The best Ahrefs alternatives, compared on price and backlink data

Ahrefs Lite costs €115 a month for one user, there is no free trial, and on Starter and Lite each report you open and each filter you change uses a credit. If that does not fit how you work, these are the alternatives worth a look:

• Semrush (€124 a month) is the other large all-in-one suite, with its own backlink index and ad research.
• SE Ranking (€109 a month) has unlimited backlink research on its entry plan and a 14-day trial with no card.
• Moz Pro (€88 a month) has its own link index and the Domain Authority metric many link sellers quote.
• Serpstat (€61 a month) covers backlinks, keywords and audits with daily request limits.
• Mangools (€61 a month, or €37.70 billed yearly) bundles a backlink tool, LinkMiner, with keyword research and rank tracking.
• Ubersuggest (€290 once, for a lifetime plan) suits one site that needs the basics.
• zaDojo (€10 a month with €10 of usage included) is our product, built for working through Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or Codex.

We make zaDojo, so read this page with that in mind. Every competitor price comes from the vendor's own pricing page on the date shown above, as our editorial policy requires. Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz and Serpstat list prices in US dollars; we show them in euros converted at 1 EUR = 1.1225 USD (ECB rate, 19 October 2026), so the amount you pay depends on your card's exchange rate. SE Ranking, Mangools and Ubersuggest showed euro prices when we checked, and we quote those as shown.

Ahrefs alternatives at a glance

When Ahrefs is still the right choice

Keep Ahrefs, or move up to Standard, if:

• Link building, digital PR or link audits are your main job. Ahrefs runs its own crawler and refreshes its backlink index every 15 to 30 minutes.
• You need long history. Standard keeps 2 years and Advanced 5 years.
• You want Content Explorer, Portfolios or Batch Analysis, which come with Standard (€222) and up. Standard also removes the credit limit.
• You want to study any brand across Brand Radar's AI answer indexes, which is a paid add-on.

If you only need data for your own site, you may not need a paid plan at all. Ahrefs Free shows backlinks and keywords for sites you verify, and audits them. It does not include keyword research or rank tracking. The full plan and credit rules are on our Ahrefs pricing page.

zaDojo

zaDojo is one plan at €10 a month, and the €10 comes back as usage credits. A domain or backlink overview costs about €0.10 and a keyword research search about €0.07, so the credits pay for data, not for clicks in the interface. There are no seat fees, and MCP works on every account, so Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or Codex can pull backlinks and referring domains for you and two or three competitors, then save a report.

• Backlink data comes from DataForSEO, with about a year of history in the overview. Ahrefs keeps more history and crawls on its own.
• Google Search Console and Google Analytics reads, saved reports and plain site audits use no credits.
• Ahrefs Rank Tracker updates weekly, with 750 keywords on Lite. Tracking 750 keywords weekly in zaDojo costs about €10 a month.
• Twelve agent skills, including Link Prospecting, guide your agent through common jobs.

Choose zaDojo if you check links now and then rather than all day, and want the agent you already use to do the research. Our zaDojo vs Ahrefs page compares the two in detail.

Semrush

The SEO plan costs €124 a month (€105 billed yearly) for one user, 5 websites and 500 keywords tracked daily. MCP access starts on Starter at €177. Semrush builds its own backlink index with its own crawler, and Pro+ (€266) keeps history for the main country databases back to January 2012. There is a 7-day trial with a card, and a free account with 10 requests a day.

Choose Semrush if you want a second large suite and also run paid ads, since its Advertising toolkit covers competitors' ad copy and paid keywords. See Semrush pricing and Semrush alternatives.

SE Ranking

Core costs €109 a month, or €87.20 billed yearly, for 10 projects, one manager seat, 2,000 keywords tracked daily and 100 AI prompts tracked daily. Keyword, competitor and backlink research are unlimited on Core, and both plans include API credits and MCP access. Growth is €235 (€188 billed yearly) for 30 projects and 3 seats. The 14-day trial needs no card.

Choose SE Ranking if Ahrefs' credit counting is the main complaint and you want daily rank tracking in the same plan.

Moz Pro

Standard costs €88 a month, or €70 billed yearly, with 5,000 backlink queries a month, up to 10,000 results per backlink query, 300 tracked keywords and 3 tracked sites. Medium (€159, or €127 yearly) raises that to 20,000 backlink queries and 1,500 tracked keywords, and it is the plan with a 7-day trial. Moz says its link index holds more than 44 trillion links.

Choose Moz Pro if your link partners or clients quote Domain Authority and you want the source of that metric. See Moz alternatives for the other direction.

Serpstat

Individual costs €61 a month, or €45 billed yearly, with 100 searches a day across site, keyword and link analysis and up to 2,000 results per backlink report. Team, at €115 (€89 billed yearly), raises that to 10,000 results, 500 searches a day and 3 users, and adds the API, MCP and 1,500 AI visibility checks a month. The 7-day trial needs a card, verified with a refundable $1 charge.

Choose Serpstat if you want backlinks, keywords and audits in one tool at about half of Ahrefs Lite.

Mangools

Basic costs €61 a month, or €37.70 billed yearly, with 100,000 backlink rows a month in LinkMiner, 100 keyword lookups a day and 200 tracked keywords updated weekly. Premium (€81, or €52.70 yearly) raises backlinks to 500,000 rows and Agency (€141, or €97.70 yearly) to 1.2 million. Every plan includes API and MCP access. Mangools refunds in full within 48 hours of payment.

Choose Mangools if you check a few link profiles a week and want a simple tool that also does keyword research.

Ubersuggest

On the day we checked, Ubersuggest showed only lifetime plans: €290 once for Individual, with 2,000 backlink rows per report, 3 years of link history and one project. Business is €490 and Enterprise €990. Monthly plans come with a one-time 7-day trial, but the page did not show monthly prices. Lifetime purchases are not refundable, and Ubersuggest has no API.

Choose Ubersuggest if you own one site and want occasional backlink checks without a subscription.

Free Ahrefs alternatives

For your own site, you may not need to pay at all:

• Ahrefs Free (formerly Ahrefs Webmaster Tools) is Ahrefs' own free plan for sites you verify: up to 1,000 backlinks and 1,000 keywords visible at once, and Site Audit with 5,000 crawl credits per project a month.
• Google Search Console is free, lists the sites that link to you and shows measured clicks, impressions and positions for up to 16 months.
• Semrush's free account needs no card and gives one project, 10 analytics requests a day and 10 tracked keywords.
• zaDojo's free backlink checker shows any domain's link strength, referring domains and strongest linking sites, with one free search a day and no account.

None of these shows a competitor's full backlink profile. For that you need a paid tool, and the cheapest options are below and on the cheap SEO tools page.

How to pick

• Backlinks are your full-time job: stay with Ahrefs, probably on Standard.
• You want a second big suite with ad research: Semrush.
• You dislike credits and want generous limits: SE Ranking.
• You want a simple, cheap tool for a few sites: Mangools or Serpstat.
• You already work through an AI agent, or check links only now and then: zaDojo.

For more budget options, see cheap SEO tools.

Questions people ask

Is there a free alternative to Ahrefs?

Ahrefs' own free plan, Ahrefs Free, covers backlinks, keywords and audits for sites you verify. Google Search Console also lists the sites that link to you. For competitors' backlinks you need a paid tool or pay-per-use credits.

What is the cheapest Ahrefs alternative for backlinks?

zaDojo, if you pay per lookup: a backlink overview costs about €0.10, inside the €10 plan. Among flat subscriptions, Mangools at €37.70 a month billed yearly and Serpstat at €45 a month billed yearly.

Which tool has the biggest backlink index?

Each vendor counts its index differently. Ahrefs reports 35 trillion external backlink records in its history, Semrush 43 trillion links and Moz more than 44 trillion. The figures are not measured the same way, so compare tools on a domain you know well.

Is Ahrefs Starter a good alternative to Lite?

Only for light use. Starter costs €26 a month with 200 credits, 50 tracked keywords and a month of history, and it has no MCP or API access.

Related pages

• zaDojo vs Ahrefs
• Ahrefs pricing
• Semrush alternatives
• zaDojo pricing and the free tools