Finding the best Ahrefs alternatives has become a top priority for many digital marketers this year. While Ahrefs remains a market leader with its extensive data, recent changes to its pricing model—specifically the credit-based consumption system—have made it less accessible for freelancers and agencies on a tight budget.
You do not need to endure unpredictable costs to access high-quality SEO data. The software landscape has evolved, and there are now numerous powerful tools capable of matching Ahrefs in functionality. Whether you need to master SEO marketing or simply track your rankings, choosing the right software is the first step toward a more efficient workflow.
In this guide, we have ranked the top 10 tools that handle keyword research, site audits, and competitor analysis just as effectively as Ahrefs.
Eduma – Education WordPress Theme
We provide an amazing WordPress theme with fast and responsive designs. Let’s find out!
1. Semrush
Semrush is widely regarded as the number one Ahrefs alternative for professional marketers. It is not just an SEO tool. It is a comprehensive digital marketing suite. While Ahrefs built its reputation on backlinks, Semrush has always excelled in keyword data, paid advertising insights, and content marketing features.
If your goal is to learn how to rank higher on Google, Semrush provides the granular data required to understand search intent and outrank your competition.
Key Features
- Keyword Magic Tool: A massive database containing over 25 billion keywords. It offers variations and questions to help you structure content.
- Traffic Analytics: Reveals the sources of your competitors’ traffic and their user behavior.
- On-Page SEO Checker: Provides actionable recommendations to improve your content’s performance.
- PPC Toolkit: Extensive data on ad copies and cost-per-click metrics, which is generally considered superior to Ahrefs.
Best For
Semrush is the best choice for full-stack marketers and agencies who require an all-in-one platform for SEO, PPC, and social media.
Pricing
- Starter: $199per month.
- Pro+: $299 per month.
- Advanced: $549 per month.
2. SE Ranking
SE Ranking is widely recognized as the “best value” option in the industry. It offers a robust set of features that rivals the enterprise giants but at a fraction of the cost. It is a scalable Ahrefs alternative that grows with your business. They offer flexible pricing plans based on how frequently you need to check your rankings.
Key Features
- Keyword Rank Tracker: Highly accurate tracking across all major search engines. It is frequently cited as one of the best SEO ranking checker tools for its precision.
- Website Audit: Detects technical errors and suggests fixes to improve site health.
- Competitor Analysis: Provides deep insights into organic and paid traffic strategies of rival domains.
- White Label: Allows agencies to generate branded reports for clients effortlessly.
Best For
This tool is perfect for small businesses, freelancers, and mid-sized agencies looking for powerful data without the enterprise price tag.
Pricing
- Essential: Starts around $52 per month.
- Pro: Starts around $100 per month.
- Business: Starts around $200 per month.
3. Moz Pro
Moz Pro is a legendary name in the SEO world. They are the creators of “Domain Authority” (DA), which is a metric used globally to judge website strength. Moz focuses on clean data and a user-friendly experience. They also offer a suite of free utilities. These are often considered some of the best free Google SEO tools available, such as the popular MozBar extension.
Key Features
- Link Explorer: Analyze your backlink profile with metrics like Spam Score and DA.
- Keyword Explorer: Prioritizes keywords by “Difficulty” and “Opportunity” scores.
- Page Optimization: Detailed suggestions to improve content relevance for specific keywords.
- Crawl Diagnostics: Identifies critical issues like duplicate content and broken redirects.
Best For
Moz is ideal for beginners and in-house marketing teams who value high-quality educational resources and a clutter-free interface.
Pricing
- Starter: $39 per month.
- Standard: $79 per month.
- Medium: $143 per month.
- Large: $239 per month.
4. Mangools
If you find the dashboards of Ahrefs or Semrush too complicated, Mangools is the solution. It is a bundle of five distinct and easy-to-use apps. It is often praised as a top Ahrefs alternatives free from complexity. For users specifically looking for the best free keyword rank checker tools or low-cost paid equivalents, Mangools’ “SERPWatcher” app is incredibly intuitive.
Key Features
- KWFinder: Famous for finding low-difficulty long-tail keywords that are easy to rank for.
- LinkMiner: A backlink checker that shows you the preview of the link placement on the source site.
- SERPWatcher: Tracks your rankings and calculates a “Dominance Index” to show your overall market share.
- SiteProfiler: A quick aggregation of essential domain metrics.
Best For
Mangools is the go-to choice for bloggers, affiliate marketers, and UI/UX-conscious users who need essential data fast.
Pricing
- Basic + AI SW PRO: $43.85 per month.
- Premium : $56.85 per month.
- Agency: $95.85 per month.
5. Serpstat
Serpstat began as a simple keyword research tool but has evolved into a complete “growth hacking” platform. It is a highly affordable Ahrefs alternative that packs a surprising amount of functionality. Recently, they have integrated modern technology. This positions them alongside the top AI search engine optimization tools by offering AI-driven content generation and analysis.
Key Features
- Batch Analysis: Check metrics for up to 100,000 domains or keywords at once.
- Missing Keywords: Shows you exactly which keywords your competitors are ranking for that you are missing.
- Text Analytics: Uses AI to cluster keywords and analyze top-ranking pages for semantic relevance.
- Site Audit: Rapid crawling to find technical issues affecting indexability.
Best For
Serpstat is suitable for growth hackers, SaaS companies, and agencies that need to process large amounts of data on a budget.
Pricing
- Individual: $69 per month.
- Team: $129 per month.
- Agency: $499 per month.
6. Ubersuggest
Founded by Neil Patel, Ubersuggest is often the entry point for many new website owners. It effectively bridges the gap between high-end and budget software because it allows significant usage for free before requiring a subscription. It is a fantastic Ahrefs free alternative for basic keyword discovery.
Key Features
- Content Ideas: Generates listicles and blog topics based on high-performing competitor content.
- Traffic Estimates: Visualizes monthly traffic trends and paid search costs for any domain.
- Keyword Visualization: Shows volume, difficulty, and cost-per-click (CPC) data clearly.
- Chrome Extension: Provides SEO data directly on Google search results pages.
Best For
Ubersuggest is excellent for solo entrepreneurs, bloggers, and small businesses with limited marketing budgets.
Pricing
- Individual: $120.
- Business: $200.
- Enterprise: $400.
(Note: They often offer a “Lifetime” deal, which is a one-time payment).
7. SEO PowerSuite
Unlike the cloud-based SaaS tools on this list, SEO PowerSuite is a desktop application suite that runs on your computer (Windows, Mac, or Linux). This architecture allows it to process unlimited data without the expensive server costs passed on to the user. It includes “WebSite Auditor” and is widely regarded as one of the best SEO audit tools for technical deep dives.
Key Features
- Rank Tracker: Check unlimited keywords without daily limits.
- WebSite Auditor: Visualizes site structure and optimizes individual pages.
- SEO SpyGlass: A massive backlink index for researching competitor link profiles.
- LinkAssistant: A dedicated CRM for managing link-building outreach campaigns.
Best For
This software is ideal for heavy-duty users, agencies, and consultants who prefer a one-time purchase or lower annual fees for unlimited data.
Pricing
- Free Version: Functional but cannot save projects.
- Professional: $349 per year.
- Enterprise: $599 per year.
- Max+: $899 per year.
8. Majestic
Majestic is a specialist tool. It does not try to do everything. Instead, it focuses almost entirely on backlinks. It creates a map of the internet’s link structure. If your primary focus is off-page SEO and link building, Majestic is a powerful Ahrefs alternative offering proprietary metrics that are industry standards.
Key Features
- Trust Flow & Citation Flow: Metrics that evaluate the quality (trustworthiness) and quantity (power) of links.
- Topical Trust Flow: Determines the niche relevance of a website based on who links to it.
- Link Context: A new feature that shows where a link is located on a page.
- Historic Index: Access backlink data going back several years.
Best For
Majestic is indispensable for link-building experts and technical SEOs who need the most granular backlink data available.
Pricing
- Lite: $49.99 per month.
- Pro: $99.99 per month.
- API: Starts at $399.99 per month.
9. SpyFu
SpyFu takes a unique angle by focusing heavily on competitor intelligence. While it is capable of standard SEO tasks, its main strength is historical data. It is a strong Ahrefs alternative if you want to spy on your competitors’ paid advertising history. You can see exactly what they bought and how their ad copy evolved.
Key Features
- PPC Research: Download your competitors’ entire Google Ads history.
- SEO Research: See every keyword a domain ranks for and the value of that traffic.
- Keyword Kombat: A visualization tool that shows keyword overlaps between multiple domains.
- Unlimited Access: Most plans offer unlimited searches and data exports.
Best For
SpyFu is the ultimate tool for marketers who manage both organic (SEO) and paid (PPC) campaigns and need to analyze competitor spending.
Pricing
- Basic: $39 per month.
- Pro + AI: $59/1st month ($119/month thereafter).
- Team / Agency: $249/month
10. Raven Tools
Raven Tools is built specifically for agencies that need to generate client reports. It aggregates data from various sources (including Moz, Majestic, and Google) into one centralized dashboard. Because of its flexibility, it is considered one of the best SEO reporting tools for presenting data to clients.
Key Features
- Report Builder: Drag-and-drop interface to create automated, professional reports.
- Site Auditor: Crawls websites to find desktop and mobile issues.
- SERP Tracker: Flexible ranking tracking with daily updates available.
- Integrations: Seamlessly connects with Google Analytics, Search Console, and social media networks.
Best For
Raven Tools is best for digital marketing agencies that need to streamline their reporting process and manage multiple clients efficiently.
Pricing
- Small Biz: $39 per month.
- Start: $79 per month.
- Grow: $139 per month.
Conclusion
Selecting the right software is a strategic decision. While Ahrefs offers excellent data, the Ahrefs alternatives highlighted in this guide offer diverse solutions ranging from comprehensive enterprise suites to budget-friendly toolkits.
To make the best choice, you should consider how these platforms fit into your broader stack of must-have digital marketing tools. If you are specifically looking for cost-effective options, reviewing the best free & paid SEO marketing tools is a great next step.
Finally, if Semrush is your top pick but the price remains a concern, checking out specific best Semrush alternatives might help you find the perfect balance between functionality and budget.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. What is the best free alternative to Ahrefs?
While no single free tool matches Ahrefs completely, a combination of Google Search Console (for performance data), Google Keyword Planner (for search volume), and the free version of Ubersuggest can cover most basics.
2. Which tool has the best backlink data after Ahrefs?
Majestic and Semrush are the top contenders. Majestic has a massive historical index, while Semrush has a very active bot that discovers new links quickly.
3. Why are users leaving Ahrefs?
The primary reason is the pricing structure. Ahrefs moved to a model where users are charged "credits" for almost every action. This includes clicking filters or opening reports, which can make the tool very expensive for heavy users.
4. Is Semrush better than Ahrefs?
For many users, yes. Semrush offers a broader range of features. This includes social media and PPC tools, which Ahrefs lacks. Semrush also provides more generous data limits on its lower-tier plans.
5. Can I use these tools for local SEO?
Yes. Tools like SE Ranking, Semrush, and Moz Pro all have dedicated features for tracking local rankings (Google Maps) and managing local citations.
Read more: A Guide to The 14 Best Email Marketing Platforms
Contact US | ThimPress:
Website: https://thimpress.com/
Fanpage: https://www.facebook.com/ThimPress
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ThimPressDesign
Twitter (X): https://twitter.com/thimpress
