ComparezaDojo vs Ahrefs
zaDojo vs Ahrefs: cost, backlink data and AI agent access
Ahrefs runs its own crawler and meters clicks with credits on its cheaper plans. zaDojo is a €10 plan built for working through an AI agent. Here is how to choose.
By Denis VeisllariPrices checked on
No credit card needed.
Choose Ahrefs if backlinks are the center of your work, if you need two to five years of history, or if you want to study any brand across a large database of AI prompts. Choose zaDojo if you want SEO and AI visibility data inside the agent you already use, at €10 a month with no seat fees and a free start.
Ahrefs' main plan, Lite, costs $129 a month (about €115) for one user. There is a $29 Starter plan (about €26), but it has no MCP access and tracks 50 keywords. Ahrefs offers no free trial.
We make zaDojo. The Ahrefs facts on this page come from ahrefs.com and the Ahrefs Help Center, checked on the date shown above, and our editorial policy explains the method.
When Ahrefs is the right choice
- Link building, digital PR or link audits are your main job. Ahrefs runs its own crawler, refreshes its backlink index every 15 to 30 minutes, and reports 35 trillion external backlink records in its history.
- You need long history. Standard keeps 2 years, Advanced 5 years and Enterprise all of it. zaDojo's domain and backlink overviews cover about the last year.
- You want to research any brand across Brand Radar's database of more than 492 million prompts. zaDojo has no comparable prompt database.
- You need Content Explorer, Portfolios or Batch Analysis, which come with Standard and up.
- You only care about your own verified site. Ahrefs Free is free and covers that well.
When zaDojo is the right choice
- You work through Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or Codex and want the agent to pull data, compare competitors and save a finished report.
- You find credit counting on clicks frustrating. On Starter and Lite, Ahrefs charges a credit to open a report and another for each filter or date change. zaDojo credits are euros spent on data lookups, and Search Console reads, saved reports and plain site audits use none.
- You want to try the product before paying. Ahrefs has no trial; zaDojo gives you €0.10 of credits with no card.
- You want a few colleagues in the account. Ahrefs charges $40 to $100 per extra user (about €36 to €89); zaDojo charges nothing per seat.
Side by side
| zaDojo | Ahrefs | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly price | €10, returned as €10 of usage credits | Starter $29 (about €26), Lite $129 (about €115), Standard $249 (about €222), Advanced $449 (about €400) |
| Paying yearly | Monthly plan, cancel any time | Ten months' price for twelve. Lite: $1,290 a year (about €1,149) |
| How usage is counted | Credits are euros spent on data lookups. 1,000 credits = €1 | Starter 200 and Lite 1,000 credits a month. Each report, filter or date change uses one |
| People | Invite teammates by email, no seat fees | Lite: up to 2 more at $40 (about €36). Standard: up to 5 at $60 (about €53). Starter: none |
| Trying it first | €0.10 of trial credits, no card | No trial. Ahrefs Free covers your own verified sites |
| Refunds | 30-day money-back guarantee on the first charge | Generally none. Unused monthly plans can ask |
| Backlinks | DataForSEO backlinks and referring domains, about a year of history | Own crawler, index refreshed every 15 to 30 minutes |
| Keyword data | DataForSEO, many countries and languages | 29 billion keywords across 217 locations |
| History | About a year in domain and backlink overviews | 1 month on Starter, 6 months on Lite, 2 years on Standard, 5 on Advanced |
| Rank tracking | Daily, weekly or monthly. 100 keywords weekly costs about €1 to €2 a month | Weekly updates. 50 keywords on Starter, 750 on Lite |
| AI agent access (MCP) | Every account, trial included. Agents can save reports and trackers | Lite and up. Lite: 200,000 API units a month, shared with the API |
| AI visibility | ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews, about €0.002 per check | 150 prompt checks a month on Lite. AI indexes from $199 a month (about €177) |
| Content tools | No in-app writing tools | Content Explorer on Standard and up. Content Kit from $99 (about €88) |
What three typical users would pay each month
Ahrefs prices are monthly list prices in US dollars, converted at 1 EUR = 1.1225 USD. zaDojo figures are rough usage estimates; work out your own in the pricing estimator.
| Who | Ahrefs plan that fits | Ahrefs | zaDojo |
|---|---|---|---|
| Owner of one business site: 100 keyword searches, 20 backlink checks, 50 keywords tracked weekly | Starter for light use, Lite for MCP and more credits | $29 to $129 (about €26 to €115) | €10 (usage of about €9 to €10 fits in the plan) |
| Freelancer with 15 client sites | Standard, the first plan with more than 5 unverified projects | $249 (about €222) | About €30 to €40 (the plan plus top-ups) |
| Agency team of three people | Standard plus two users at $60 each (about €53) | $369 (about €329) | €10 plus usage, with no seat fees |
A few notes on these rows:
- Ahrefs counts projects you have not verified. Lite allows 5, Standard 20 and Advanced 50, while verified sites are unlimited on every plan. If all 15 clients verify their sites in your account, Lite can work for the freelancer, but 1,000 credits a month is tight for research across 15 sites. Extra Lite credits cost $50 per 500 (about €45).
- Paying Ahrefs yearly costs ten months' worth. Lite comes to $1,290 a year (about €1,149) and Standard to $2,490 (about €2,218).
- Ahrefs Rank Tracker updates weekly on every plan, with 750 keywords on Lite. Tracking 750 keywords weekly in zaDojo costs about €10 a month (top 40 results, one device). Daily tracking in zaDojo costs about seven times the weekly rate.
Backlink and keyword data
Ahrefs owns its data pipeline. Its data page lists 5 million pages crawled every minute, 29 billion filtered keywords across 217 locations, and backlink updates every 15 to 30 minutes. For finding new links fast or digging into a competitor's full link history, that depth is hard to match.
zaDojo buys its data from DataForSEO, which supplies keyword metrics, live Google results, domain data and backlinks to SEO tools and agencies. You get backlinks and referring domains for any site, with about a year of history in the overview, which is enough to review your own links and see who links to your competitors. If links are your full-time job, Ahrefs is the stronger tool.
Search volumes and traffic are estimates in both products. For your own site, Google Search Console has the measured numbers. zaDojo connects to it read-only without a Google Cloud project, shows up to 16 months of data by query, page, country, device and date, and charges nothing for those reads.
AI agent access (MCP) compared
| zaDojo | Ahrefs | |
|---|---|---|
| Which plans include it | Every account, from the free trial on | Lite ($129, about €115) and higher. Not Starter or Ahrefs Free |
| How use is counted | The same credits as the app | API units shared with the Ahrefs API: 200,000 a month on Lite, 800,000 on Standard, 2 million on Advanced |
| Cost per call | Depends on the data pulled, shown in credits | At least 50 units, so Lite allows at most 4,000 calls a month |
| Rows per request | Set by each tool | 100 on Lite, 250 on Standard, 500 on Advanced |
| Saving work | Reports, saved keywords, rank trackers and project context | Not described in Ahrefs' MCP help article |
Connect zaDojo by adding https://app.zadojo.com/mcp to Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, Codex, ChatGPT or any client that supports remote MCP servers. You log in and approve access once. The server has more than 70 tools, from keyword research and live SERPs to backlinks, local rank grids, site audits, Search Console, Google Analytics and AI visibility, and twelve agent skills such as Link Prospecting and Competitor Analysis guide the agent through common jobs. See the MCP feature page for setup.
Ahrefs MCP is a remote server too; Ahrefs says local setup is no longer supported. If you already pay for Lite or above, it adds agent access at no extra fee.
AI visibility compared
Ahrefs puts AI tracking in Brand Radar. Lite includes 150 tracked prompt checks a month across 5 prompts, Standard 300 checks across 10, and Advanced 600 across 20. One check means one prompt on one platform in one location. For more, custom prompt packages cost $50 a month for 2,500 checks (about €45), $100 for 7,000 (about €89) and $250 for 25,000 (about €223). Researching brands across Ahrefs' AI indexes needs the Brand Radar AI add-on: $199 a month per platform index (about €177) or $699 for all platforms (about €623). The indexes cover Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot.
zaDojo charges about €0.002 for one prompt checked on one AI engine, so 2,500 checks cost roughly €5. Prompt Tracking collects answers from ChatGPT and Gemini by default, and Google AI Overviews if you add it, daily, weekly or monthly, with a cost preview before anything runs. Competitor and citation views show who gets mentioned and which pages get cited. Prompt Research costs about €0.25 a keyword and returns questions with ChatGPT's answers and cited sources (US English data). The questions come mostly from Google's "People also ask" boxes, not from logged ChatGPT prompts. zaDojo shows no "AI search volume" figure, because nobody can measure it.
Moving from Ahrefs to zaDojo
- Sign up at app.zadojo.com/sign-up. Trial credits are included and no card is needed.
- Add one project per site, then link its Google Search Console property.
- Download the tracked keyword list from Ahrefs and paste it into a zaDojo rank tracker. Lite and higher plans include export rows; Starter has none, so copy the list by hand.
- Pull backlinks and referring domains for your site and two or three competitors, then run a site audit. Plain audits use no credits.
- Connect your agent to
https://app.zadojo.com/mcpand ask it to run the SEO Project Setup skill, which saves your business, goals and competitors as project context. - Cancel Ahrefs under Account Settings. Your plan stays active until the period ends, then the account drops to Ahrefs Free. Keep that free account for your verified site; it works well alongside zaDojo.
FAQ
Is zaDojo cheaper than Ahrefs?
For one site or a small client list, usually. zaDojo is €10 a month with €10 of usage included; Ahrefs Lite is $129 (about €115). Ahrefs Starter is $29 (about €26) but has no MCP, 50 tracked keywords and 200 credits.
How do Ahrefs credits differ from zaDojo credits?
Ahrefs credits count actions in its interface on Starter and Lite: opening a report, applying filters, changing dates. Standard and higher have unlimited credits. zaDojo credits are money (1,000 credits = €1) spent when you look up data.
Does Ahrefs have a free trial?
No. Ahrefs points website owners to Ahrefs Free, which covers sites you verify. zaDojo starts with €0.10 of trial credits.
Is Ahrefs MCP included in the price?
Yes, on Lite and higher, but calls use the API units in your plan. Starter and Ahrefs Free do not include MCP.
Can I use Ahrefs Free and zaDojo together?
Yes. Ahrefs Free shows backlinks and keywords for your verified site and audits it. zaDojo adds keyword research, competitor data, rank tracking, AI visibility and agent access.
Does Ahrefs give refunds?
Rarely. Ahrefs says it does not issue refunds in general; on a monthly plan you can ask for one if you have not used the service. zaDojo refunds the first charge within 30 days on request to hello@zadojo.com.
Related comparisons
- zaDojo vs Semrush, if Semrush is also on your list.
- Ahrefs pricing, with every plan, credit rule and add-on.
- All comparisons.
Try it on a competitor you already track in Ahrefs
Spend the trial credits on a backlink overview and a keyword search for a site you know well, and compare the results. The paid plan is €10 a month with €10 of usage included, and the pricing page lists typical costs.