Free Surfer alternative

Surfer is a hosted platform for creating content that ranks on Google and gets cited by AI search engines, with a content editor, AI visibility tracking and an SEO audit. SEO Skill is free: web tools for the everyday lookups, and your own Search Console, Google Analytics and keyword data in your AI agent.

Get started free

Run it in a terminal, then sign in with Google.

Or run it on your machine

Installs the CLI, signs you in and adds the skill to your agents. Site crawls and Bing data run this way, on your own machine. A crawl fetches many pages, and Bing blocks our hosted server.

At a glance

The four things most people compare first, from each product's own pages.

SEO Skill

Free use: Every on-demand tool, no usage cap
Paid: $50 a month per site, for the weekly audit
Works in web chat: Yes
Get started: Free web tools with no account, or one URL in your AI agent

Surfer

Free use: 7-day Pro trial, card required
Paid: $59 a month (Discovery)
Works in web chat: Yes, on AI Search Analytics, Pro, Peace of Mind or Enterprise. In ChatGPT it needs developer mode, which works on Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu.
Get started: Create an account

Free tools for the jobs you use Surfer for

No account and no key. Each one opens in your browser.

SERP checker

See who ranks in Google for a keyword right now, and where your own domain sits.

Open the SERP checker

Competitor keyword research

See the keywords a competitor ranks for, or the sites that compete with any domain.

Open competitor keyword research

SERP preview

Preview title and meta description width on desktop or mobile, then copy the finished HTML tags.

Open the SERP preview

Schema markup generator

Create JSON-LD structured data for fourteen common page and entity types and copy the finished script.

Open the schema markup generator

Pick Surfer if

From Surfer's own pages.

you write a lot of articles and want live guidelines and a Content Score while you write.
you want to track how often ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI answers mention your brand.
you publish on WordPress and want to send optimized content straight to a draft or post.
you want an MCP server that can draft and optimize articles from Claude or ChatGPT.

Pick SEO Skill if

Free SEO tools in your browser, and your own search data in your AI agent.

You want the everyday lookups for free: backlinks, Domain Rating, competitor keywords, SERPs and traffic estimates, with no account.
You want your AI agent to answer from your own Search Console and Google Analytics data, not only from an index estimate.
You already pay for keyword data: SEO Skill uses your own DataForSEO or Ahrefs key, so you pay that provider and nothing on top.
You want a weekly crawl, daily index checks and drop alerts for $50 a month per site, with no seats to buy.

Side by side

Every fact we compared, with Surfer's taken from the sources at the end of this page.

SEO SkillSurfer

Get started

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).

Surfer: Create a Surfer account, choose a plan and enter card details at checkout. New accounts get a 7-day free trial of the Pro plan. The trial does not cancel itself: after 7 days it turns into the plan you chose and your card is charged. The trial is for new accounts only.

What it does

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.

Surfer: Content Editor with a Content Score and live AI SEO guidelines, Surfy AI writing assistant, AI detector and humanizer, plagiarism check, 1-click content optimization and internal linking, Content Audit with ranking drop alerts, keyword research, Topical Map, cannibalization report, SERP Analyzer and AI Tracker for ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, AI Overviews and Gemini. Integrations with WordPress, Google Docs, Contentful and Zapier. The Surfer MCP server is on AI Search Analytics, Pro, Peace of Mind and Enterprise, and in the trial. It can create and update Content Editors, generate articles, read recommendations and AI Tracker reports, and read Search Console data. API access is on Peace of Mind.

Data

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.

Surfer: Surfer's own analysis of the search results for your keyword, AI answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews and Gemini (AI Tracker), Google Search Console (Content Audit, dashboard, Topical Map and MCP)

Where you use it

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.

Surfer: Web app, WordPress plugin, Google Docs, Contentful, Claude, Claude Code, ChatGPT (web or desktop), Codex, Cursor, VS Code

In Claude or ChatGPT on the web

SEO Skill: Yes

Surfer: Yes, on AI Search Analytics, Pro, Peace of Mind or Enterprise. In ChatGPT it needs developer mode, which works on Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu.

Free

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

Surfer: No free plan stated. A 7-day free trial of the Pro plan for new accounts, with card details at checkout. It turns into the paid plan you chose unless you cancel before the 7 days end. If you cancel, the account expires and you lose access to stored data.

Paid plans

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.

Surfer: Discovery $59 a month, or $49 a month billed yearly. Standard $119 a month, or $99 a month billed yearly. Pro $219 a month, or $182 a month billed yearly. Peace of Mind $359 a month, or $299 a month billed yearly. AI Search Analytics $95 a month, or $82 a month billed yearly. Enterprise is custom. Yearly plans are paid up front for the whole year and save up to 17%. Prices in USD, and billing in EUR is also supported. Monthly plans include fewer documents: 10 on Discovery and 30 on Standard and Pro, against 120 and 360 on yearly plans.

Can it change your site

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.

Surfer: Yes, on WordPress. The plugin can export a Content Editor to a new draft or update an existing post or page, and an update to a published post shows live right away. The MCP can create and change content inside Surfer. No changes in Google are stated.

Your data

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.

Surfer: Not stated. Its help says Surfer needs view-only access to Search Console and uses the data only to improve your Surfer experience. The MCP reads Search Console from Google on every call.

History

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

Surfer: Not stated. Content Audit needs at least 30 days of Search Console data.

Licence

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

Surfer: Hosted service

Move from Surfer in a few minutes

Nothing to migrate: SEO Skill reads your accounts live. When you are done, remove Surfer from your agent and revoke its access.

Add SEO Skill to your agentUse the setup box above, or the steps for your client on the integrations page.
Check your access
Ask "list my Search Console properties". Every Google account you link shows up.
Add your research keySave a DataForSEO or Ahrefs key on your account page if you use keyword research.
Keep what you still need
Projects and history you built in Surfer stay there. SEO Skill reads Search Console live, so you can run both while you decide.

More comparisons

Other ways to give your agent search data, next to SEO Skill.

AccuRanker

Free: No. Paid: $249 a month (Professional).

Free AccuRanker alternative

Ahrefs

Free: Free account, verified sites. Paid: $29 a month (Starter).

Free Ahrefs alternative

AnswerThePublic

Free: Free, 3 searches a day. Paid: US$20 a month (Starter).

Free AnswerThePublic alternative

Majestic

Free: Free account, limits not stated. Paid: $49.99 a month (Lite).

Free Majestic alternative

Questions about Surfer

Not stated. Its help says Surfer needs view-only access to Search Console and uses the data only to improve your Surfer experience. The MCP reads Search Console from Google on every call. SEO Skill fetches your Search Console and analytics rows on each request and does not keep them, except for sites in its paid weekly audit, where it keeps the crawls, index checks with each page's clicks and impressions, and the issues list.

Sources for Surfer, read 3 November 2026: Plans, monthly and yearly prices, features by plan, MCP and API by plan, up-front annual billing, 7-day Pro trial, card at checkout, automatic charge, new accounts only, MCP plans and setup in Claude, Claude Code, ChatGPT and Cursor, MCP clients and requirements, What the MCP can read and change, Search Console read live from Google, Search Console connection, view-only access, daily monitoring, Content Audit needs 30 days of Search Console data, WordPress export to a draft or an existing post.