Last updated Jan 6, 2025
How Much Do Popular SEO Tools Cost?
Comparing Prices of SEO Software Platforms
SEO software comes in many shapes, sizes, and price points, ranging from free to rather expensive on a monthly cost basis.
What is easily affordable for a multi-person enterprise SEO team or large SEO agency may be quite out of reach for a small business with basic SEO needs for a single website, or a solo SEO consultant with a few clients.
The SEO software pricing comparison below will give you a good idea of the range of options available to you.
I’ll also cover some of the important differences to keep in mind when considering purchasing paid SEO tools.
This post contains a few referral links to select vendor partners. We may receive compensation for purchases made via these links, at no additional cost to buyers.
SEO Software Tools Cost Comparison — Pricing Focus
Wide Range of SEO Tools and Price Points
Conducting a good SEO software comparison requires looking into many aspects of the various SEO platform vendors — including standard and optional features, data limits, user-friendliness, and of course… monthly or annual software costs.
The table below captures SEO software costs for 18 vendors who offer SEO tools of various types. Most of these tools are ‘full-suite’ SEO software platforms, while others are focused on specific SEO tasks. (For example, Keywords Everywhere for keyword research metrics, Screaming Frog for website audits, and Majestic for extensive backlinks analysis.)
Most are cloud-based solutions (SaaS products), while a couple are desktop-based SEO platforms, which still offer important cost and feature advantages even in the age of online-only apps.
See the discussion areas below the pricing summary table for more description and context.
Where available, these price ranges are based on discounted ‘annualized pricing plans’, so the discounted annual cost is divided by 12 to determine the monthly cost figures.
Annual plans provide savings in the 10% to 40% range vs month-to-month billing, so definitely consider these options.
SEO Software Tools Pricing Comparison
| Vendor (Product) | Monthly Cost (Base Costs) | Pricing Tiers | Free Trial? | More Info |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ahrefs | $108 to $1249+ | 4 | Yes – limited (via Ahrefs Webmaster Tools) | Ahrefs Pricing |
| Clicks.so | $15 to $45+ | 3 | No – but 2-day money-back guarantee | Clicks Pricing |
| Keywords Everywhere | ~ $2 to $80+ (see notes below) | 4 | Yes – limited | Keywords Everywhere Pricing |
| Majestic | $42 to $333+ | 3 | No – but 7-day money-back guarantee | Majestic Pricing |
| Mangools | $30 to $90+ | 4 | Yes – limited free plan | Mangools Pricing |
| Moz (Pro) | $39 to $239+ | 4 | Yes – 30 days | Moz Pro Pricing |
| RankWatch | $26 to $382+ | 4 | Yes – 14 days | RankWatch Pricing |
| Raven Tools | $39 to $399+ | 5 | Yes – 7 days | Raven Tools Pricing |
| Ryte | Not Listed – (quote-based) | 2 | Not stated | Ryte Pricing |
| Screaming Frog (SEO Spider) | $0 to ~ $22+ | 2 | Yes – free desktop version | Screaming Frog Pricing |
| Semrush | $117 to $417+ | 3 | Yes – limited free plan | Semrush Pricing |
| SE Ranking | $52 to $207+ | 3 | Yes – 14 days | SE Ranking Pricing |
| Serpstat | $50 to $410+ | 3 | Yes – limited | Serpstat Pricing |
| SheerSEO | $8 to $32+ | 4 | Yes – limited free plan | SheerSEO Pricing |
| SEO PowerSuite | $0 to $50 (see notes below) | 3 | Yes – free desktop version | SEO Powersuite Pricing |
| SpyFu | $8 to $58+ (special offer) | 2 | No – but 30-day money-back guarantee | SpyFu Pricing |
| Ubersuggest | $29 to $99+ (plus ‘lifetime’ pricing) | 3 | Yes – 7 days | Ubersuggest Pricing |
| WebCEO | $83 to $251+ | 3 | Yes – 14 days | WebCEO Pricing |
Good to Know: Many SEO software vendors provide a few pre-priced plans and then a higher-end ‘enterprise/agency’ level with customized pricing. Also, watch for separately priced add-ons and perhaps usage-based fees that can increase your total monthly costs.
SEO Software Cost Comparisons — Similarities and Differences
As I mentioned above, most of these tools are full-suite, full-coverage SEO platforms that address virtually every activity of modern SEO work.
Features and capabilities of the popular all-in-one SEO software platforms typically include:
- Keyword research
- Topic clusters and keyword grouping
- Rank tracking for multiple search engines and geographies
- Tracking SERP features won or lost (e.g., ‘featured snippets’)
- Website audits (e.g., technical SEO site audits)
- SEO competitor analysis
- Content optimization
- Content gap analysis
- Content briefs and outlines
- AI writing support (some tools — a very fast-growing area!)
- Backlink profile analysis
- Link-building targeting/outreach
- Internal linking analysis and automation
- SEO reporting tools
- PPC analysis and support (some tools)
- Social media monitoring/analytics (some tools)
Pro Tip: The November – December timeframe usually brings good ‘Black Friday’, ‘Cyber Week’, and holiday discounts on many popular SEO tools. Take advantage of this annual sales period to help stretch your SEO software budget further! Also, see this post on finding good deals on SEO tools more generally.
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Several of the tools above are introduced further in this post on affordable SEO tools.
These platforms and tools are useful in a wide range of industries and organizations, including those doing SEO for B2B companies, B2C and e-commerce, government, educational, and non-profits.
Some of the tools in the table are more focused on specific areas, by design.
For example, Keywords Everywhere is focused solely on keyword research and uses a system of paid credits to provide keyword metrics.
Screaming Frog is a desktop-based website crawler (SEO spider) that comes in two flavors: free and paid. It’s highly regarded as a website SEO audit tool but is not designed to cover the other aspects of SEO.
Cloud-Based vs Desktop SEO Apps
Two of the solutions above are primarily or exclusively desktop-based: Screaming Frog and SEO PowerSuite.
SEO PowerSuite is actually now more like a hybrid ‘desktop plus cloud’ SEO platform.
Its tools leverage users’ local desktop/laptop processing power and storage to remove data limits and help keep their cloud infrastructure costs in check. It then adds cloud-based features that make sense.
SEO PowerSuite cloud features include ‘server-side’ (cloud-based) rank-checking in the Pro and Enterprise versions. This speeds up rank-checking while shielding the IP address of the user’s PC from Google, Bing, etc.
(This also means no annoying Captchas to solve when Google thinks your automated rank-checking queries may be from a bot.)
They also now have a cloud-based backlink checker here. It’s free to try and is a good intro to their SEO SpyGlass backlink profile analysis features.
Related: Learn more about desktop vs cloud-based SEO tools here. Also, see my SEO PowerSuite review and ideal use cases post.
Check SaaS SEO Tools for Data and Usage Limits
For any of the SaaS-based SEO platforms, be sure to check the pricing tier details for data and/or usage limits.
Here’s an example from Semrush. The allowances (upper limits) on projects and keywords increase across the three pricing tiers. Other SaaS SEO tools have similar data limits.
SaaS-based SEO platform usage restrictions will usually come in the form of limits on:
- User logins
- Active SEO projects allowed
- Keywords tracked
- Tracking frequency (daily, weekly, etc.)
- Keyword suggestions
- Backlinks discovered
- Reports per day
- Keyword reports per month
- Target search locations
- Pages crawled for website audits
- Competitors tracked
- Scheduled SEO reports
- Etc.
To avoid surprises, just be sure to buy into the pricing tier that covers what you need now and in the near future. Also, check to make sure you can upgrade or downgrade your plan without hassle, unexpected delays, or extra one-time fees.
The ‘Desktop Plus Cloud’ SEO Advantage
SEO PowerSuite also allows storing projects in your SEO PowerSuite Cloud account, syncing settings between the PowerSuite applications and leveraging the cloud for SEO reporting tasks.
In my opinion, SEO PowerSuite offers a good balance of using both local PC and cloud infrastructure. It also helps keep SEO PowerSuite’s pricing at the lower end of the cost spectrum compared to many of the premium cloud-only SEO tools.
Good to Know: The desktop nature of SEO PowerSuite also means you can have unlimited SEO projects, unlimited keywords, etc. Everything is stored locally on your machine, at least initially, so there’s no real need for the vendor to impose data limits.
Pro Tip: You can use an SEO PowerSuite Cloud account to backup project data and also as a way to share projects between machines running SEO PowerSuite. Useful for small SEO teams leveraging one or perhaps a few software licenses.
Here’s an example from the SEO PowerSuite editions and pricing page.
SEO PowerSuite and other desktop apps simply do not have the cloud infrastructure cost limitations that cloud-only tools like Ahrefs and Semrush have. This means you won’t have unexpected add-on costs due to needing more keyword checks, reporting rows, and other SEO data-driven cost drivers.
Related: Learn more about why SEO tools are so expensive, and several good Ahrefs alternatives to consider.
Speaking of Ahrefs alternatives (or Semrush and Moz alternatives too), the Mangools SEO toolkit is often thought of as a budget-friendly alternative to the more premium SEO software suites.
Toolkits like Mangools, SEO PowerSuite, SpyFu, Ubersuggest, and others in the ‘value-focused’ pricing range are especially good for small business SEO needs when marketing tools budgets are tighter as compared to midsized and enterprise firms.
SEO Software Trials and Free Versions
As with most freemium SaaS software, the cloud-based vendors in the comparison table offer free trials of varying lengths, but typically at least 7 days.
Some are up-front about the trial duration, while a few want you to register first before all details are revealed. (There’s always a hook somewhere, right?)
I’d say that a 7-day trial is really a bare minimum for a full-suite SEO platform. 14 days is much better. Moz Pro is more reasonable and generous with a 30-day trial period.
SpyFu doesn’t offer a free trial period upfront but does come with a 30-day no-hassle money-back guarantee. Clicks.so and Majestic also offer (shorter) money-back guarantees.
New SEO Software Pricing Models
SEO software is a hotly-competitive, ever-evolving segment that continues to change and adapt.
One such evolution is the idea of highly-discounted ‘lifetime’ pricing, as offered by Ubersuggest.
Another is the approach of offering tempting multi-year discounts, as SEO PowerSuite has done.
Since we know that SEO takes time to build momentum and show ROI, making longer-term commitments to a good SEO platform can make very good sense indeed. These pricing models, when available, help make that decision easier.
The ‘Free Forever’ Desktop SEO Advantage
Screaming Frog and SEO PowerSuite both offer ‘free forever’ versions of their tools, rather than a time-limited trial period. That’s a strong advantage for the desktop-based vendors, even though their free versions are feature-limited vs the paid editions.
With these options, you can at least take more time getting to know the software features and capabilities while deciding if a paid level makes sense for you.
Good to Know: With SEO PowerSuite, you can’t actually save an SEO project with the free version. It’s really best for evaluating features and then deciding if you want to move up to the Pro or Enterprise editions via paid licenses. SEO PowerSuite Free also works as a ‘point-in-time’ SEO toolkit, letting you run spot checks of keyword rankings, website and page-level audits, backlink profiles, etc.
Related: Also learn how SEO PowerSuite analyzes organic search competitors and see this SEO competitor analysis checklist.
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SEO Software Pricing Comparison — Closing Thoughts
SEO Tools for All Budget Levels
Comparing SEO software is not always easy, and the cost component is just one factor to consider when choosing your best SEO platform. The cost comparison table above is just a sampling of the platforms and tools available today, but it’s very representative of the price ranges out there.
Some of the tools in the SEO industry are completely free, like many SEO vendor browser extensions and the ‘free forever’ versions of some desktop SEO applications.
Most vendors have the typical tiered pricing structure with a starter level at the lower end of the price range, up through enterprise SEO or agency team solutions, and customized packages at the upper end.
If you’re working in SEO and need to move beyond all the free SEO techniques and options available, then it’s time to dive into your own SEO tools comparison, focusing on the specific needs of your business or organization.
One or more of the platforms and tools highlighted above may be worth a close look and trial evaluation.
Questions or Comments?
I hope this SEO pricing comparison table and discussion has been helpful!
Here are a few closing questions for you:
- What SEO platform, tool, or set of tools do you currently use?
- What do you see as the pros and cons of your approach to using SEO tools?
- Which SEO software tools have been a big help to you? And which ones have turned out to be less helpful and not worth the money and time invested?
Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments area below! Thanks for any social shares as well.