Cost Calculator finds the cheapest published plan for your sites, tracked keywords and users.
Sources
- https://ahrefs.com/pricing
- https://help.ahrefs.com/en/articles/9419051-about-ahrefs-starter-plan
- https://app.neilpatel.com/en/pricing
- https://seranking.com/subscription.html
- https://www.semrush.com/pricing/seo-ai-search/
- https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/pricing/?wmc-currency=USD
- https://sitebulb.com/pricing/
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.