This page compares the main Ahrefs alternatives on price, plan limits and fit, with a separate section for people who only want a replacement for Ahrefs' Content Explorer. Prices were read from each vendor's own pricing page on 11 October 2026. Vendors change plans often, so check the linked pages before you buy.
A disclosure: we make Adshout, one of the tools below. We keep it to what its own pages state and say where it is weaker. Where we could not confirm a fact, we say so.
What Ahrefs costs in 2026
The baseline first. On Ahrefs' pricing page the main plans are:
- Lite: $129 a month. 5 projects, 750 tracked keywords, 6 months of historical data, 1 user.
- Standard: $249 a month. 20 projects, 2,000 tracked keywords, 2 years of history.
- Advanced: $449 a month. 50 projects, 5,000 tracked keywords, 5 years of history.
- Enterprise: $1,499 a month, annual commitment.
Lite, Standard and Advanced include API and MCP access. Extra users cost $40 to $80 a month each depending on the plan. There is also a $29 Starter product and a free tier. Ahrefs also sells Brand Radar, its AI-visibility product, from $199 a month.
Which Ahrefs alternative fits which team
- Semrush for the widest toolset. Plans start at $139 a month, with a free plan and a seven-day trial on paid plans (pricing).
- SE Ranking for a lower price. Core is $103.20 a month billed annually, or $129 billed monthly, with 2,000 tracked keywords a day (pricing).
- Moz Pro for a beginner-friendly tool built around Domain Authority. We could not read Moz's current pricing, so check moz.com.
- Majestic for link data only. We did not confirm its pricing for this page.
- Adshout if you want ranked actions to review and approve instead of dashboards. It is in beta and free during the beta.
Ahrefs vs Semrush in 2026
Both cover keyword research, backlinks, site audits and rank tracking, and both now sell AI-search tracking: Semrush lists AI visibility reports and prompt monitoring on its plans, and Ahrefs lists tracked AI prompts per plan. Ahrefs is best known for its backlink data and Semrush for the breadth of its tools. We have not measured index sizes ourselves, so treat that as the market's view, not our test.
On price, Semrush's entry plan (SEO, $139 a month) lists 5 websites and 500 keywords tracked daily. Ahrefs Lite ($129 a month) lists 5 projects and 750 tracked keywords. The limits are measured differently, so compare what you actually need to track.
Ahrefs Content Explorer alternatives
Content Explorer is a search engine over web pages. Ahrefs says it indexes about 22.5 billion pages, and you can filter by traffic, Domain Rating, referring domains, language, word count and publish date. People use it to find content that earns links, low-competition topics, guest-post targets and unlinked brand mentions. Ahrefs' page does not say which plans include it.
Nothing else is an exact copy, so the useful question is which job you need done:
- Find what content gets shared and linked: BuzzSumo is the closest widely used option. Its plans start at $199 a month billed yearly (Content Creation: 1 user, unlimited searches, 2 alerts), then $299 (PR & Comms), $499 (Suite) and $999 (Enterprise).
- Find topics and see what already ranks: use the keyword and SERP tools in Semrush, SE Ranking or Ahrefs itself.
- Find link prospects: use backlink-gap tools (competitors' referring domains that don't link to you). Semrush and Ahrefs both have them.
Adshout does not have a search engine over the web's pages like Content Explorer. Its Competitor Tracking and Backlink Monitoring agents watch the competitors you choose, which is a narrower job.
Adshout: ranked actions you approve
Adshout is our own product. Its agents page lists six agents: Keyword Research, Technical SEO, Content Optimisation, Backlink Monitoring, Competitor Tracking and an SEO Growth agent that ranks what to do next, so you review and approve instead of reading dashboards.
- It is in beta. The pricing page shows $0 during beta with no card needed, and says post-beta pricing is not yet published.
- It is new, and we do not yet publish customer ranking results. The fair test is whether the actions it proposes are ones you would approve.
- We do not claim a backlink index or keyword database that matches Ahrefs or Semrush. If deep link data is your main need, keep Ahrefs.
How to choose
- You have an SEO specialist and need depth: stay with Ahrefs or move to Semrush. The cost is justified when someone uses the data every week.
- You want similar coverage for less: compare SE Ranking's limits first.
- You only used Content Explorer: look at BuzzSumo, and check whether Ahrefs' lower plans include it before you cancel.
- You have no SEO hire and want the next steps decided for you: try an agent-based tool such as Adshout during its beta.
Whatever you pick, a tool does not rank a page by itself. It needs a page that answers the search better than the ones above it, links to that page, and time. For the same comparison from Semrush's side, see our Semrush competitors guide.
Sources
- Ahrefs pricing. Read 11 October 2026.
- Ahrefs Content Explorer. Read 11 October 2026.
- Semrush pricing. Read 11 October 2026.
- SE Ranking plans and pricing. Read 11 October 2026.
- BuzzSumo pricing. Read 11 October 2026.
- Adshout pricing (beta) and AI SEO agents. Our own pages, read 11 October 2026.