18 Best Ahrefs Alternatives (Free and Paid) for All Your SEO Needs

Why should you know about the best Ahrefs alternatives?

In today’s competitive market, the need for Search Engine Optimization is at an all-time high.

And that only makes sense.

When done right, SEO can help brands understand as well as reach new customers quickly.

However, SEO can be time-consuming and overwhelming at best. And Google’s constant algorithm updates don’t make things any easier.

But there’s good news.

There are a number of online tools—both free and paid, that you can delegate your SEO tasks to.

As you may already know, Ahrefs is one of the best SEO tools in use today. From backlink analysis to keyword research to competitor analysis, Ahrefs comes with a suite of spectacular features. These can help you boost your website’s traffic and ranking significantly.

That being said, Ahrefs can be a bit expensive for small businesses and freelancers.

So, in this article, we bring to you 10 of the best alternatives to Ahrefs. While some of them offer better features, the rest are simply more cost-efficient.

The point being—there’s going to be something for everybody.

Let’s get started.

Disclaimer: This content contains some affiliate links for which we will earn a commission (at no additional cost to you). This is to ensure that we can keep creating free content for you.

Top Ahrefs Alternatives to Consider in 2023

Did you know that Google accounts for almost 90% share of all the online searches done using search engines?

And even if you manage to get on the first page of Google, it’s the top positions that count. The first search result gets an average click rate of 31.7% and this number decreases drastically as you move down the page, reaching 3.09% for the 10th spot.

Image via Backlinko

These numbers only go to reiterate the importance of SEO for businesses.

If you don’t manage to cut through the internet noise, you will never be found by leads. And this is exactly why there is a growing demand for online SEO tools.

However, finding the right one for your needs will require some digging around.

So, we’ve handpicked 10 of the best Ahrefs alternatives that will improve your SEO game, and eventually your bottom line.

Continue reading to learn about them, their features, pros, cons, and more.

1. Semrush

Image via Semrush

First on our list of Ahrefs alternatives has to be Semrush. Semrush positions itself as an Online Visibility Management Platform. It is trusted by 7 million marketing professionals from across the globe.

What’s so good about this tool, you may ask?

Let’s find out why Semrush is the best Ahrefs alternative.

Features

• Advanced keyword research made possible by a massive database of 20 billion keywords.
• The Semrush Writing Assistant checks the SEO potential of written content in real-time.
• Using Semrush, users can unveil their competitors’ marketing strategies in minutes.
• It shows detailed insights in the form of beautiful charts and figures that are easy to comprehend.
• The tool helps you find the most suitable keywords for PPC campaigns, thus optimizing your advertising spend.
• Provides you with a list of broken links related to your as well as your competitors’ domains.
• Semrush provides SEO analysts with an SEO toolkit to conduct site audits.
• Similar to Ahrefs’s site explorer, Semrush can provide you with SEO data related to any website or URL.

Pros

• Spectacular keyword analysis that separates organic keywords by difficulty level.
• Semrush acts as a one-stop shop for optimizing all sorts of online content.
• Provides SERP analysis and search volume for keywords.
• You can connect your site’s Google Analytics and Search Console to Semrush.

Cons

• The interface could do with some design improvements.
• Since there are so many things this platform does, it can be hard to focus on what you really need.
• It’s a bit expensive compared to other SEO tools.

Tool Level

• Intermediate/Expert

Usability

• Since Semrush has so many features, it can be a bit difficult to navigate at the start. Still, it is the best Ahrefs alternative so far.

Pricing

Semrush comes with a free trial for 14 days. It also offers a free plan with certain limitations in your ability to pull out data. To make the most of the tool, consider subscribing to one of its three paid plans:

• Pro – $119.95 per month
• Guru – $229.95 per month
• Business – $449.95 per month

Case Study

• Learning with Experts is a global classroom community that offers a range of online courses.
• Back when they approached one of Semrush’s agency partners Re:signal, they had the poorest organic visibility as compared to competitors.
• Re:signal used Semrush to help Learning with Experts improve their online visibility. Together, they identified keywords opportunities, improved site health and structure, and created new blog content.
• The result? A 59.5% growth in organic sessions, driving a 94.9% boost in revenue.

Pro Tip: Join the Semrush All-Stars Facebook group for advanced marketing discussions and the opportunity to learn about upcoming Semrush features.

2. Moz

Image via Moz

Millions of digital marketing experts place their trust in Moz to rank first on the search engine results page. Founded in 2004, this Ahrefs alternative is especially useful if you work in a highly competitive field—for instance, travel.

It allows you to learn everything about what your competitor is doing right (and wrong). Similar to Ahrefs, with Moz, you can even compare your visibility on Google with your competitors’ side-by-side.

Given the ease of SEO, MOZ is the best Ahrefs alternative for beginners. Needless to say, Moz also comes with a range of other powerful features such as site audits, traffic analytics, keywords suggestions, etc.

Features

• With a feature-rich SEO toolkit, Moz can crawl any website on demand (up to 500,000 pages) to conduct site audits and pinpoint SEO-related issues such as broken links, missing title tags, and more.
• A feature exclusive to Moz is Page Authority (PA). In simple words, PA is a score ranging from 1 to 100, which predicts how well a page will rank on Google.
• A Keyword Explorer tool that unearths data on all important metrics such as search volume, keyword difficulty score, and so on.
• Similar to Ahrefs’s site explorer, Moz’s domain overview tool can provide you with SEO data related to any website or URL.

Pros

• Moz comes with a Chrome extension called MozBar, which is available with all the subscription plans.
• A bunch of guides, tutorials, posts, and community forums for new users to get acquainted with the tool.
• Provides SEO analysts with SERP analysis and search volume for desired keywords.
• You can connect your site’s Google Analytics and Search Console to Moz.

Cons

• Its dashboards are quite complex and hard to understand at first.
• There can be several limitations on the number of actions you can perform depending on the plan you are subscribed to.
• Most useful features can only be accessed via Moz Pro.

Tool Level

• Beginner/Intermediate/Expert

Usability

• Moz is extremely easy to use even for beginners.

Pricing

Interested users can try Moz for free for 30 days. Check out the pricing plans for Moz Pro below:

• Standard – $99 per month
• Medium – $179 per month
• Large – $249 per month
• Premium – $599 per month
• Enterprise – must be customized as per your requirements.

Pro Tip: Use Moz’s “are questions” feature to find popular queries that you can then address in your blog posts. This will present you with several opportunities to get your content in the Google SERP’s Featured Snippets.

3. Serpstat

Image via Serpstat

Serpstat markets itself as an all-in-one SEO platform for professionals. It is packed with several useful optimization features that are beneficial for digital marketing agencies, in-house SEO teams, SMBs, and enterprises alike.

Let’s find out what makes Serpstat such a good Ahrefs alternative.

Features

• Serpstat leverages keywords collection and analysis based on regional search results.
• A powerful text analytics tool that helps optimize any page’s textual content for search engines as well as readers.
• One of the best rank tracker tools that unearths a wealth of possibilities for users to rank better on search engines.
• Serpstat offers API access for every tool with every paid pricing plan.
• The ability to spy on competitors’ ads and optimize ad spending.

Pros

• A variety of languages are supported by Serpstat’s keyword database.
• Advanced SEO toolkit for SEO needs that won’t break the bank.
• The tool is constantly improving itself—for instance, 25,000 keywords are updated every minute.
• Compared to Ahrefs, it doesn’t have all the SEO tools.

Cons

• Site audits for websites with a large number of pages can take really long.
• Its backlink analysis tool has room for growth.

Tool Level

• Intermediate/Expert

Usability

• Serpstat comes with a slight learning curve.

Pricing

You can start using Serpstat for free and test out its features. Once satisfied, you can opt for one of the following paid plans:

• Lite – $69 per month
• Standard – $149 per month
• Advanced – $299 per month
• Enterprise – $499 per month

Pro Tip: If you’re struggling to get acquainted with Serpstat’s many features, check out Serpstat Academy—a free learning center for new users, that will help you come off with flying colors.

4. SE Ranking

Image via SE Ranking

SE Ranking is a comprehensive online solution for SEO and online marketing professionals. However, it’s not your usual SEO toolkit. It also comes with powerful social media analytics tools, giving users more bang for the buck.

Now, there’s a reason why over 500,000 people worldwide use SE Ranking.

Let’s find out!

Features

• A robust keyword grouping tool that helps users segment keywords and plan the SEO architecture of their website.
• Users can get deep insights into their competitors’ website traffic dynamics including traffic estimate, traffic cost, and keywords driving traffic to their website.
• Comprehensive marketing checklists that provide detailed and customized strategies based on the best SEO practices.
• A spectacular site audit tool that scans everything down to the finest details—from web pages to links to images to website speed.

Pros

• The customer support team is prompt and reliable.
• The data-rich reports generated by the tool are extremely in-depth yet easy to read.
• It is competitively priced.

Cons

• SE Ranking needs to be made more mobile-friendly.
• Sometimes, the backlink database seems incomplete, making it an unreliable Ahrefs alternative.
• Compared to Ahrefs, SE Ranking doesn’t have all the necessary SEO tools.

Tool Level

• Beginner/Intermediate

Usability

• It is extremely easy to use for SEO experts and beginners alike.

Pricing

SE Ranking offers a 2-week free trial without the need for a credit card. Browse through its paid plans here:

• Essential – $31 per month
• Pro – $71 per month
• Business – $151 per month

Pro Tip: Consider delegating your social media marketing tasks to SE Ranking to make the most of your money.

5. Mangools

Image via Mangools

Widely touted for its ease of use, visualizations, and spectacular UX, Mangools is a bit different from the rest of the Ahrefs alternatives.

Unlike Ahrefs, it’s not a bunch of integrated features. Instead, it is a bundle of five completely different tools, viz. KWFinder, SERPChecker, SERPWatcher, LinkMiner, and SiteProfiler.

Mangools is trusted by big names such as Alexa, Skyscanner, Airbnb, and adidas, and for good reason.

Features

• Mangools’ keyword analysis tool generates keywords you can easily rank for, along with the most accurate keyword difficulty.
• The SERPChecker unravels the weak and strong points of your competitors, thus empowering you to outrank them.
• The SERPWatcher leverages rank tracking in more than 50k locations.
• Mangools comes with a vast database of almost 10 trillion backlinks.

Pros

• The data that Mangools produces is extremely accurate.
• Mangools accepts payments by credit/debit cards, bank transfers, and even cryptocurrency.
• A beautiful UI that is very easy to navigate.
• A dedicated rank tracking tool.

Cons

• It would be great if Mangools charged on a per-tool basis.
• It lacks some principal features such as site auditing.

Tool Level

• Beginner/Intermediate

Usability

• The main reason why Mangools is one of the best Ahrefs alternatives is its ease of use and trillions of backlinks data.

Pricing

Interested users can use Mangools for free for 10 days. After the end of the free trial, you can subscribe to one of the following plans:

• Mangools Basic – $29.90 per month
• Mangools Premium – $39.90 per month
• Mangools Agency –  $79.90 per month

Pro Tip: Mangools comes with several special discounts for new users. While some of them are offered on occasions such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you may also be lucky to get a special time-limited early-bird discount after registration.

6. BuzzSumo

Image via BuzzSumo

Unlike other tools mentioned in this list, BuzzSumo isn’t directly related to SEO and isn’t a full-fledged Ahrefs alternative. However, BuzzSumo is one of the best content marketing tools whose content ideas are effective.

Now, we know what you’re thinking—why does BuzzSumo make it to the list of best Ahrefs alternatives?

It’s simple. Content marketing and SEO are closely related to each other. If the content is the king, the content ideas generator should be the kingmaker.

After all, your site won’t rank if its content isn’t up to the mark, will it? Here are the reasons why BuzzSumo is awesome for searching for content ideas and marketing.

Features

• BuzzSumo generates thousands of relevant keywords and content ideas by browsing topics, trends, and forums.
• BuzzSumo has the world’s largest index of social media engagement data, and brings users the most popular content in any niche.
• A suite of tools to help you identify relevant influencers on Instagram, Twitter, and the web.
• BuzzSumo empowers users to monitor social media comments, trends, brand mentions, industry updates and more, so that you never miss a beat.

Pros

• BuzzSumo has up to 5 years of content performance data to help marketers with content ideas.
• BuzzSumo offers several filtering options based on language, geography, domain, and more.
• One of the very few Ahrefs alternatives that come with a free trial as well as a free account.

Cons

• BuzzSumo can be a little expensive for small businesses and solo entrepreneurs.
• BuzzSumo doesn’t offer necessary SEO tools such as keyword rank tracking, traffic analysis, etc. Hence, it cannot be considered as a complete alternative to Ahrefs.

Tool Level

• Beginner/Intermediate/Expert

Usability

• BuzzSumo is relatively easy to learn and use.

Pricing

Interested users can avail of a free trial for 30 days. Unlike most other Ahrefs alternatives, BuzzSumo also offers a free plan with the limitation of 10 searches a month. Check out its paid plans below:

• Pro – $99 per month
• Plus –  $179 per month
• Large – $299 per month

Case Study

• Award-winning creative SEO agency Rise at Seven wanted to scale its business and win new customers without compromising on its quality of work.
• Its PR team used data from BuzzSumo’s Content Analyzer and Content Analysis Report during its daily brainstorming sessions.
• Over time, the Rise at Seven team saw spectacular results, including landing a $400K pitch, and time-saving.

Pro Tip: If you are only just starting out with keyword research for your brand and have limited requirements, stick to using BuzzSumo’s free account.

7. SpyFu

Image via SpyFu

Next up, let’s take a look at an intelligent Ahrefs alternative – SpyFu.

SpyFu is a competitive intelligence tool for local SEO and PPC. As the name suggests, SpyFu helps you refine your online marketing strategy by ‘spying’ on your competitors and making their successes your own.

Here’s what makes it a solid alternative to Ahrefs:

Features

• SpyFu empowers its clients to research their competition, and learn about every place they’ve shown up on Google, every organic rank, every ad variation, and every keyword they’ve bought in the past 15 years.
• A Google Ads Advisor that recommends the most profitable keywords (such as exact-match or long-tail keywords) you aren’t yet capitalizing on.
• The capability to unearth insightful backlink data about your competitors.
• Custom branded SEO reports for you to land, impress, and retain clients easily.
• SpyFu also enables users to identify and target influencers whose links will help them rank on specific keywords.

Pros

• SpyFu offers unlimited access to data no matter which pricing plan you choose.
• Data is beautifully represented in the form of charts and graphs, making it a user-friendly alternative to Ahrefs.
• A one-stop shop for anybody who wants to leverage competitor research.

Cons

• Sometimes, SpyFu has inaccuracies with PPC reporting.
• The UI can seem a bit cluttered, making it hard to find what you’re looking for.
• Basic features such as white labeling are missing in lower-tier plans.
• Compared to Ahrefs, SpyFu doesn’t have all the essential SEO tools such as keyword rank tracking and site audits.

Tool Level

• Intermediate/Expert

Usability

• Owing to the high number of features and big sets of data, SpyFu can be tricky to use for beginners.

Pricing

SpyFu comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. As for paid plans, there are three options:

• Basic – $39 per month
• Professional – $79 per month
• Team – $299 per month

Pro Tip: If a decent chunk of your work involves PPC campaigns or paid ads, invest in SpyFu without thinking twice. However, if you’re a blogger or SEO agency, consider other Ahrefs alternatives.

8. GrowthBar SEO

Image via GrowthBar SEO

If you’re looking for a simple, no-bullshit alternative to Ahrefs for your SEO needs, trust GrowthBar SEO to do the job for you.

GrowthBar SEO offers the most critical SEO data about any website in a clean dashboard. It’s built using open AI, meaning that the results and recommendations are as accurate as they can get.

Features

• With GrowthBar SEO, you get access to billions of keyword suggestions, keyword difficulty levels, and related long-tail keywords.
• It helps you curate the best content for any topic by generating comprehensive content outlines.
• You can quickly view any website’s backlink profile.

Pros

• Like Ahrefs, all of GrowthBar SEO’s plans offer unlimited keyword research.
• An exceptionally clean and delightful dashboard that will give you an overview of your SEO performance in seconds.

Cons

• GrowthBar SEO isn’t a great tool for complex SEO needs.
• Its backlink checker is too basic, making it the least competent alternative to Ahrefs.
• Its Pro and Agency plans are a bit too expensive for the features offered.

Tool Level

• Beginner/Intermediate

Usability

• GrowthBar SEO is pretty simple to use, and even beginners can learn the ins and outs of it in no time.

Pricing

A 5-day free trial is available. Take a look at its paid plans:

• Standard – $29 per month
• Pro – $79 per month
• Agency – $129 per month

Pro Tip: Install GrowthBar SEO’s free Chrome Extension to unearth key SEO insights while surfing the web.

9. WebCEO

Image via WebCEO

WebCEO is a cloud-based platform equipped with a set of 22 powerful SEO tools. It also comes with a white-label service, making it easy for its customers to customize reports as per their needs.

Features

• A multi-channel keyword research tool that fetches popular keywords and keyword phrases (in all the variations, including exact-match and long-tail keywords) from the Google search bar autocomplete, the People Also Ask box, and other sources.
• One of the best SEO audit tools that helps users clean up any technical on-site issues.
• A Rank Tracker to monitor your and your competitors’ rankings on over 370 local and global search engines.

Pros

• WebCEO is now available in as many as 24 languages.
• You can easily connect WebCEO with Google Analytics and Search Console.

Cons

• Its user interface could do with major improvements.
• There should be more drag and drop options.

Tool Level

• Beginner/Intermediate

Usability

• WebCEO is easy to use with heaps of guidance and tutorials to guide you along the way.

Pricing

WebCEO offers a free trial for 14 days. Check out its paid plans:

• Solo – $35 per month
• Startup – $99 per month
• Agency Unlimited – $99 per month + scanning fees
• Corporate – $299 per month

Pro Tip: Check out WebCEO’s DIY SEO checklists to increase organic website traffic.

10. SEOquake

Image via SEOquake

Last on our list is SEOquake, a free Ahrefs alternative. It’s an easy-to-use browser plugin that gives detailed SEO-related information on any website. It’s been downloaded more than 3,000,000 times, and here’s why you should too.

Features

• The SEObar gives an instant SEO summary for any webpage you’re browsing.
• It gives you a thorough analysis of SERPs, and the results can be easily exported in CSV format.
• Detailed and structured reports on all keywords found on the concerned webpage.

Pros

• It works for a number of browsers including Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Edge, etc.
• It gives you tips to improve your website’s infrastructure.

Cons

• It’s a bit clunky and appealing in its design.
• There aren’t any tutorials or guides available for new users.

Tool Level

• Beginner

Usability

• SEOquake is an easy-to-use extension irrespective of the browser you’re using.

Pricing

• SEOquake is absolutely free of cost.

Pro Tip: If you’re on the lookout for a free SEO tool that analyzes websites and their backlinks quickly, SEOquake is what you need.

11. Ubersuggest

Image via Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest is one of the most affordable yet value-packed Ahrefs alternatives in the market that help digital marketers to rank top on the search engine. Starting at just $12 per month. You will struggle to find an SEO tool with a better price tag.

Ubersuggest also has a competitive free-forever plan. By simply creating an account, you will gain access to features like daily rank tracking, keyword research and suggestions, and personalized SEO recommendations which are a boon for content marketing.

Prices aside, Ubersuggest is also an ideal Ahrefs alternative because it offers great performance. Here are some of its key features.

Features

• Keyword discovery tool to identify profitable keywords in any niche.
• Keyword metrics like referral or organic traffic volumes, trends, keyword difficulty rating, and more.
• Like Ahrefs, Ubersuggest offers a site audit feature to find SEO issues affecting a website and suggest potential fixes.
• A rank tracking software that provides daily ranking updates.
• Domain overview feature to analyze any URL or the entire domain.
• Content suggestion tool for effective content marketing.

Pros

• One of the most affordable SEO tools and Ahrefs alternatives in the market
• Free plan for anyone operating on a limited budget
• Paid plans that come with SEO training and support
• Provides SERP analysis and search volume for keywords.
• Easy to use
• A chrome extension
• Offers a limited number of keywords research every day for free.

Cons

• The price goes up if you want to manage more than three sites
• Sometimes the site audit takes too much time to generate reports

Tool Level

• Beginner/Intermediate

Usability

• Easy to use

Pricing

Ubersuggest’s offers a 7-day free trial on its paid plans. If you’re pleased with the performance, you can upgrade to one of these paid plans:

• Individual – $12 per month
• Business – $20 per month
• Enterprise/Agency – $40 per month

Pro Tip: Sign up for the lifetime package to get better value for your money. The lifetime plans are much cheaper than other SEO tools on the market!

12. Majestic

Image via Majestic

Majestic is one of the Ahrefs alternatives focused on backlink profile analysis. This is the tool you want to go for if your primary focus is to get comprehensive link intelligence.

The software solution generates critical link intelligence metrics like trust flow, topical trust flow, citation flow, visibility flow, and flow metric scores. This data gives you a wholesome picture of every link pointing to a particular website.

Features

• Powerful link crawler
• Link context analysis tool that scans the elements around a backlink
• Site comparison tool to compare up to ten domains side by side
• Majestic API that shares data conveniently with other applications and platforms

Pros

• Majestic has an extensive backlink index
• Proprietary metrics like trust flow, topical trust flow, citation flow, etc., give you deep insights into the quality of backlinks

Cons

• Outside backlink analysis, the tool does very little to support your overall SEO efforts. Therefore, it’s not ideal if you want an all-in-one SEO platform
• The software solution has a pretty steep learning curve
• The UX could be better
• Compared to Ahrefs, Majestic doesn’t include all the vital SEO tools.

Tool Level

• Intermediate/Expert

Usability

• Majestic has a bit of a learning curve

Pricing

Majestic has three paid plans. You can also choose between a monthly and annual billing cycle. Of course, you’ll save more cash if you go for the latter.

• Lite – $49.99 per month
• Pro – $99.99 per month
• Full API – $399.99 per month

Pro Tip: Consider Majestic if your work revolves around backlink analysis or link building. Otherwise, you should go for one of the more comprehensive Ahrefs alternatives.

13. SEO Powersuite

Image via SEO Powersuite

SEO Powersuite is one of those Ahrefs alternatives that give you all the SEO tools you need at a fraction of the cost as that of Ahrefs. It has all the key features of Ahrefs including rank tracking, backlink profile analysis, keyword research, site audit, competitor analysis, and SEO reports.

However, unlike other Ahrefs alternatives, SEO Powersuite is not a cloud-based tool.

Features

• SEO SpyGlass to analyze the backlink profiles of your competitors
• Rank Tracker for keyword research and competitor analysis.
• An anti-penalty link auditor that pinpoints harmful links pointing to your website
• LinkAssistant to manage backlinks and see all backlink data in one dashboard
• LinkAssistant can also show the top domains that link to your competitors’ websites but not yours
• A website auditor that scans a website automatically and sends alerts of any technical issues affecting it
• It also helps SEO executives with keyword rank tracking and SERP analysis.

Pros

• You can manage email correspondences with other webmasters from the LinkAssistant dashboard.
• Monitor social media metrics directly from this tool.
• You can optimize page content for your target organic keywords from the platform.

Cons

• It lacks the convenience of using a cloud-based tool. You can’t access your data from anywhere on any device.
• You’ll require decent RAM to run this software solution.
• Generating reports takes quite a lot of time.

Tool Level

• Beginner/Intermediate/Expert

Usability

• SEO Powersuite is one of the easy-to-use Ahrefs alternatives that works on Mac, Windows, and Linux computers.

Pricing

SEO Powersuite has a limited Free Forever plan. You must upgrade to the premium plans to access more features. There are two packages to choose from:

• Professional – $299 per year
• Enterprise – $699 per year

Pro Tip: Check out the SEO Powersuite knowledge base for training materials on how to get the most out of this software.

14. Keyword Planner

Image via Keyword Planner

Go with this free Ahrefs alternative if you are interested in the keyword research element of Ahrefs. It’s also an ideal option if you don’t have any budget to spare for keyword research.

Keyword Planner is a free keyword research tool offered by Google and its search volume data is accurate. It helps you discover new keywords and phrases, and shows the estimated monthly organic traffic of those keywords.

You may also like the Google Keyword Planner for the simple fact that it shows bid estimates for each keyword. This is helpful if you’re planning on running ad campaigns.

Features

• The Find Keywords feature gives you thousands of keyword suggestions based on the primary keyword you enter.
• The keyword explorer tool also lets you find keyword ideas based on phrases. For example, you can use “best SEO tools” to find alternative keywords and phrases.
• The Keyword Planner can generate keyword ideas from URLs. This feature can be used to spy on competitors.
• Provides you with accurate search volume data for keywords.

Pros

• It’s a free tool for keyword research.
• This keyword explorer tool is good for local SEO as it can filter keyword results by location

Cons

• You must run an ad campaign to access additional insights like the exact monthly organic traffic of specific keywords.
• Keyword planner cannot replace Ahrefs entirely as it lacks critical SEO features like backlink analysis and site audit. It’s only useful if you’re looking for keyword ideas for your content marketing campaigns.

Tool Level

• Beginner/Intermediate

Usability

• This is one of the Ahrefs alternatives that are really easy to use

Pricing

Keyword Planner is a free tool.

Pro Tip: Use Keyword Planner’s “Top of Page Bids” to identify lucrative keywords. Keywords with the highest bids tend to convert better, so you should try to rank for those.

15. Monitor Backlinks

Image via Monitor Backlinks

Monitor Backlinks is a great option for anyone looking for easy-to-use and affordable Ahrefs alternatives. As the name suggests, the tool has a backlink monitor and analyzer that gives you insights into a website’s backlink profile.

In addition to the backlink analysis tool, it also has a keyword research and tracking tool. This helps you monitor how your target organic keywords are performing on the search engine results pages.

Features

• Customizable backlink management dashboard to manage all the links pointing to a website.
• Advanced link filter filtering options based on various metrics.
• Disavow rules to automatically add links you don’t want to a disavow list which you can download and upload to the Google disavow tool.
• Facilitates keyword rank tracking.

Pros

• A 30-day free trial
• Automatic alerts for backlink removals

Cons

• Monitor Backlinks is not a complete SEO tool like Ahrefs. It doesn’t have a keyword research tool, for example.
• The price is on the high end, considering it only performs backlink analysis and keyword tracking and is not one of the all-in-one Ahrefs alternatives.

Tool Level

• Beginner/Intermediate

Usability

• Monitor Backlinks is a fairly easy-to-use backlink checker

Pricing

Monitor Backlinks doesn’t have a free forever plan, but it has a 30-day free trial. You can then upgrade to any of the following plans:

• Start – $25.00 per month
• Plus – $47.40 per month
• Professional – $89.91 per month
• 5F4C – $106.16 per month
• 7D4C – $139.92 per month
• 10D4C – $187.42 per month

You can contact the team for a custom plan.

Pro Tip: From the backlink dashboard, you can tag specific backlinks and monitor their performance over time. This is a great feature for monitoring any link-building campaigns you’re running.

16. Raven Tools

Image via Raven Tools

Raven Tools is one of the few Ahrefs alternatives on this list that packs all the features of Ahrefs. This platform has everything from a site-auditor and SERP rank tracker to a backlink checker and keyword research tool.

Let’s go through the Raven Tools’ features which makes it a great Ahrefs alternative.

Features

• The social media management dashboard lets you manage social campaigns across Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and even YouTube from one place.
• The link spy feature generates link-building ideas by showing you the backlinks pointing to your top competitors.
• The platform has marketing reporting tools that produce accurate and actionable reports.
• It can generate white label client reports, PPC campaign reports, call tracking reports, social media reports, and more.
• The 3-in-1 competitor research tool makes it very easy to reverse engineer your competitors’ strategies. It lets you compare SEO metrics, site performance metrics, and social metrics.
• Google Data Studio allows you to connect multiple accounts and bring tons of segmented data to one place.

Pros

• It offers a complete suite of SEO tools that makes it an awesome Ahrefs alternative.
• With the low-tier plan starting at $39.99/month, this all-in-one tool is also budget-friendly.
• Offers a keyword research tool for SEO and PPC.

Cons

• Some users report bugs and other technical errors
• The user interface could be better

Tool Level

• Beginner/Intermediate/Expert

Usability

• Raven Tools is a relatively easy to use Ahrefs alternative

Pricing

Raven Tools offer monthly and annual billing options. Annual billing is cheaper, helping you save up to 30%. Here are the various plans that it offers:

• Small Biz – $39 per month
• Start – $79 per month
• Grow – $139 per month
• Thrive – $249 per month
• Lead – $399 per month

You can purchase the Google Data Center tool separately. It starts at $60 per month, allowing you to manage up to 20 accounts.

Pro Tip: If you feel confused or overwhelmed with the tools, head over to the resources section. You will find video tutorials on how to use every tool and feature that this platform offers.

17. cognitiveSEO

Image via cognitiveSEO

As one of the more expensive Ahrefs alternatives, cognitiveSEO offers plans starting from $90 per month. The price shouldn’t put you off, though, because the platform has quite the collection of SEO and marketing tools.

Let’s take a look at some of the top features that make it one of the best Ahrefs alternatives.

Features

• Content optimization tool helps you refine your content to outrank the competition by providing metrics like keyword density, word count, and readability score.
• The site audit feature finds SEO issues and can also help you with conversion rate optimization.
• CognitiveSEO has a Google Penguin penalty recovery tool that can detect unnatural links, so you can get rid of these before your website is penalized.
• The CognitiveSEO API allows you to integrate the data from this SEO tool with your own application. This feature is very handy for webmasters and digital marketing agencies.
• Provides a dedicated tool for keyword rank tracking.

Pros

• The all-in-one platform has all the critical SEO tools you need, which makes it the perfect Ahrefs alternative.
• The SEO dashboard is fully customizable, making it easier to filter the noise and focus on the most important metrics.
• It supports report scheduling that ensures marketing reports are sent to clients automatically.

Cons

• It’s a bit expensive
• Competitor analysis takes a lot of time
• The UI is not very user-friendly
• Doesn’t offer a dedicated keyword research tool.

Tool Level

• Intermediate/Expert

Usability

• CognitiveSEO has a bit of a learning curve, mainly due to the not-so-friendly user interface

Pricing

It has three payment plans with both monthly and annual billing options. Here are the various plans that it offers:

• Starter – $89 per month
• Premium – $209 per month
• Elite – $349 per month

Pro Tip: Take advantage of the free trial to test this software solution before investing in it. If you don’t like what it has to offer, consider other cheaper Ahrefs alternatives.

18. Linkody

Image via Linkody

Linkody is one of the Ahrefs alternatives that focus on backlink analysis. This is an ideal option if you want a simple tool to support your link-building campaigns.

Linkody lets you in on your competitors link building strategies. The tool displays links pointing to your competitors and not you. It also shows the competitor’s pages attracting the most backlinks. Use these insights to improve your link-building strategy.

In addition to helping you build links, it also shows potentially harmful links and initiates the process of disavowing them.

Linkody’s disavow feature lets you set parameters to detect and catch suspicious links. You can use the spam score to identify harmful links, for example. Once the links are identified, the tool will add them to a disavow file which you can then upload on Google’s disavow software.

Features

• Powerful competitor analysis tools
• Numerous link building features
• Automatic alerts for when you gain or lose a backlink
• Disavow feature to remove unwanted links

Pros

• Linkody comes with a 30-day free trial and you don’t have to enter your credit card details for it.
• The tool provides 24/7 backlink monitoring
• It generates Whitelabel reports in the form of PDFs

Cons

• Linkody provides only backlink analysis and not all of Ahrefs’ SEO features like keyword research and tracking.
• The UI could be better

Tool Level

• Intermediate

Usability

• Linkody is fairly easy to use once you get used to its interface

Pricing

Linkody is an affordable backlink checker. Check out its monthly plans:

• Webmaster – $14.90 per month
• Advanced – $24.90 per month
• Pro – $49.90 per month
• Agency – $99.90 per month
• Agency XL – $153.90 per month

Pro Tip: The annual plans are not only cheaper than the monthly packages but also come with a 3-month free offer. So, go with the annual billing cycle to get better value for your money.

FAQs

Q1. Is there a free alternative to Ahrefs?

A. Yes. SEO tools such as Semrush, BuzzSumo, and SEOquake are great Ahrefs alternatives that come with free and paid plans.

Q2. Which is better Ahrefs vs Semrush?

A. Both Ahrefs and Semrush are great SEO tools with their own pros and cons. However, Semrush also provides data relating to PPC, giving users more bang for the buck. What’s more, Semrush is much more generous in terms of the number of reports that can be generated each day.

That being said, you must assess your needs closely before choosing one of the two tools.

Q3. How do I get a free Ahrefs account?

A. Ahrefs neither offers a free trial nor a free plan. However, if you pay annually, you can enjoy 2 months for free on whichever plan you choose.

Q4. Which is the best SEO tool?

A. Some of the best SEO tools (both free and paid) are:

• Semrush
• Moz
• Serpstat
• SE Ranking
• Mangools
• BuzzSumo
• SpyFu
• GrowthBar SEO
• WebCEO
• SEOquake

Q5. What is Ahrefs and how does it work?

A. Ahrefs is an all-in-one SEO toolset that offers features such as SERP analysis and traffic analytics. Ahrefs crawls the entire web 24/7 and has the world’s largest third-party database of search queries. It has a solid backend infrastructure that can help you up your SEO game.

Q6. Who is Ahrefs’ biggest competitor?

A. Some of the top Ahrefs competitors are:

• Semrush
• Moz
• BuzzSumo
• Serpstat
• SpyFu

Q7. What is SEO and how does it work?

A. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a digital marketing strategy that focuses on helping a website or piece of content rank higher on Google. SEO can be categorized into two buckets—on-page SEO and off-page SEO, both of which can help your website rank better.

Q8. How do I optimize my website?

A. Some ways to optimize your website are as follows:

• Audit your website data
• Conduct keyword research
• Optimize for on-page and off-page SEO
• Update your content
• Speed up your site’s pages
• Earn quality backlinks

Q9. Can I do SEO myself?

A. Yes. You can definitely do SEO yourself. However, a quick and effective way to get started is by investing in an SEO tool. There are several free and paid online tools you can pick from.

Q10. What are some of the best SEO tools for businesses?

A. Some of the best SEO tools you can use for your business are as follows:

• BuzzSumo: The best tool to improve your content marketing strategy
• Mangools: The best tool for individuals and small businesses
• SpyFu: The best tool for competitor research

Which of these Ahrefs Alternatives Should You Choose?

Clearly, there are several free and paid Ahrefs alternatives you can choose from.

When zeroing in on a tool, make sure you look into the exact features you need.

Some people want tools only for keyword research, while some are primarily concerned with competitor research.

Remember that given the huge number of SEO tools available, you can definitely find one that is equipped to meet your needs as well as your budget.

Simply be patient, do your research, and keep this listicle of Ahrefs alternatives handy.

And most importantly, keep in mind: SEO is the Swiss army knife of digital marketing. Do it right, and you’ll see your business reach new heights.

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