Best Ahrefs Alternatives in 2026 (Cheaper Options That Work)

Ahrefs is powerful. It's also expensive. The cheapest plan, Ahrefs Lite, costs $108 per month. If you're a small team or solo marketer, that's a significant chunk of your budget going to one tool.

The good news: you don't need Ahrefs to rank. Several alternatives deliver keyword research, backlink analysis, and site audits for 50-80% less. Some offer lifetime deals that pay for themselves in months.

This guide covers 8 verified Ahrefs alternatives with real pricing (as of February 2026), honest weaknesses, and what each tool does best. At the end, we'll cover how your blog platform can eliminate half the technical SEO issues that expensive tools like Ahrefs flag in the first place.

Quick Comparison: Ahrefs vs Alternatives

Prices verified February 2026. Annual billing where applicable. Some tools offer discounts or lifetime deals.

1. SE Ranking: Best Value All-in-One

SE Ranking delivers nearly everything Ahrefs does for less than half the price. You get keyword research, rank tracking, backlink analysis, site audits, and competitor research starting at $52 per month (annual billing).

The interface feels less polished than Ahrefs, but the data quality is solid. The rank tracker updates daily and supports local search tracking across 100+ countries. The backlink checker is reliable, though the index is smaller than Ahrefs.

What makes SE Ranking stand out is the breadth of features at this price point. You get a content marketing platform with AI writing assistance, a page changes monitor, and white-label reporting that agencies actually use.

Key Features:

• Keyword research with search volume and difficulty scores
• Daily rank tracking for unlimited keywords (higher plans)
• Backlink checker with toxic link detection
• Technical site audit (up to 1M pages on higher plans)
• Competitor analysis with traffic estimates
• White-label reports for agencies

Pricing: Essential $52/mo, Pro $95.20/mo, Business $191.20/mo (annual billing). Monthly plans available at higher rates.

Best for: Small to mid-size teams that need comprehensive SEO tools without enterprise pricing.

Weakness: The backlink index is smaller than Ahrefs, so you'll miss some links. For most sites, it's enough.

2. Ubersuggest: Best for Beginners

Neil Patel's Ubersuggest targets marketers who find Ahrefs overwhelming. The interface is simple, the learning curve is gentle, and the lifetime deal is hard to ignore. Pay once, use forever.

Ubersuggest covers the essentials: keyword ideas, content suggestions, backlink data, and site audits. The keyword tool pulls from Google Keyword Planner and adds competitive metrics like SEO difficulty and cost-per-click estimates.

The lifetime pricing makes it attractive for bootstrapped startups. Individual plan is $120 one-time, Business is $200, and Enterprise is $400. Compare that to $1,296 per year for Ahrefs Lite.

Key Features:

• Keyword research with volume, CPC, and difficulty
• Content ideas based on what's ranking
• Backlink analysis with new and lost links
• Site audit with actionable recommendations
• Rank tracking for 25-500 keywords
• Chrome extension for on-the-fly research

Pricing: Monthly: $29-99/mo. Lifetime: $120-400 one-time payment. Limited free version available.

Best for: Beginners and solo marketers who want a simple tool with lifetime pricing.

Weakness: Data accuracy lags behind Ahrefs and SEMrush. Fine for directional insights, less reliable for enterprise decisions.

3. Mangools (KWFinder): Best for Simplicity

Mangools builds five focused tools instead of one bloated platform. KWFinder handles keyword research, SERPChecker analyzes search results, LinkMiner finds backlinks, SiteProfiler tracks site metrics, and SERPWatcher monitors rankings.

Each tool does one thing well. KWFinder's keyword difficulty score is more accurate than most alternatives because it factors in actual link profiles of ranking pages, not just domain authority.

The pricing is transparent and affordable. Entry plan at $24.50 per month (annual) gives you 100 keyword lookups per day, 200 tracked keywords, and 2,000 backlink rows per month. That's enough for most small businesses.

Key Features:

• KWFinder with accurate difficulty scores
• SERPChecker with detailed SERP analysis
• LinkMiner for backlink research
• SERPWatcher for daily rank tracking
• Local keyword data for 50,000+ locations
• Chrome extension for quick lookups

Pricing: Entry $24.50/mo, Basic $34.50/mo, Premium $58.25/mo (annual billing). Monthly plans cost more.

Best for: Marketers who prefer simple, focused tools over complex dashboards.

Weakness: Lower limits on lookups and tracked keywords compared to competitors. You'll hit the ceiling faster as your site grows.

4. Moz Pro: Best for Domain Authority Tracking

Moz created Domain Authority (DA), the metric every SEO still references despite Google claiming it doesn't matter. If you track DA for your site and competitors, Moz is the logical choice.

Moz Pro includes keyword research, rank tracking, site audits, and backlink analysis. The Link Explorer database is smaller than Ahrefs but larger than most budget alternatives. You get accurate DA/PA scores updated regularly.

The Starter plan at $39 per month (annual) offers 150 keyword queries, 5 campaigns, and 10,000 crawled pages. That's tight for agencies but workable for small teams.

Key Features:

• Domain Authority and Page Authority metrics
• Keyword Explorer with SERP analysis
• Link Explorer with spam score
• Rank tracking with daily updates
• Site crawl with technical SEO recommendations
• On-page optimization suggestions

Pricing: Starter $39/mo, Standard $79/mo, Medium $143/mo, Large $239/mo (annual billing).

Best for: Teams that prioritize Domain Authority tracking and need reliable link data.

Weakness: The backlink index updates slower than Ahrefs. New links take weeks to appear.

5. Serpstat: Best for Agencies

Serpstat positions itself as the all-in-one SEO platform for agencies. You get rank tracking, keyword research, backlink analysis, site audits, and white-label reporting. The Individual plan at $55 per month (with current discount) supports 500 queries per day.

The standout feature is the Missing Keywords report. It shows keywords your competitors rank for that you don't, sorted by opportunity. This is faster than manually comparing keyword lists in spreadsheets.

Serpstat's interface feels dated compared to modern alternatives, but the functionality is solid. The Team plan at $129 per month allows multiple users and 2,000 queries per day, making it viable for small agencies.

Key Features:

• Missing keywords and competitor gap analysis
• Keyword clustering for content planning
• Backlink analysis with toxic link detection
• Rank tracking for 10,000+ keywords
• Site audit with crawl limits up to 10M pages
• White-label PDF reports

Pricing: Individual $55/mo (discounted), Team $129/mo, Agency $299/mo. Pricing fluctuates based on promotions.

Best for: Agencies managing multiple client sites with moderate budgets.

Weakness: Serpstat's backlink data is less comprehensive than Ahrefs. The index size is closer to Moz than Ahrefs or SEMrush.

6. SpyFu: Best for Competitor PPC Research

SpyFu focuses on competitive intelligence, especially for paid search. You can see every keyword your competitors have bought on Google Ads, their ad copy history, and estimated budgets. For SEO, you get keyword research, rank tracking, and backlink analysis.

The Kombat tool is addictive. Enter your domain and up to three competitors, and SpyFu shows you keywords they rank for that you don't, keywords you share, and opportunities to steal their traffic.

SpyFu's historical data goes back 15+ years for some domains. You can see how a competitor's SEO strategy evolved over time, which keywords they abandoned, and what worked.

Key Features:

• Unlimited keyword research (Basic plan)
• Competitor PPC ad history and budgets
• Kombat tool for head-to-head competitor analysis
• Backlink analysis with contact info for outreach
• Rank tracking with weekly updates
• Custom branded reports

Pricing: Basic $39/mo, Pro $119/mo, Team $299/mo (annual billing). Monthly plans available at higher rates.

Best for: Marketers running paid search campaigns who want competitive intelligence.

Weakness: SpyFu is US-focused. International data is limited compared to Ahrefs or SEMrush.

7. Keysearch: Best for Bloggers on a Budget

Keysearch is the cheapest option on this list that still delivers useful data. With the discount code PB30OFF, the Starter plan drops to $16.80 per month. That's 84% cheaper than Ahrefs Lite.

You get keyword research, SERP analysis, backlink checking, and rank tracking. The keyword difficulty score is calibrated for bloggers, focusing on page-level metrics rather than domain authority.

The YouTube keyword tool is a bonus. Enter a topic, and Keysearch pulls keyword ideas with search volume for YouTube. If you're creating video content alongside blog posts, this saves a separate subscription to TubeBuddy or VidIQ.

Key Features:

• Keyword research with difficulty scores
• Competitor SERP analysis
• Backlink checker with link metrics
• Rank tracking for 200-1,500 keywords
• YouTube keyword research
• Chrome extension for quick lookups

Pricing: Starter $16.80/mo (with PB30OFF code), Pro $48/mo (with code). Regular pricing is $24 and $68 per month.

Best for: Bloggers and affiliate marketers who need basic SEO tools without enterprise features.

Weakness: Limited to 50 keyword lookups per day on Starter plan. You'll burn through that quickly on research-heavy days.

8. SEMrush: Best Enterprise Alternative to Ahrefs

SEMrush isn't cheaper than Ahrefs. At $117.33 per month (annual), it's close to Ahrefs Lite pricing. But if you're comparing enterprise tools, SEMrush offers broader functionality for the same budget.

SEMrush excels at content marketing workflows. The Topic Research tool generates content ideas, the SEO Writing Assistant grades your drafts in real-time, and the Post Tracking tool monitors how your content performs after publishing.

The Position Tracking tool is faster than Ahrefs' rank tracker. You can track daily rankings for 500 keywords on the Pro plan, with updates that reflect SERP changes within hours, not days.

Key Features:

• Keyword research with 25.3 billion keywords
• Position tracking with daily updates
• Backlink analysis with Toxic Score
• Site audit for 100,000+ pages
• Content marketing platform with writing assistant
• Social media management and scheduling
• Competitive analysis across SEO, PPC, and display ads

Pricing: Pro $117.33/mo, Guru $208.33/mo, Business $416.66/mo (annual billing). Monthly plans cost significantly more.

Best for: Teams that need content marketing tools alongside SEO, or agencies managing multiple clients.

Weakness: SEMrush's interface is overwhelming for beginners. The learning curve is steeper than Ahrefs.

Before You Pay for Any SEO Tool

Here's what most SEO tools won't tell you: half the issues they flag in site audits shouldn't exist in the first place.

Run an Ahrefs Site Audit on most blogs, and you'll see warnings about missing JSON-LD schemas, broken sitemaps, slow page speed, missing meta descriptions, poor Core Web Vitals, and inefficient internal linking. These aren't research problems. They're platform problems.

Your blog platform should handle technical SEO automatically. If it doesn't, you're paying an SEO tool to find problems that a better platform would prevent.

Superblog eliminates these issues by default. Every post gets JSON-LD schemas for Article, Author, and Organization automatically. XML sitemaps generate and update without plugins. Pages hit 90+ Lighthouse scores without optimization. IndexNow protocol pushes new content to search engines instantly. LLMs.txt makes your content discoverable to AI models.

The editor suggests internal links as you write, pulling from your existing content based on topic relevance. You don't need a separate tool to map internal linking opportunities.

This means you only need an SEO tool for keyword research and backlink analysis. A $29 per month tool like Ubersuggest or Keysearch covers that. Add Superblog at $29 per month, and your total cost is $58 per month for blog platform plus SEO tools, compared to $108 per month for Ahrefs Lite alone, plus whatever you're paying for a blog platform that creates the problems Ahrefs finds.

See how Superblog handles technical SEO automatically: Blog SEO Tools: The Complete Stack

Start a free trial at superblog.ai.

How to Choose the Right Alternative

If you need the cheapest option that works: Keysearch at $16.80 per month delivers enough for bloggers and small sites. Use code PB30OFF.

If you want the best value: SE Ranking at $52 per month gives you enterprise features at mid-tier pricing. The data quality rivals Ahrefs for most use cases.

If you're new to SEO: Ubersuggest's lifetime deal at $120-400 removes the recurring cost anxiety. The interface is beginner-friendly.

If you prioritize simplicity: Mangools splits SEO into five focused tools. KWFinder's keyword difficulty scores are accurate and easy to interpret.

If you track Domain Authority: Moz Pro is the only tool with official DA/PA metrics. The $39 per month Starter plan works for small teams.

If you run an agency: Serpstat at $55 per month includes white-label reporting and supports multiple projects. The Team plan at $129 per month adds multi-user access.

If you run paid search campaigns: SpyFu at $39 per month shows competitor ad history and budgets. The PPC data is more detailed than SEO-only tools.

If you need enterprise features: SEMrush at $117 per month competes directly with Ahrefs and adds content marketing workflows.

Also consider: does your blog platform solve technical SEO automatically? If not, factor that cost into your decision. A platform like Superblog that handles schemas, sitemaps, speed, and internal linking means you can use a cheaper SEO tool focused on keywords and backlinks. Read more: How to Build a Blog for SEO

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a free Ahrefs alternative?

Ubersuggest offers a limited free version with 3 searches per day. Google Search Console and Google Keyword Planner are free but lack backlink analysis and competitor research. For serious SEO work, budget tools like Keysearch ($16.80/mo) or Mangools ($24.50/mo) are worth the investment. Free tools don't provide the data depth needed to compete in competitive niches.

Which Ahrefs alternative has the best backlink data?

SE Ranking and SEMrush have the largest backlink indexes after Ahrefs. SE Ranking's backlink checker is reliable for most sites at $52 per month. SEMrush offers more detailed backlink analysis but costs $117 per month. Moz Pro has a smaller index but updates DA/PA scores regularly, which matters if you track those metrics.

Can I use multiple cheap tools instead of one expensive tool?

Yes, and it often makes sense. Combine Ubersuggest ($29/mo) for keyword research with a blog platform like Superblog ($29/mo) that handles technical SEO automatically. Total cost: $58 per month for tools that cover keyword research, content creation, schemas, sitemaps, and speed optimization. Compare that to Ahrefs Lite ($108/mo) plus a separate blog platform. See the full stack approach: Best Blogging Tools for SEO

Do I still need Ahrefs if I use these alternatives?

Not for most sites. Ahrefs is overkill unless you manage enterprise sites with millions of backlinks or need hourly SERP updates. Small to mid-size businesses get everything they need from tools like SE Ranking, Mangools, or Moz Pro. The data is directionally accurate, which is enough to make smart decisions. Ahrefs' advantage is depth, not correctness. If you're not using advanced features like batch analysis or API access, you're overpaying. Check this guide for a practical SEO approach: Blog SEO Checklist