Alternatives

Ahrefs alternatives, ordered by why people leave

People leave Ahrefs because the seat costs more than they use, a second person needs another paid login, or the reports never become a short list of changes. The six options below, including Lexicon SEO, are ordered by how directly they answer those three reasons. This is not a traffic ranking and not a score we measured. On backlink index depth, Ahrefs still wins. Lexicon SEO does not have a backlink index or a keyword database.

Why people look for something else

• Price. On 5 November 2026 the Ahrefs pricing page listed Starter at $29 a month, Lite at $129, Standard at $249, and Advanced at $449. The Enterprise card displayed $1,499 a month. Lite, Standard, and Advanced also show a yearly price of ten times the monthly price.
• Seat limits. The comparison table includes one user on Lite, Standard, and Advanced. Extra users are $40, $60, and $80 a month on those three plans, and $100 a month on Enterprise. Starter’s page data lists one included user and an extra power-user seat at $50 a month.
• Nobody acts on the data. Ahrefs includes Site Audit. It is one module in a research suite. Someone still has to decide what to change first and write the instructions.

Six options

1. Lexicon SEO

   Price, and a list someone can act on

   Lexicon SEO reads public pages and returns a fix list ordered P0, P1, and P2, with the page and plain-English steps. Free is $0 for 1 audit a month, up to 50 pages. Starter is $29, the same monthly list price as Ahrefs Starter, but it buys audits rather than keyword reports. Professional is $79 and Business is $199. Annual billing is 2 months free (about 17% off). It checks technical SEO and whether AI crawlers are allowed to read the site. It does not include keyword research or a backlink index. Plans are an audit allowance, not a per-person research seat, and this page does not promise a specific number of logins. Run a free audit or start with the free checkers.

2. Screaming Frog SEO Spider

   Price, if you only needed a crawler

   The free version crawls up to 500 URLs. A paid licence is $279 per user per year for 1 to 4 licences, with lower prices on larger packs. Checked 5 November 2026 on Screaming Frog’s pricing page. It runs on your computer and reports crawl issues. It is not a hosted backlink index, and it does not write the short fix list Lexicon SEO writes.

3. Google Search Console

   Price, for your own search data

   Free for a site you verify. It shows queries, pages, and indexing for that property. It is not a backlink index, and it is not a technical audit of titles, redirects, sitemaps, and AI crawler rules.

4. Bing Webmaster Tools

   Price, for Bing

   Free for a site you verify. It covers Bing, not a backlink index and not a full technical audit.

5. Moz Pro

   A lower entry price, and more than one seat on higher plans

   Moz’s pricing page, checked 5 November 2026, lists an entry plan at $49 a month for one site, Standard at $99 a month ($79 a month billed yearly) with 1 user, Medium at $179 a month with 2 users, and Large at $299 a month with 3 users. An extra seat is $49 a month. Moz has its own link index. This page does not claim it is larger or smaller than Ahrefs by a measured amount. Source: Moz Pro pricing.

6. Semrush

   Keyword database depth, not a cheaper seat

   Semrush’s SEO plan is $139 a month, close to Ahrefs Lite at $129. SEO + AI Search starts at $199. Every Semrush plan includes one user. Semrush still wins on keyword database depth. Moving from Ahrefs to Semrush trades one research seat for another. See the Semrush alternatives and Semrush pricing notes.

Where Ahrefs still wins

Ahrefs still wins when you need backlink index depth, plus the keyword and rank reports built on that index. Lexicon SEO will not tell you who links to a competitor or which keywords a page ranks for. Use Ahrefs, Semrush, or Moz for that research, and use Lexicon SEO when the missing piece is a prioritized fix list.

Public prices in this list were checked on 5 November 2026. They exclude tax and they change. Lexicon SEO is not affiliated with Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz, Screaming Frog, Google, or Microsoft. The dollar amounts and what each seat leaves out are on the Ahrefs pricing notes.

Sources

• Ahrefs pricing page
• Ahrefs plan guide
• Semrush pricing page
• Semrush user management, including extra seats
• Screaming Frog SEO Spider pricing
• Moz Pro pricing

Checked 5 November 2026.