Looking for budget-friendly Ahrefs alternatives in 2025?

With Ahrefs’ new pricing model ranging from $129 to $1,499 per month, many digital marketers are now searching for more affordable options.

While Ahrefs offers powerful SEO capabilities, its recent price changes have made it less accessible for small businesses and freelancers.

Fortunately, several alternatives provide similar functionality without emptying your wallet.

Let’s look at the Ahrefs alternatives in this blog post where we focus on these key factors:

• Pricing that fits your budget (most alternatives offer plans starting under $100/month)
• User-friendly interface with low learning curve
• Fast backlink indexing capabilities
• Comprehensive keyword database for effective research
• Value for money with competitive feature sets

Semrush – Feature-rich alternative

Semrush stands out as Ahrefs’ closest competitor and the best alternative you can find.

Want loads of features without emptying your wallet? Semrush delivers exactly that.

In my Semrush review, I break down how it gives real value and works perfectly for all types of users.

Here’s the truth: Semrush beats Ahrefs in almost every category.

It’s a complete SEO and digital marketing package that shines in keyword research, backlink analysis, and site audits.

For example, Semrush is brilliant at traffic analysis and has one of the biggest SEO keyword databases out there, giving Ahrefs a run for its money.

Its keyword reports go deeper too, showing you search intent, SERP features, and even keyword clustering.

Looking at the numbers, Semrush (as of July 2025) has 26.9B keywords, with 808M domain profiles across 142 geo databases. Their updated backlink database leaves Ahrefs in the dust.

While both tools let you audit backlinks, Semrush’s larger database (36B backlinks vs Ahrefs’ 27B) opens up more opportunities for you.

But wait, there’s more!

Semrush’s Site Audit tool is top-notch for spotting technical SEO issues and helping you prioritize what to fix first.

Its reporting and project management features are solid, making it perfect for agencies and advanced users who need to handle multiple projects at once.

Semrush’s main features include:

• Biggest keyword database: 26.9B keywords at your fingertips.
• Competitive analysis: Explore domain data through Domain Overview to learn about competitors’ traffic, and spot target keywords with Keyword Gap tool.
• Backlink building: Get access to 43 trillion quality backlinks with regular updates to understand what your competitors are doing and find new opportunities.
• Advertising toolkit: Complete PPC reports with ad copies, history, positions, plus CPC Map, Ad Builder, and PLA Research tools.
• Social media toolkit: Schedule posts across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and Pinterest with built-in analytics.
• SEO content template: Save time with templates that check out the top 10 SERP competitors.
• Content marketing: Full toolkit for SEO topic research, brand marketing, market explorer, and content analysis.
• Semrush App center and AI: Use marketing apps like AdClarity and AI tools such as ContentShake to create content faster.

Semrush has three plans – Pro (starts at $139/mo), Guru ($249/mo), and Business ($499/mo).

The Pro plan works well for small teams with 5 projects and 500 keywords tracking. Guru ups this to 15 projects and 1500 keywords, while Business gives you 40 projects and 5,000 keyword tracking.

Pros 👍

• Extensive database: Biggest keyword and backlink database around, giving you complete SEO insights for better decisions. It has fast keyword and backlink indexing means you always work with fresh, current data.
• Competitive intelligence: Top-notch traffic analytics to track competitors and find new opportunities without the guesswork.
• User experience: Simple, clean interface that makes SEO research feel natural, even for beginners.
• Trend spotting: Catch emerging trends as new keywords appear, helping you stay ahead of your competition.
• Content capabilities: Complete content toolkit with writing assistant, SEO templates, content audits, and topic research tools.
• Technical SEO power: Superior on-page and technical SEO tools that find issues other tools miss, helping you fix problems before they hurt your rankings.
• Good reporting depth: Comprehensive reporting options that make client presentations and tracking progress simple and professional.

Cons 👎

• Keyword difficulty accuracy: Keyword difficulty scores aren’t as spot-on as competitors, which might affect your strategy planning.
• Limited white-labeling: No white-label reports in cheaper plans, making it tougher for agencies with clients.
• Steeper learning curve: Beginners might feel overwhelmed at first, needing more time to master all the features.
• Higher pricing tiers: Big jumps between pricing plans make upgrades expensive when your business grows.

🏆 Bottom line: Semrush is an excellent, easy-to-use Ahrefs alternative. Its feature set matches Ahrefs’s quality but gives you better value for your money. Plus, it has the biggest keyword database and backlinks collection, helping you quickly spot trends and guide your business to make the most of them.

Explore Semrush

Serpstat – Affordable alternative

Want a budget-friendly Ahrefs alternative?

Serpstat is one tool you shouldn’t miss.

This all-in-one SEO platform gives you everything you need to grow your site organically without emptying your wallet.

The moment you sign up, Serpstat finds your likely competitors automatically.

This helps you spot valuable keyword gaps that you’ve been missing all along.

Just like Ahrefs, Serpstat gives you a clean, user-friendly interface that feels natural to use.

When it comes to backlink analysis, it works really well compared to Ahrefs.

While its database isn’t as big or updated as often, it offers toxic link detection and practical recommendations that help you find new link opportunities by looking at historical data.

Here’s something that might surprise you – Serpstat has a massive database with 8.62B keywords and 2.21B keywords in SERPs.

Its keyword and site audit tools are particularly strong for what you pay, making it perfect for small businesses and agencies with tight budgets.

Serpstat’s main features include:

• Site audit: An easy-to-use tool that sorts issues by how serious they are (high/medium/low) to make your on-site SEO better. It gives your site a score out of 100 as you fix technical SEO, on-page, and speed problems.
• Keyword research: Get access to 8.62B keywords with spot-on SERP accuracy in a simple, user-friendly interface.
• Backlink analysis: Works just as well as Ahrefs and Semrush, helping you create backlink strategies and find stronger backlinks for better results.
• Competitor analysis: Compare your site against 5 competitors using 18 important metrics to spot ranking gaps and improve your SEO strategy.

Serpstat offers three plans. The cheapest plan, “Individual,” starts at $69/mo. The higher plans are for teams and agencies.

Serpstat is considerably cheaper than Ahrefs. However, its value could be better considering the feature set it offers.

Pros 👍

• Complete SEO toolkit: Packs all the keyword and site audit features you need in one place.
• Affordable pricing: Costs way less than others, making it perfect for small businesses and startups with tight budgets.
• Massive keyword database: Has a huge collection of 8.62B keywords for all your research needs.
• Comprehensive site audits: Gives you actionable fixes you can implement right away to improve your site.
• Competitor intelligence: Lets you spy on your competitors’ SERP strategies so you can build better SEO and backlink plans.
• Reliable difficulty scores: Shows accurate keyword difficulty ratings so you know exactly which keywords to target.

Cons 👎

• Poor user experience: Interface isn’t designed with specific SEO tasks in mind like guest post outreach or broken link building. Also, it gets sluggish sometimes, slowing down your work.
• Limited sorting options: Can’t sort some important columns in reports, making analysis harder.
• Customer support issues: Gets bad reviews for their customer service.
• Limited free version: Free plan doesn’t offer much compared to competitors.
• Smaller link database: Has fewer backlinks than Ahrefs, limiting your link analysis options.

🏆 Bottom line: Serpstat is a solid Ahrefs alternative with many matching features. It’s got a huge keyword database, great site audit tools, and good competitive analysis options. But, its value for money isn’t the best when you compare the features to what Ahrefs offers.

Explore Serpstat

KWFinder Mangools – Beginner-friendly

Looking for a user-friendly Ahrefs alternative for long-tail keyword research?

KWFinder (also known as Mangools) is perfect for bloggers and small businesses, with prices starting at just $31.85/mo.

Technically, Mangools is an SEO software suite that gives you access to five core tools/apps.

These include:

• KWFinder for researching keywords with an intuitive interface
• SERPChecker for competitive analysis
• LinkMiner for backlink analysis (though less comprehensive than Ahrefs)
• SERPWatcher for tracking ranks
• SiteProfiler for analyzing domains

While Mangools packs all these features tightly, it lacks a unified dashboard.

Here’s the thing: Ahrefs gives you deeper data and historical trends, but KWFinder wins on simplicity and price.

Are you comfortable using separate tools? Then Mangools works great.

If not, you might want to stick with Ahrefs or check out the other alternatives I’ve covered in this post.

Mangools offers a decent keyword database with 120 million keywords and 10 million domains, getting its data through Majestic SEO API.

Here’s how Mangools pricing breaks down:

Its basic plan starts at $31.85/mo with 2 more pricing tiers, up to $83.85 monthly.

Pros 👍

• Budget-friendly: Value for money, especially for those with a limited budget
• User-friendly design: Tool-specific features make it user-friendly
• Visual preview: Excellent website preview feature
• Keyword discovery: Great for long-tail keywords

Cons 👎

• Feature gaps: Lacks features compared to big players in the SEO market
• Poor integration: Lacks integration between its apps/tools
• Third-party dependency: It doesn’t have its own backlink index; it relies on Majestic’s index
• Competitive analysis: Limited competitor and backlink analysis

🏆 Bottom line: Mangools is a great Ahrefs alternative for bloggers and small businesses trying to follow the SEO path to reach new audiences. It offers excellent long-tail keyword research, making it easy to get your blog ranking on Google.

Explore Mangools

Ubersuggest – Cheapest keyword research tool

Ubersuggest is a fast-growing, beginner-friendly Ahrefs alternative created by SEO expert Neil Patel.

Why is it gaining popularity so quickly?

It has a massive keyword database, super simple interface, and powerful features like an AI writer that creates content on the spot.

What makes it unique? Ubersuggest offers a lifetime plan for people who hate monthly subscriptions.

And, the best part?

Their free keyword research tool costs absolutely nothing – perfect if you’re just starting your SEO journey.

Ubersuggest fits everything into one tool: keyword research, site audits, traffic estimates, backlink analysis, SEO opportunities, site speed checks, a Chrome extension, and a user-friendly dashboard.

It’s a budget-friendly Ahrefs alternative that’s great at finding keywords your competitors missed. And the content research tools are incredibly easy to use.

The biggest drawback?

Keyword difficulty scores aren’t as reliable as Ahrefs because Ubersuggest has a smaller backlink database that doesn’t update as often.

In simple terms, Ubersuggest gives you solid SEO features without emptying your wallet, making it perfect for freelancers and small businesses taking their first SEO steps.

Ubersuggest’s key features include:

• A clean dashboard: Get a clear overview of your projects with easy-to-read metrics on organic traffic trends, keyword rankings, traffic value, backlinks, on-page SEO, and top ranking opportunities.
• Keyword research: Find keywords that actually drive traffic using SERP data, check what your competitors are doing, see keyword visualizations, and discover fresh content ideas.
• Traffic estimation: See exactly how much traffic websites get so you can spot which keywords are working and which pages perform best.
• Backlinks discovery and opportunity tool: Look at your competitors’ backlinks, track how links change over time, and find new link opportunities by comparing domains.

At just $12 per month, Ubersuggest is perfect for bloggers and small businesses.

Need more features? Go for their Business or Enterprise plans.

How do they keep prices so low? Ubersuggest gets its backlink data through Moz API instead of building its own index.

Here’s something unique – Ubersuggest is the only SEO tool on our list with a lifetime subscription option (one-time payment), starting at just ₹120.

Not convinced yet? Try their 7-day free trial and see for yourself.

Pros 👍

• Free option: Free tier available for beginners to test the waters
• User-friendly interface: Simple, intuitive design that’s easy to navigate
• Content ideation: Good for basic keyword and content research needs

Cons 👎

• Data limitations: Smaller, less updated database compared to premium alternatives
• Feature restrictions: Limited advanced features for power users

🏆 Bottom line: Ubersuggest is definitely a great alternative to Ahrefs. It comes with useful tools that handle most of your SEO needs. Plus, its pricing is excellent, making it the best value-for-money option out there.

Explore Ubersuggest

SE Ranking – A growing alternative to Ahrefs

SE Ranking is a growing SEO tool that makes for an excellent Ahrefs alternative.

Why is it growing so fast?

It’s super easy to use, won’t break your bank, and comes with unique features like page change tracking and a website auditor that anyone can figure out.

You get everything you need in one place – complete site checkups, keyword research, and competitor analysis.

You can even create or fine-tune your existing SEO strategy with all the data it provides.

SE Ranking keeps things simple compared to Ahrefs.

It makes SEO more accessible with a clean interface.

The dashboard gives you a complete bird’s-eye view of all your projects at once.

It excels in rank tracking, site audits, and keyword research – allowing daily rank updates on all plans (something Ahrefs doesn’t offer).

While Ahrefs leads in backlink data, SE Ranking’s flexible pricing makes it much more affordable for agencies and small businesses.

With an impressive 5.3B keywords across 188 geo databases and 3T backlinks covering 2.2B domain profiles, it’s a serious Ahrefs competitor.

Best of all, you can try their demo account or free trial before committing.

SE Ranking’s key features include:

• Keyword rank tracker: Track keywords across major search engines with detailed SERP metrics like referring domains and average position.
• Content editor: Target specific keywords, regions, and languages while analyzing top 20 SERP results. Write content manually or use the AI writer.
• Competitive research: Check out your competitors’ domain trust, page trust, organic keywords, SERP features, and keyword metrics.
• Website audit: Run complete SEO audits with technical reports covering 12+ parameters. Easily spot and fix major site issues.
• Backlink checker: Tap into a powerful 3T backlink database to find new link opportunities.
• Content idea finder: Find fresh content ideas through clustering based on keyword difficulty, search volume, and CPC.

SE Ranking is decently priced, with an essential plan starting at $65 monthly, offering 5 projects.

Their Pro plan offers 30 projects and the Business plan includes unlimited projects with additional manager seats (3 and 5, respectively).

Pros 👍

• User experience: Super clean and easy-to-use interface
• Visual data: Shows reports with clear visuals that make sense at a glance
• Research capabilities: Excellent for digging into competitors and finding keyword opportunities
• Rank tracking: Updates your rankings daily on all plans (something others don’t offer)
• Data quality: Massive keyword and backlink database you can trust
• Affordability: Gets you more features for your money

Cons 👎

• Learning curve: Takes some time to figure out all the features
• Backlink limitations: Not as many backlinks in their database as the big players
• Feature depth: Some of the advanced tools aren’t as powerful as they could be
• Content restrictions: The AI writer stops after a certain word count
• Agency limitations: No way to add extras to the agency package if you hit the limits

🏆 Bottom line: SE Ranking is an impressive SEO tool that showcases that it can grow even in a saturated market. The pricing is just right and hence offers excellent value for money.

Explore SE Ranking

SpyFu

SpyFu is a well-known SEO tool that specializes in competitor keyword and PPC research.

It comes packed with features like keyword research, deep PPC/CPC analysis, interactive reporting, and backlink tracking.

What makes it stand out?

It offers long-term historical data at a much lower price point than Ahrefs.

While Ahrefs provides deeper analytics and more filtering options, SpyFu is valued for its simplicity and cost-effectiveness.

It works great for digital marketers, advertisers, and small to medium businesses who want to improve their SEO strategy – especially when it comes to competitive analysis and PPC insights.

Explore SpyFu

Keywordtool.io

Keywordtool.io generates thousands of keyword suggestions using Google Autocomplete, making it perfect for long-tail keyword research across multiple platforms like Amazon, YouTube, and Google.

It’s reliable and pulls data directly from Google’s suggestions, presenting everything in a clean, readable format that’s easy to navigate.

What makes it stand out?

You can research keywords across various platforms all in one place without switching between tools.

However, it lacks SERP analysis and robust competition metrics, making it less actionable than Ahrefs for advanced users.

It’s also relatively expensive for what it offers and doesn’t provide a free trial to test before you buy.

Explore Keywordtool.io

Lowfruits

Lowfruits is a great Ahrefs alternative if you’re hunting for low-competition keywords with credit-based pricing.

If you want to analyze your competition, Lowfruit is your go-to tool because it offers a bulk SERP analyzer.

It also has a wildcard keyword research feature that helps you refine your keyword search.

Just like keywordtool.io, LowFruits pulls its data from Google to give you relevant results. This makes LowFruits perfect for advanced SEO specialists and small business owners who need reliable data.

LowFruits makes searching simple. Its reports are clean, organized, and easy to understand. The pricing is reasonable with different options to choose from.

Explore Lowfruits

Wrap Up

The SEO tool marketplace is overcrowded, with top tools such as Ahrefs, Serpstat, and Semrush capturing the most user attention.

However, Ahrefs is not your only option.

All these tools give you a clear alternative, and you can pick the one that fits your needs.

If you want a cheaper yet feature-rich option, look at Semrush, Serpstat, and Ubersuggest.

Each has a different price point, and your final choice depends on your budget.