Ahrefs Alternatives 2026: Semrush, SE Ranking, Moz, SpyFu and More

The short answer: match the tool to your reason for leaving

People usually look for an Ahrefs alternative for one of three reasons: there is no free trial and, in general, no refund; Rank Tracker updates weekly on every plan; and on Lite, extra users are billed by how much they use the tool. Each alternative below fixes at least one of those problems, and none of them fixes all three while also matching Ahrefs on backlink data. So the useful question is not which tool is best. It is which problem you want gone. We read every price below from the vendor's own pricing page, from the US, on 12 October 2026.

If you want the same depth with daily rank tracking, look at Semrush. If you want the same entry price with a free trial, look at SE Ranking. If you want a cheaper tool with a refund promise, SpyFu and Mangools are the candidates. And if you only need data on your own sites, you may not need to leave at all, because Ahrefs Free covers verified sites at no cost. The sections that follow take each option in turn, starting with what you would be giving up.

What you give up, and why people still leave

Before switching, be clear about what Ahrefs does better than all of them. Ahrefs runs its own crawler and describes its index as the world's largest index of live backlinks, refreshed every 15 to 30 minutes. It lists 35 trillion backlinks in its history and 28.7 billion filtered keywords. Its own alternatives post argues that the backlink data is the whole point, with 72 data points per link. Lite also includes API and MCP access. None of the cheaper tools below offers an official MCP server, a 200,000-unit API allowance and Content Explorer's index of 22.5 billion pages under one login. That combination is rare at US$129 a month.

The gaps are just as concrete. Ahrefs offers no trial at all; its help center puts it bluntly: "We don't provide any free trials". There are no refunds in general ^[1], and Rank Tracker updates weekly, with daily tracking sold as a separate add-on. A fourth gap hits teams. On Lite, every extra user who opens more than five reports becomes a charge, and Ahrefs offers nonprofits nothing. For a solo link builder, none of this matters much. For an agency reporting rankings to clients every morning, it can decide the purchase.

Prices, seats and keyword allowances side by side

The entry prices sit close together, between US$99 and US$139 a month for the full plans, with SpyFu well below. The differences show up in billing terms and in what each extra person costs. Seats change the picture more than list prices do. Ahrefs Lite charges US$40 a month for each extra user, while Semrush starts at US$45, SE Ranking at US$16 and Moz at US$49, so a team of three ends up paying quite different bills for plans that look alike on paper.

What a team of three pays

Tracked keywords and annual discounts

Rank tracking allowances differ even more than prices. Ahrefs Lite tracks 750 keywords, updated weekly. Semrush's SEO plan tracks 500 a day, SE Ranking Core tracks 2,000 a day, and Moz Pro Standard tracks 300 across three sites. For an agency with thousands of client keywords, SE Ranking's allowance is in a different league. Annual billing also varies. Paying yearly saves 16.7% on Ahrefs, ten months for twelve, and Ahrefs makes you ask support to switch. Semrush advertises savings of up to 17%, SE Ranking and Moz both take 20% off, and Ubersuggest offers five months free on annual plans. The others offer annual billing at checkout.

Semrush: the closest like-for-like

Semrush is the obvious alternative for anyone who wants Ahrefs-level breadth. Its entry SEO plan costs US$139 a month, or US$117.33 a month billed annually ^[2], and it tracks 500 keywords daily. It also has a free plan with no credit card required, which gives you a way to test before paying. The product is broader than Ahrefs, with Local, Content, Social and Advertising toolkits priced on separate tabs of the same pricing page. For a marketing team that wants one vendor across channels, that breadth is the draw.

AI visibility on Semrush

Semrush folds AI visibility into its plans. Its Starter plan at US$199 a month adds 50 prompts tracked daily, one domain for AI brand performance and 300 AI visibility reports a day. Ahrefs includes five custom prompts a day on Lite and sells its full AI index from US$199. For AI tracking on a budget, Semrush gives more prompts per dollar.

Where Semrush falls short

Semrush is not cheaper. Its plan costs US$10 more a month than Lite, and extra users start at US$45, more than Ahrefs Lite's US$40. Many of its specialist tools are separate subscriptions, so a full stack costs far more than the headline plan. Since April 2026 it has also been part of Adobe.

For backlink research specifically, most SEOs still compare its data against Ahrefs before choosing. The fair way to do that is simple. Look up the same five competitor domains in Semrush's free tier and in Ahrefs' free backlink checker before paying either vendor. Semrush's own comparison page is useful too, but it is a vendor page with its own bias. Choose Semrush if daily rank tracking and a free plan for testing matter more than backlink depth. Choose Ahrefs if link research is your daily work.

SE Ranking: same price, friendlier terms

SE Ranking's Core plan costs US$129 a month, exactly like Ahrefs Lite, or US$103.20 a month billed annually ^[3]. The difference lies in the terms. It offers a free 14-day trial with no credit card, Core tracks 2,000 keywords daily against 750 weekly on Lite, extra seats start at US$16 a month, and API and MCP access come with every plan. For agencies on a budget, the Agency Pack is the other reason to look: it adds white-label reporting and client seats for US$69 a month, on annual billing only. SE Ranking also sells AI visibility tracking as an add-on from US$89 a month, or US$71.20 billed annually, while Core itself includes 100 prompts a day.

The data trade-off

SE Ranking is candid about its main gap. Its own FAQ admits that on search volume "SE Ranking's figures currently trail both competitors", meaning Ahrefs and Semrush. Its data page lists 5.4 billion keywords across 188 geographic databases and 2.2 billion domain profiles. Its backlink index counts 2.7 trillion links across 420 million domains, with 6 billion pages crawled daily, and it tracks 25.5 million AI prompts a month across five engines. All of these are smaller than Ahrefs' figures. Payments are also non-refundable, except where the service was not delivered as promised. The trial is what makes that rule tolerable. Our Ahrefs vs SE Ranking comparison goes through both products plan by plan.

Moz Pro: a familiar brand at the lowest full-plan price

Moz Pro starts at US$99 a month for Standard, or US$79 a month billed yearly ^[4]. A cheaper US$49 plan covers a single website. Standard includes one user, three tracked sites and 300 tracked keywords, plus 150 tracked AI prompts across four AI models, checked weekly. Moz offers a free trial, and a free Moz Community account gives limited access to MozBar, Keyword Explorer and Link Explorer. Moz also points registered 501(c)(3) nonprofits to a separate offer page, something Ahrefs does not match.

Bigger plans and the data behind them

The Medium plan costs US$179 a month, or US$143 billed yearly, with two user seats and 1,500 tracked keywords. Large costs US$299, or US$239 yearly, with three seats and 3,000 keywords. On data, Moz describes its API as built on an index of over 44 trillion links, while its Link Explorer page promises over 40 trillion. Its Keyword Explorer has a 1.25 billion+ keyword index. That is a large link index and a much smaller keyword set than Ahrefs' 28.7 billion. Domain Authority remains a widely quoted metric.

Where Moz falls short

Moz's annual price is quoted as US$950 billed for your first year, which leaves the second year open. Its tracked-keyword allowances are smaller, at 300, 1,500 and 3,000 across its three main plans. Extra seats cost US$49 a month on any plan, pricier than Ahrefs Lite's US$40. Moz suits small businesses that want a familiar name at US$99 and do not track large keyword sets.

SpyFu: competitor research on a budget

SpyFu is built around competitor keywords and ads rather than links. Membership starts at US$33 a month, about a quarter of the price of Ahrefs Lite. It promises unlimited data and downloads and a 30-day, no-questions-asked money-back guarantee. That last point matters to anyone burned by Ahrefs' refund rule. Downloads are SpyFu's real appeal. Ahrefs caps exports at 500,000 rows a month on Lite and allows none on Starter, while SpyFu offers unlimited downloads from its entry price. It also keeps a library of more than 200 video tutorials. For PPC research where you export full keyword lists for rivals, that difference counts.

SpyFu is narrower, though. It is not built around a live backlink index of the size Ahrefs describes. Its home page counts 7.2 trillion results across 152 million domains in its ranking index, which is a different kind of data from Ahrefs' link graph. Use it to watch competitors' search and ad strategy. Do not use it to replace link research.

Cheaper and narrower: Mangools, Ubersuggest and Similarweb

Mangools

Mangools sells three plans, aimed at solopreneurs, marketing teams and agencies. Its pricing page served us euro prices, so we do not quote a dollar figure. Its refund rule stands out: a full refund within 48 hours of payment if you are not satisfied, which is a firmer promise than anything Ahrefs makes, though it does not apply to two consecutive subscriptions. You can upgrade, downgrade or cancel at any time in the account, and it accepts Visa, Maestro, Mastercard, American Express and Discover, plus bank transfer. For a solo marketer testing a cheaper tool, it is the lowest-risk way to try.

Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest's own comparison table places its plans between US$29 and US$99 a month, while its pricing page served annual prices in euros, with five months free on annual billing. It suits solo site owners who need keyword ideas and basic audits. It is not a like-for-like replacement for Ahrefs' backlink data. Not even close.

Similarweb

Similarweb is the alternative for market and traffic research rather than SEO, and it does not publish self-serve prices on its pricing page. If your main use of Ahrefs is checking competitors' traffic, Similarweb measures it differently. If your main use is links, it is no alternative at all. Its strength is estimating visits and audience behavior across whole markets, not recording who links to whom, which is the job Ahrefs' crawler was built for.

Data size and AI visibility, compared

All the main rivals now sell AI visibility as well as search data. Ahrefs indexes 476 million prompts across six AI platforms. Semrush tracks 50 prompts a day on Starter, SE Ranking includes 100 prompts a day on Core, and Moz tracks 150 prompts weekly on Standard. If AI visibility is the reason you are shopping, compare included prompts, not just plan prices. The index sizes below need the same caution. Every vendor quotes its own numbers, measured its own way, so treat this table as a set of claims rather than a ranking. Size is not quality.

Staying inside Ahrefs: Free, Starter and a second tool

For many site owners, the best alternative to paying for Ahrefs is Ahrefs Free. It gives Site Explorer and Site Audit for any website you can verify, plus Web Analytics, Social Media Manager and the SEO Toolbar. It shows 1,000 backlinks and keywords at once and 5,000 crawl credits per verified site a month. You cannot research competitors with it. Among permanent free options for SEO data, the choice is short. Semrush has a free tier for trying the platform, and Moz offers a free community account with limited tools. SE Ranking has no permanent free plan, only its 14-day trial. Our guide to whether Ahrefs is free covers the free tier in detail.

Starter fills the competitor gap for US$29 a month, adding competitor lookups with 200 credits, but it is monthly only, with no extra users and no exports. As a cheap way to keep Ahrefs data in reach between bigger projects, it beats switching tools. As a full research plan, it is too small. That is why many teams do not switch at all. They keep Starter for occasional link checks, or Ahrefs Free for their own sites, and run daily rank tracking in a cheaper tool. Ahrefs' Project Boosts can also be bought without a paid plan, which adds always-on audits to a single site.

How to choose, and how to switch cleanly

Ask every candidate four questions. How often are rankings updated on the plan you can afford? How many users are included, and what does each extra one cost? Is there a trial or refund, and what are its conditions? How big is the backlink index, and how is it measured? Every vendor above answers some of these on its pricing page. None answers all of them.

Be wary of the vendors' comparison pages. SE Ranking's own page describes Ahrefs as often considered overpriced compared to other SEO platforms, which is a sales line rather than a measurement. Ahrefs' alternatives post argues that budget tools fall short and that 64% of SEO professionals trust its link data over competitors. Both are sales pages. Neither replaces a trial on your own sites.

Leaving Ahrefs itself is easy: you cancel from Account Settings, and the account drops to the free tier at the end of the period. Bringing data along is harder. SE Ranking offers free assisted migration with annual subscriptions. Rank history is the piece most teams want to keep, so export it before the paid period ends.

For most Ahrefs users, Semrush is the strongest like-for-like alternative and SE Ranking the best value. Moz suits small businesses that want a familiar brand. SpyFu suits PPC and competitor research. Mangools and Ubersuggest suit solo site owners. If your bill is the problem rather than the tool, read our Ahrefs pricing guide before you leave.

The bottom line

No alternative beats Ahrefs on backlink depth at the same price, but several beat it on terms. SE Ranking matches the entry price and adds a trial, daily tracking and cheap seats. Semrush matches the breadth with daily tracking for US$10 more a month. Moz and SpyFu cost less and suit narrower jobs. Choose the tool that fixes the specific reason you are leaving, test it on your own sites, and keep Ahrefs Free for the sites you own whatever you pick.