SEO Radar

What are the best SEO tools in 2026?

Published 2026-11-06 · Researched and price-checked on official sources

Semrush's cheapest paid SEO plan is $139 a month, or $117.33 billed yearly; Ahrefs Lite is $129, Moz Standard $99 and SE Ranking Core $129. The best SEO tools in 2026 differ less on features than on the limits each tier sets for tracked keywords, projects, seats and AI prompt checks.

Key facts

What matters

Moz Standard costs $99/mo monthly or $79/mo with yearly billing ($950 for the first year) and includes 150 tracked AI prompts across 3 models, the lowest entry price for AI visibility in this group.
Semrush replaced its Pro, Guru and Business plans with SEO ($139/mo), Starter ($199/mo), Pro+ ($299/mo) and Advanced (custom); the 50-prompts-per-day allowance starts at Starter.
Ahrefs Lite at $129/mo includes 750 tracked keywords and one user; each extra user costs $40/mo on Lite, $60/mo on Standard and $80/mo on Advanced.
SE Ranking Growth gives 30 projects and 3 manager seats for $279/mo, or $223.20/mo billed yearly, the cheapest three-seat agency plan of the five checked.
LowFruits Standard is $29.90/mo or $20.75/mo billed yearly for 3,000 credits and 100 tracked keywords, and its monthly credits do not roll over.

How SEO tool pricing actually works in 2026

An SEO tool is a subscription that bundles a keyword index, a backlink index, a crawler and a rank tracker behind one login. Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz and SE Ranking all sell those four components, which is why every feature comparison table looks identical. The invoice is decided by five meters instead:

Tracked keywords: the number of positions you can monitor. Vendors quote this per day or per month, and the units are not interchangeable.
Projects or sites: how many domains sit in one account. Client work hits this ceiling first.
Seats: included users, then the price of each extra login.
Crawl and AI credits: pages audited, prompt checks consumed, API rows returned.
Billing term: monthly billing is 17% to 31% more expensive than the annual rate at every vendor below, and annual plans are charged up front.

The practical consequence: two plans advertised at the same price can differ by a factor of seven on keyword volume. Moz Standard tracks 300 keywords per month at $99; SE Ranking Core tracks 2,000 keywords per day at $129.

Ahrefs: $129 buys 750 tracked keywords, not a team

Ahrefs lists a $29/mo Starter plan for checking search data and competitor activity, but the first plan that includes the full suite is Lite at $129/mo. Lite carries 5 unverified projects (competitor domains you have not proven ownership of), 6 months of historical data, 750 tracked keywords, 150 AI prompt checks, 100,000 crawl credits and one user.

Step up and the meters move unevenly. Standard at $249/mo raises the unverified-project cap to 20, history to 2 years, keywords to 2,000 and crawl credits to 500,000, plus 300 prompt checks. Advanced at $449/mo gives 50 projects, 5 years of history, 5,000 keywords, 600 checks and 1.5M crawl credits. Enterprise is $1,499/mo and requires an annual commitment.

The line most buyers miss is seats. Ahrefs includes one user on every plan and sells additions at $40/mo on Lite, $60/mo on Standard and $80/mo on Advanced. A three-person team on Lite pays $209/mo, which is more than Moz Medium at $179 with two users and 1,500 keywords included. Brand Radar, Ahrefs' AI-visibility product, is also sold separately from $199/mo, with prompt-check packages at $50, $100 and $250/mo.

Ahrefs publishes annual savings only as "up to 17%" and does not list per-plan yearly totals on its pricing page, so budget from the monthly figure.

Semrush: four tiers, and the AI allowance starts at $199

Semrush no longer sells Pro, Guru and Business. The current SEO + AI Search ladder is SEO at $139/mo ($117.33/mo billed yearly), Starter at $199/mo ($165.17 yearly), Pro+ at $299/mo ($248.17 yearly) and Advanced at custom pricing. The free tier covers one demo project and 10 reports per day.

The SEO tier and the Starter tier share the same SEO capacity: 5 websites and 500 keywords tracked daily. For the extra $60, Starter adds a daily allowance of 50 AI prompts, one domain for AI brand performance, 300 AI visibility reports per day and MCP access. That is the real step change in the line-up: capacity does not improve until Pro+, which lifts the caps to 15 websites, 1,500 keywords daily and 100 prompts daily.

Advanced moves to 40+ websites, 5,000+ keywords and unlimited prompt tracking, sold through sales. Extra users start at $45/mo, and reporting add-ons run $10/mo (Base) or $20/mo (Pro).

So the honest read on Semrush: $139 is a website-monitoring plan with AI reporting attached, and $199 is where prompt tracking becomes a daily workflow.

Moz: the cheapest AI visibility bundle at $99

Moz Pro now ships three public tiers. Standard is $99/mo monthly or $79/mo with yearly billing ($950 for the first year) and includes 1 user, 3 tracked sites, 300 tracked keywords per month, 400,000 pages crawled per month, 150 tracked AI prompts across 3 models (GPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode) and 3 AI visibility dashboards.

Medium is $179/mo or $143/mo yearly ($1,719 first year): 2 users, 10 sites, 1,500 keywords per month, 2M pages, 300 prompts and 6 dashboards. Large is $299/mo or $239/mo yearly ($2,868 first year): 3 users, 25 sites, 3,000 keywords, 5M pages, 600 prompts and 12 dashboards. Moz also points single-site owners to a $49/mo entry plan on the same page.

Two details matter. Moz counts tracked keywords per month while Semrush and SE Ranking count per day, so 300 at Moz is a much smaller allowance than 500 daily at Semrush. And Moz bundles AI prompt tracking into every tier rather than selling it as a separate product, which makes Standard the cheapest way into AI-visibility reporting among the five tools here.

SE Ranking: the cheapest three-seat agency setup

SE Ranking sells Core at $129/mo monthly or $103.20/mo billed yearly, and Growth at $279/mo or $223.20/mo yearly, both with a 14-day trial. Core includes 10 projects, 1 manager seat, 2,000 keywords tracked daily, 250,000 audit pages per account and 25,000 research API credits per month. Growth raises that to 30 projects, 3 seats, 5,000 keywords daily, 2M audit pages and 100,000 API credits.

Extra seats cost from $16/mo, which is the cheapest seat expansion in this comparison. Extra keyword capacity is sold from $22.40/mo on Core and $32/mo on Growth.

The AI piece, SE Visible, is included but capped: 25 prompts per day and 5 LLMs on both Core and Growth, limited to a single project. Buyers who need AI visibility across many client domains have to add the standalone AI visibility product from $71/mo, which allows up to 1,000 prompts depending on tier.

For an agency running 10 to 30 client sites with three people, Growth at $223.20/mo annual is the lowest three-seat total here: Semrush Pro+ at $248.17/mo does not include extra seats, and Ahrefs Standard plus two users lands at $369/mo.

LowFruits: $29.90 for keyword gaps, nothing else

LowFruits is not a rank-tracking suite and should not be priced against one. Standard costs $29.90/mo, or $20.75/mo billed yearly ($249 for the year), and gives 3,000 credits per month, 100 tracked keywords, 30 competitor ranking extractions, 300 keyword-idea extractions and 90 sitemap extractions. Premium is $79.90/mo or $62.45/mo yearly with 10,000 credits, 500 tracked keywords and 70/900/300 extractions.

Its job is finding weak SERPs: keyword ideas scored by competition, pulled from competitor rankings and Google autocomplete. Monthly credits expire, unlike pay-as-you-go credits, which stay valid for a year. A $25 pack buys 2,000 credits if you only need occasional pulls.

Pair it with a cheaper suite rather than replacing one. LowFruits plus SE Ranking Core annual ($1,238.40) costs less than Semrush SEO on monthly billing ($1,668).

Which of the best SEO tools fits your job?

Match the plan to the meter you will actually exhaust, not to the feature list:

One site, AI visibility matters: Moz Standard at $79/mo yearly gives 150 prompts and 3 models for less than SE Ranking Core's annual rate, though SE Ranking gives 10 projects and daily keyword tracking.
Three-person agency, 10 to 30 clients: SE Ranking Growth at $223.20/mo yearly covers 30 projects and 3 seats. Adding two seats to Ahrefs Lite pushes that plan to $209/mo with only 750 keywords and 5 unverified projects.
Content team living in keyword data: Ahrefs Standard at $249/mo buys 2,000 keywords and 2 years of history, while Semrush Pro+ at $299/mo yearly ($248.17) buys 1,500 keywords plus 100 daily prompts.
Enterprise and API-heavy: Ahrefs Enterprise at $1,499/mo with an annual commitment, or Semrush Advanced at custom pricing with 40+ sites and unlimited prompts.
Keyword research only: LowFruits at $29.90/mo, with the caveat that its credits expire each month.

What none of the five includes: a guaranteed share of prompt tracking across every AI engine. Ahrefs bundles 150 to 600 checks depending on plan, Semrush sells 50 to unlimited prompts by tier, Moz bundles 150 to 600 prompts, SE Ranking caps its included AI product at 25 prompts per day on one project, and LowFruits has no AI tracking at all. If AI visibility is the reason you are buying, that number, not the keyword cap, is the one to compare.

At a glance

Tool	Entry paid plan	Monthly price	Yearly-billed price	Tracked keywords	AI prompt allowance
Ahrefs	Starter $29, Lite $129	$29 / $129	Up to 17% off (no per-plan totals published)	750 (Lite)	150 checks (Lite)
Semrush	SEO	$139	$117.33/mo ($1,407.96/yr)	500 per day	AI reports; 50/day from Starter ($199)
Moz	Standard	$99	$79/mo ($950 first year)	300 per month	150 prompts, 3 AI models
SE Ranking	Core	$129	$103.20/mo ($1,238.40/yr)	2,000 per day	25/day, 5 LLMs, 1 project
LowFruits	Standard	$29.90	$20.75/mo ($249/yr)	100	None

Entry paid plans and their limits, verified on each vendor's pricing page on November 6, 2026.

FAQ

Is Semrush cheaper than Ahrefs?

Semrush's entry SEO plan is $139/mo monthly or $117.33/mo billed yearly; Ahrefs Lite is $129/mo, and Ahrefs also sells a $29/mo Starter plan below it. Ahrefs Lite includes 150 AI prompt checks, while Semrush includes AI visibility reports from $139 but starts its 50-prompts-per-day allowance at the $199 Starter tier.

Do SEO tools get cheaper if you pay yearly?

Yes, at every vendor checked. Moz takes 20% off ($79/mo instead of $99), SE Ranking takes 20% off ($103.20 instead of $129), Semrush discounts up to 17% ($117.33 instead of $139) and Ahrefs discounts up to 17%. LowFruits drops from $29.90 to $20.75/mo. Annual plans are billed up front, so the cash outlay lands in month one.

How many keywords do I need to track?

Count the keywords you will check weekly, not the ones you research once. Moz Standard covers 300 tracked keywords per month, Ahrefs Lite 750, Semrush's SEO tier 500 per day, SE Ranking Core 2,000 per day and LowFruits 100. A 20-client agency with 100 keywords per client needs at least 2,000 slots, which rules out Moz Standard and Ahrefs Lite.