Free Ahrefs alternative

SEO Skill: Use the free web tools with no account. For your own data, add https://seoskill.dev/mcp to your AI agent and sign in with Google (read only).

Ahrefs: Create an Ahrefs account. Ahrefs Free needs no credit card and has no trial period, but Site Explorer, Site Audit and Web Analytics only work on websites you verify. Paid plans are bought by card (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, UnionPay). Ahrefs says it does not run discounts or free trials. Enterprise needs a talk with sales and an annual commitment.

SEO Skill: Free web tools: backlink checker, Domain Rating, competitor keywords, SERP checker, traffic estimates, robots.txt, sitemap, schema and more. In your AI agent: Search Console reports (quick wins, low CTR, striking distance, content decay, cannibalization, traffic drops), page checks, index checks, before and after comparisons, and keyword research with your own key. A site crawler and internal links in the CLI.

Ahrefs: Site Explorer (backlinks and organic keywords), Keywords Explorer, Site Audit, Rank Tracker, Competitive Analysis, SERP history, Brand Radar for AI prompts, Web Analytics, Report Builder, Social Media Manager (beta) and more on higher plans. API and MCP access come with Lite and up. The hosted MCP server uses API units from the plan: 200,000 on Lite, 800,000 on Standard, 2M on Advanced.

SEO Skill: Google Search Console, Google Analytics, URL Inspection, Clicky, and DataForSEO or Ahrefs with your own key. Bing Webmaster Tools in the CLI. Free Domain Rating by Ahrefs on research rows.

Ahrefs: Ahrefs' own crawler and web index, Ahrefs keyword database, Google Search Console (verified projects), Ahrefs Web Analytics (its own analytics script), Brand Radar AI prompt data, Social media channels (Social Media Manager)

SEO Skill: Your browser for the web tools. Claude Code, Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, Cursor, VS Code, Gemini CLI, Windsurf, Le Chat and any remote MCP client for your own data.

Ahrefs: Web app, SEO Toolbar (browser extension), Claude Web, Claude Desktop, Claude Mobile, Claude Code, Copilot Studio, ChatGPT Web, Lovable, n8n, Manus, Mistral's Le Chat, OpenClaw

SEO Skill: Yes

Ahrefs: Yes, on Lite and higher plans

SEO Skill: Every on-demand tool, with no usage cap and no time limit.

Ahrefs: Ahrefs Free is a permanent free account with no credit card. It gives limited Site Explorer and Site Audit access for verified websites (unlimited verified sites, 5K crawl credits a month per project, 1K backlinks and keywords visible at once), Web Analytics up to 1M events per project, Social Media Manager (unlimited in beta), 1 free AI Content Helper doc a month and the SEO Toolbar. No API or MCP access.

SEO Skill: The weekly site audit is $50 a month per site: weekly crawl, daily Google index checks, stored history, drop and return alerts, and a Monday email and webhook. Cancel any time.

Ahrefs: Starter $29 a month. Lite $129 a month (1 user, 6 months of history, 750 tracked keywords). Standard $249 a month (2 years of history, 2,000 tracked keywords). Advanced $449 a month (5 years of history, 5,000 tracked keywords). Enterprise $1,499 a month with an annual commitment. Extra users cost $40, $60, $80 or $100 a month each by plan. Paying annually saves up to 17%. Prices in USD. Add-ons include Content Kit from $99 a month, Report Builder $99 a month, Traffic Analytics $99 a month and Project Boosts from $20 a month per project.

SEO Skill: Read-only Google sign-in. Your agent can start the paid audit for a site, which returns a Stripe Checkout link for you to open.

Ahrefs: Some. Social Media Manager can publish and schedule social posts. The Project Boost Pro and Max add-ons can auto-submit URLs to IndexNow, and Max adds Patches. No Google Search Console write actions are stated.

SEO Skill: Search Console and analytics rows are fetched on each request and never stored, except what the paid weekly audit keeps for its sites. Your linked accounts and saved keys are kept, encrypted.

Ahrefs: Yes for Search Console. Ahrefs imports up to the last 16 months of GSC data and keeps storing it for as long as the account stays connected. Its help page says GSC data is only shown to you and people you give access, and that it is used, without identifying your site, to improve Ahrefs' search volume estimates. Google Analytics storage not stated.

SEO Skill: Google's 16 months, read live. With the weekly audit, crawl and index history for the sites you audit.

Ahrefs: Ahrefs data history depends on plan: 6 months on Lite, 2 years on Standard, 5 years on Advanced, unlimited on Enterprise. Search Console history grows past 16 months while connected.

SEO Skill: Hosted service, with the CLI and local MCP server open source (Apache 2.0)

Ahrefs: Hosted service