Looking for some alternatives to SurferSEO?

Not ready to shell out of $100s of dollars on the monthly basis?

You’re not alone.

Luckily, there are other options out there that won’t break the bank.

So why not give them a try?

Let’s explore some affordable yet feature-rich alternatives in this blog post.

⚡️Quick decision

When it comes to choosing the best alternatives, there are a few options to consider:

• For those seeking a comprehensive tool that combines robust research with AI-driven content suggestions, 🔗 Frase is worth considering. It offers comprehensive research tools, content outlines, and AI content generation capabilities. Its integration with platforms like Google Docs is also a plus.
• 🔗 Scalenut is another great option for those prioritizing SEO. It streamlines the content creation process with a focus on SEO, offering an integrated SEO planner, content optimizer, and AI copywriter. Its speed and accuracy in producing content are commendable.
• For those seeking a more affordable option, 🔗 WriterZen is a powerful and budget-friendly content optimization tool. It offers advanced AI-powered SEO content optimization and a plagiarism checker, which is not available in SurferSEO. Its flexible pricing plans make it a great option for those on a budget.

Factors to consider

When looking for an alternative to SurferSEO, here are the essential features that the tool needs to have:

• Comprehensive analysis: Analyze top-ranking pages on search engines like Google to gain insights on what makes them rank high. This depends on the tool’s topical modeling abilities.
• Real-time content editor: A built-in content editor should give you real-time feedback on how well your content is optimized compared to competitors.
• Topical research capabilities: Robust keyword research features to help you identify primary and LSI keywords.
• AI writer: A good AI content writer that uses the latest AI models (like GPT-4) and has access to real-time internet data. It should support AI commands functionality to get the most out of AI.
• Integration and compatibility: Integrates with other platforms like Google Docs or WordPress to streamline content creation.

Frase – Closest alternative to SurferSEO

Frase is an AI-driven content research and writing assistant designed to streamline the content creation process.

It aids in topic research, content outline generation, and even automates certain sections of your writing based on your inputs.

It has a fine balance between automated content generation and manual intervention.

👉 Unlike Surfer AI, they haven’t yet rolled out completely automated AI article generation feature.

Key features

• Research tools: Frase’s research tool analyzes the top 20 SERP results for a keyword, providing a content brief with an overview of the SERP, potential headings, resources to link to, statistics, news articles, and Wikipedia topics. This tool is useful for reverse-engineering successful articles and quickly finding valuable resources on the topic.
• Content outlines: Efficiently generates content outlines based on competitor analysis and topical modeling.
• AI content generation: It comes with a long-form content editor with support for AI Commands and the ability to write content based on its analysis of competitor content.
• Integrations: Features integrations with platforms like Google Docs and Google Search Console to help you track the performance of your published content right under Frase.

When you enter a topic (or your target keyword), Frase analyses the top 20 search results by default and gives you a SERP analysis overview.

If you don’t want to analyze the top 20 results, you can choose the top 10, or just check the results you want to analyze like the top 3, or top 5 as you wish.

Personally, I use a tool called Frase in two stages of my content creation process:

• Outline stage: I scan the table of contents of all the competitor content to prepare a comprehensive outline.
• Optimization stage: Secondly, I use it to check my initial draft for any topical gaps that need to be addressed to make the blog post more comprehensive. At this stage, their Google Docs addon comes handy.

My writers and I do not write blog content in Frase because we get constantly distracted by the scores and topical coverage, which interfere with our state of flow!

But indeed, as they have topical optimization tools alongside with AI content writers, optimizing your content and making sure that the content depth and breadth are taken care of, would be super easy.

Pricing 💲

Frase offers its services starting at $14.99/month.

However, to access all features, including Unlimited AI Content Addon, the cost can go up.

Compared to say Jasper, it’s still on the lower-side.

Pros 👍

• Frase’s research capabilities surpass many competitors, offering in-depth insights.
• Generates valuable content briefs, saving time on search intent and article drafting.
• Provides a user-friendly Kanban view of the top 20 article table of contents to create detailed content outlines (my personal favorite 💞).
• As Frase creates content based on the competitor content, it is good at generating factual content compared to that of say, ChatGPT, which as of now doesn’t come with web browsing functionality.
• Google Docs integration is really useful, allowing content optimization directly within Google Docs. But, not fully fledged. You end up using their native editor and export as DOCX.

Cons 👎

• Frase’s content creation process is more manual compared to SurferSEO’s Surfer AI, which creates highly optimized blog posts by simply inputting the keyword and detailed outline.
• The combined cost of research and AI writing features can be steep, especially when compared to specialized tools.

Bottomline: Frase is a comprehensive tool that not only provides robust competitor content research features, but also helps you write factually correct content for various sections in your blog posts. It excels in generating factual content and including citations and references, making it an excellent option for writing technical blog posts. In our niche i.e SaaS, it’s the best one!

Explore Frase

Scalenut

Scalenut is a comprehensive tool designed to simplify the AI content creation process with a focus on SEO content and topical optimization.

It’s not just an AI writer; it’s an all-in-one platform that integrates keyword planning, content generation, and SEO optimization.

Key features

• Integrated SEO planner: It helps you start your content creation with a robust /plan. It also comes with a keyword planner that lets you enter in any topic and it will identify all the subtopics and related keywords.
• Cruise Mode: A flagship feature for writing SEO-focused content creation quickly with AI. You just need to enter the keywords, select the title, finalize the AI generated outline, and under each subheadings, you can generate the key points and add your own insights for it to formulate an entire article.
• Content Optimizer: Enhances your content’s SEO score with actionable suggestions based on competitor content analysis. It assigns your article an SEO score, including the usage of the key terms, content depth, keyword density, the presence of keywords in headings and subheadings, meta tags, and whatnot.
• Chrome Extension: Access their AI anywhere on the web. You have access to all the AI templates and as well inline commands like rephrase, complete, simplify and even AI commands functionality anywhere on the web including Google Docs.

Pricing 💲

Scalenut offers multiple pricing tiers. The entry-level plan starts at $39/month, providing five SEO articles.

For those needing more, a $79/month plan offers 30 SEO articles and unlimited AI words.

Pros 👍

• From planning to creation, SEO remains at the forefront.
• Combines multiple features like AI writing, keyword planning, and content optimization in one platform.
• It comes with a built-in plagiarism checker if you’re paranoid about AI-generated content.
• Similar to Jasper’s Chrome extension, Scalenut’s Chrome extension allows you to access various AI templates and inline functionalities like Rewrite, Complete, Simplify, right within the webpage that you’re viewing.

Cons👎

• It has occasional formatting issues, inconsistencies in header formatting, and content structure.
• It does not come with multilingual support like that of Jasper or Frase, but they are currently working on including additional languages such as German and Spanish.
• The user interface is quite confusing, for example the order of the settings/sections can sometimes be unintuitive.

Bottomline: Scalenut is a promising tool for bloggers and content creators, especially those prioritizing SEO. It It has surprisingly comprehensive SEO features. It’s best suited for experienced bloggers who wish to automate the SEO aspect of their writing while still maintaining a personal touch. It is more about AI content writing, but it has more to be desired when it comes to content optimization.

Explore Scalenut

WriterZen – Bang for the buck

WriterZen offers features such as topic research, content optimization, and content analytics to help users create high-quality content that ranks well in search engine.

Key features

• Topic Discovery: It comes with a tool called Topic Discovery that lets you enter in any main topic and it lets you identify all the subtopics and the related keywords, similar to that of other tools like Answer the Public.
• Keyword Importer: If you already have a list of keywords from Google Suggest or Google Trends, you can paste in your list in WriterZen and it will return you with various metrics like volume, CPC, and Trends.
• Keyword Clustering: Group related keywords together for better content targeting. This is great for SEO silos.
• Content Brief: Create comprehensive content briefs for writers or yourself.
• Competitor Content Analysis: Analyze top 20 competitor URLs for a given seed keyword to gain insights and improve your content.
• AI-powered Content Optimization: Improve content relevance through topical coverage suggestions and readability with AI-generated suggestions.
• Plagiarism Checker: Ensure content originality and avoid duplicate content issues.

💎 Its keyword research tool is more powerful with some unique features like allintitle and KGR scores, which you won’t find even in dedicated tools like Semrush.

These help you in finding the low-hanging fruits you can easily rank.

Its keyword explorer displays the SERP overview, Google trends graph, CPC data, and much more in a single dashboard.

Pricing💲

WriterZen has a flexible pricing plan, including a Lite package for solo users priced at $19 per month.

The package includes 10,000 keyword credits, 20 content briefs, and 20,000 AI writing words, making it a great budget-friendly option.

Pros 👍

• Affordable pricing plans for different user needs. The best value for money.
• Comprehensive content optimization features, including AI-generated suggestions, competitor content analysis, keyword clustering, and a plagiarism checker.
• Comes with a keyword research tool so you don’t have to spend money on extra tools.
• Metrics like allintitle and KGR help you identify low hanging fruits.
• User-friendly interface and seamless workflow.
• Integrates with Google Docs for easy content editing and collaboration.

Cons 👎

• Lacks some advanced features and integrations offered by other content optimization tools.

Bottomline: Overall, WriterZen is a powerful and affordable content optimization tool that can help new users create high-quality content that ranks well in search engine results. If you need more advanced features and reporting, SurferSEO may be a better option.

Explore WriterZen

Marketmuse

MarketMuse is an AI-driven SEO software designed to assist users in creating authoritative and comprehensive content optimized for search engines.

With its machine learning capabilities, it provides personalized suggestions tailored to your particular domain, covering everything from topic research to content creation, keyword inclusion, FAQ generation, competitor analysis, and both internal and external linking of articles.

It has registered several patents in this regard.

Key features:

• Research capabilities: MarketMuse streamlines the keyword research process, offering detailed lists of keywords and topics covered by top-ranking articles. It also provides keyword variants to diversify content and avoid keyword stuffing.
• Optimization tools: Users can paste their content into the Optimize tab to receive a content score, word count, and suggestions for improvement. All recommendations are tailored to your particular website’s domain authority.
• Competitor insights: The Compete tab showcases the top 20 articles ranked on Google for a specific keyword, complete with content scores and a heatmap indicating topic coverage.
• FAQ generation: The Questions application generates a list of frequently asked questions related to a specific topic, aiding in content research and FAQ section creation.
• Linking suggestions: The Connect feature recommends relevant internal and external links to enhance content quality and SEO.

Pricing 💲

MarketMuse offers multiple plans to cater to the different needs of its users.

The Standard plan, priced at $149 per month, is ideal for individuals or small businesses who require up to 100 queries per month.

The Team plan, priced at $399 per month, offers unlimited queries and projects per month, making it an excellent choice for larger businesses or agencies that require extensive SEO research capabilities.

For those who are just starting out or have minimal SEO needs, the Free Plan provides access to all applications with 10 queries per month.

Pros 👍

• MarketMuse offers domain-specific suggestions, ensuring that content optimization strategies are tailored to individual websites.
• It has a proprietory algorithm that analyzes 100s of webpages on a topic to provide you insights.
• Users can pinpoint content gaps in competitors’ articles, providing opportunities to enhance their own content and improve ranking potential.
• Comes with a detailed executive summary and public links to share with writers.
• MarketMuse has a free plan that comes with only 10 queries per month.

Cons 👎

• MarketMuse’s plans can be expensive, potentially limiting its accessibility for smaller businesses or bloggers.
• It has limited credits for automated content creation, which may not be enough for users relying heavily on this feature. Each keyword or question search counts as a query, and the number of queries is restricted based on the chosen plan.
• It is really good at optimizing your content for a particular topic, but it doesn’t include other metrics like the number of backlinks that lets you analyze other competitor pages.

Bottomline: MarketMuse is a powerful tool for content creators. While its pricing might be on the higher side, its comprehensive features and website-specific personalized recommendations make it a valuable investment for those serious about SEO content optimization.

Explore MarketMuse

Outranking

Outranking.io is yet another AI-powered content creation and optimization tool

It leverages OpenAI’s GPT-3 and 4 models to generate high-quality content, offering features like headline variations, content summaries, and detailed outlines.

Key features

• SEO Keyword Strategy Tool: Provides AI-driven content optimization recommendations, tracks keyword rankings and organic traffic, and conducts competitive analysis based on live SERP data.
• Keyword Clustering Tool: Groups similar keywords into clusters to create a better silo structure and impactful internal linking strategy, based on understanding SERPs and having at least 3 ranking URLs in common.
• Content Brief: Generates AI-powered content briefs with in-depth SERP analysis, keyword insights, customizable brief templates, and competitive analysis for scaled content creation.
• SEO Content Editor: Offers AI-powered content generation, text automation, and factual first drafts using SERP and SEO data within 15 minutes, along with in-built content research, SEO scoring, and collaboration/versioning features.
• AI Assisted Writing: Offers an AI-powered content writing platform that researches, writes, and optimizes web content quickly using factual research, SEO data, and SERP analysis, with comprehensive research capabilities for high-quality, SEO-optimized content.
• Content Optimization: Evaluates webpage content and implements SEO best practices by benchmarking against top-ranking competitors, identifying content gaps and areas for improvement, and providing real-time SEO scoring, title and description checks, word count suggestions, and competitor visualization.
• Integrations: The tool integrates with Google Docs and WordPress, and is compatible with Grammarly’s browser plugin.

Pricing 💲

Outranking has two pricing plans:

• SEO Writer plan: Costs $59/month billed yearly. Ideal for freelancers and agencies who want to scale SEO content creation with AI. It includes 10 SEO documents, AI writing, page audit, plagiarism checker, and an AI first draft.
• SEO Strategist plan: Costs $99/month billed yearly. Perfect for solopreneurs, agencies, or companies aiming to improve their content ROI or create an SEO content strategy. It includes everything in the SEO Writer plan plus 15 SEO documents, two more users, and additional optimization credits.

Pros 👍

• Outranking offers a user-friendly interface, making it beginner-friendly and providing clear instructions for content optimization.
• It has in-depth SERP analysis tool that offers detailed insights into top-ranking content.
• Outranking stands out with its affordable pricing, and is more accessible for solo creators and new businesses compared to competitors.
• The AI Wizard comes with a feature-rich editor, guides users through the content creation process, from title generation to final editing.
• Outranking is SEO-focused, aiding users in producing SEO-optimized content through features like SERP analysis and meta title/description generation.

Cons 👎

• There is a word limit on AI processing for all plans, except the Enterprise plan.
• Outranking doesn’t offer a free plan, which might deter potential users.
• The tool doesn’t come with a live chat support for support query resolution and help.

Bottomline: Outranking is a robust AI-powered content creation tool, especially suited for those focusing on long-form content. It has more focus on SEO features.

Explore Outranking

Dashword

Dashword is a content optimization tool that leverages real-time search data to provide actionable recommendations for content creators.

It aims to streamline the content creation process by offering insights into what the audience is actively searching for.

Key features:

• Content Briefs: Dashword’s content briefs provide a roadmap for writers, detailing keyword usage, recommended word count, and topic coverage. In one click, you can share the content brief with your content writer.
• Topic Coverage Score: A unique feature that evaluates how comprehensively a piece of content covers a topic compared to top-ranking articles.
• Competitor Analysis: Dashword analyzes top-ranking content and provides insights into their structure and keyword usage.
• Content monitoring: It also comes with content monitoring abilities that helps you identify the underperforming pages based on the traffic trends and helps you re-evaluate your content based on the latest keyword reports. It has a keyword rank tracker and much more.

Pricing 💲

Dashword offers two primary pricing tiers: the Startup Plan at $99/mo, ideal for individuals and small teams, and the Business Plan starting from $349/mo, tailored for larger teams and businesses.

While the Startup Plan provides essential features for content optimization, the Business Plan adds advanced tools like content monitoring and API access.

For bloggers and small content creators, the Startup Plan offers the best value, balancing affordability with a robust set of features.

Pros 👍

• Dashword’s recommendations are data-driven, ensuring that content stays aligned with current trends based on real-time search data.
• Unlike other tools, Dashword allows for a direct comparison with top-ranking articles, providing a clear picture of your content’s performanceagainst other SERP competitors.
• Dashword offers in-depth analysis, providing a more detailed breakdown of competitor content, including insights into their keyword strategy and content structure.

Cons 👎

• You may find Dashword’s interface complex, particularly when compared to more streamlined tools like Surfer SEO, which can be overwhelming at first.
• Pricing can be on the higher side.

Bottomline: Dashword offers a unique approach to content optimization, focusing on real-time search data and direct competitor comparison. It’s especially beneficial for content creators who want an in-depth analysis of their content in relation to top-ranking articles. However, its pricing and interface complexity might make it more suitable for larger businesses or experienced SEO professionals.

Explore Dashword

Ultimate Keyword Hunter – Hidden free gem 💎

It is totally free software for Windows computers. You can even use it on your Mac machines making use of Parallels.

This tool is a really simple tool. Whenever you enter any keyword, it scrapes the top results for that keyword and reports to you the recurring words and phrases in the content of your competitors.

The key phrases are also organized as a single word, 2 words, 3 words, and 4 words.

Analyzing 2+ words phrases will be very handy to determine the content they’ve covered around the occurrence of those keywords.

On analyzing the reports it returns, you need to create your content outlines for maximum SEO advantage and relevancy.

Unlike SurferSEO, POP, or Website Auditor, you can’t enter your webpage URL and let it analyze.

Pros 👍

• It’s a completely free tool.
• It supports analyzing up to 50+ results.
• It also supports different search engines and their various locales.
• It’s a lightweight software with no need for VPNs.

Cons 👎

• This software is not available for Mac. Softwares like CrossOver and WINE also don’t support it.
• It doesn’t allow you to analyze your own URL and suggest keywords. It is only helpful in the content outlining phase, but not much in the optimization or auditing phase.

Bottomline: Ultimate Keyword Hunter is a really good free tool you can use to see what are the recurring phrases of your competitors. Although it doesn’t come with extra features like URL editing, backlinks analysis, word count correlation, etc. it is a great tool to use.

Semrush

SEMrush SEO Content Template is a feature designed to help content writers create SEO-friendly content by providing a template of recommendations based on target keywords.

This tool generates actionable content briefs that allow writers to craft converting and resonating SEO copy. The template includes recommended text length, readability score, semantically related keywords to include, potential backlink targets, and more.

Compared to Surfer SEO, SEMrush is an all-in-one SEO tool that provides a broader range of features, including keyword research, site audits, backlink analysis, and competitor analysis.

While Surfer SEO is a powerful on-page optimization tool with a focus on content analysis and optimization, SEMrush offers more than just content optimization and is an all-ine digital marketing tool.

The SEMrush Content Template is one of the many features included in the tool. It’s not a specialist tool.

SE Ranking – Affordable all in one alternative

SE Ranking is an all-in-one SEO platform that offers a range of features to help users improve their online search performance.

Its new content marketing tool includes keyword research, content analysis, and competitor research, as well as a plagiarism checker and content marketing plan.

Compared to SurferSEO, SE Ranking is more affordable and all in one.

It offers a wider range of features, while SurferSEO is more advanced in content analysis and keyword suggestions.

Overall, SE Ranking is a powerful and affordable all-in-one SEO solution that helps users create high-quality content that ranks well in search engine results pages.

Content Harmony

Content Harmony is a content optimization tool that helps users create high-quality content that ranks well in search engine results pages (SERPs).

It offers the following features:

• Keyword Reports: Comprehensive SEO keyword research reports that include information on search intent, topics, competitors, questions, and authoritative sources. Used as the starting point for content briefs or content grading processes.
• Search Intent: Content Harmony has developed a search intent classification system that helps you understand the type of content Google is looking for, the types of pages ranking, and other factors like freshness and search trends for a specific query.
• Content Briefs: Requirements and recommendations that guide writers in creating content. Includes basic information like word count, topic, title, and keywords, as well as in-depth information on content goals, audience, and a rough outline. Content Harmony streamlines this process, and it reduces the time spent on manual research.
• Content Optimization: Content Harmony offers an AI-driven content grader and optimization tool that improves content comprehensiveness and SEO performance.

They have placed extreme emphasis to make the initial content brief more value-added with extreme emphasis for search intent classification.

It goes beyond keyword-level analysis and focuses on providing a more comprehensive understanding of search intent and competitor content structure.

SurferSEO, on the other hand, is a more comprehensive and established tool with more features and integrations.

Clearscope

Clearscope is an excellent SEO tool that offers comprehensive analysis of top-performing content in Google search results.

It provides keyword suggestions, readability scores, and competitor analysis to create high-quality, optimized content.

The platform is user-friendly and integrates seamlessly with Google Docs, allowing for easy collaboration and optimization without losing track of recommendations.

Key features:

• Data-driven recommendations based on top-performing content.
• Seamless integration with Google Docs for easy collaboration and optimization.
• Offers free training and responsive support for users.

Clearscope’s beginner plan called Essentials even at $170/mo and includes only 10 Content Reports and 20 Content Inventory Pages, and Google Docs + WordPress integrations.

Not a good value for money!

The Business and Enterprise plans ask for custom pricing.

Page Optimizer Pro

Page Optimizer Pro (POP) is an on-page SEO tool that provides users with an advanced content editor, in-depth page analysis, and generates reports in a matter of minutes.

It’s created by Kyle Roof, who is a well-known SEO expert in the industry and he has incorporated codified all his experience in this tool. He created this tool using the Scientific On-Page Method that he used to rank his sites on top of Google.

It analyzes content for over 29 ranking factors.

👎 Unlike SurferSEO or Cora, POP doesn’t display any backlink data. Because it doesn’t integrate with Majestic API or Ahrefs API like that of Cora.

With an affordable price point at $27 per month and a free 7-day trial, Page Optimizer Pro offers great value for those looking to improve their on-page SEO.

Key features:

• Affordable pricing with a free 7-day trial
• Advanced content editor and in-depth page analysis
• Quick response from customer support

Page Optimizer Pro used to be really popular when correlational SEO was just starting out 3-4 years back. But now there are far better tools.

Contentpace

Contentpace is an AI-powered content research and analysis tool that helps users save time by providing insights into top-performing articles for a given keyword.

The platform generates comprehensive reports, including keyword and competitor insights, to help users create better content.

Key features:

• Topic reports
• Content brief
• Content optimiser
• Content audits
• Content planner

RankScience

RankScience is an excellent SEO automation platform that uses data-driven strategies and A/B testing to improve website rankings.

The platform offers content insights, competitor analysis, and a team of SEO experts to help users achieve better organic growth.

RankScience is suitable for businesses looking to improve their SEO performance through data-driven strategies and expert guidance.

Key features:

• Data-driven SEO strategies and A/B testing
• Content insights and competitor analysis
• Expert guidance from a team of SEO professionals

They are agency-first company, and happen to have a software as well.

GrowthBar

GrowthBar is an AI-powered SEO tool that combines AI copywriting features with basic SEO tools at a low price point. The platform is easy to use and offers a Chrome extension for quick access to key metrics and optimization features.

GrowthBar is ideal for users looking to explore AI copywriting and improve their SEO performance on a budget.

Key features:

• Topical/keyword research tool
• Combines AI copywriting features with basic SEO tools
• Suggests you keywords to include for topical relevancy
• Easy-to-use Chrome extension
• Affordable pricing and a free trial

NeuronWriter

NeuronWriter is an AI-powered SEO writing and content optimization tool designed to help users create and optimize website content quickly.

The platform offers excellent research tools, SERP analysis, and competitor research capabilities.

NeuronWriter’s AI-generated content quality is considered decent enough, and the platform offers a free trial for users to test its features.

Some key features are:

• AI-powered SEO writing and content optimization
• Decent research tools and competitor analysis
• Free trial available for users to test the platform

Website Auditor

Website Auditor is a part of the SEO Powersuite package.

According to my experience, it is one of the most advanced website auditing tools in the market.

This tool is a freemium tool. In the paid version of their tool, they have TF/IDF feature.

It lets you analyze your webpage against other top 10 ranking competitors and suggest other keywords and phrases that you need to consider optimizing for.

Here it’ll give you the recommendations either to add, remove, or not to make any changes to your content.

It also comes with its own content editor to make the changes in real-time and then upload the content to your server.

As I told you, the Website Auditor comes as part of the apps available in the SEO Powersuite package.

Or else, you can also buy the Website Auditor app individually.

For most people, the professional plan seems pretty good.

👎 It’s not a cloud application. So the speed woul be a concern when running it locally on your computer.

Wrapping up

Here are the options suitable for most of the people, if you are still confused:

• Frase: Comprehensive tool with AI-driven content suggestions, research tools, content outlines, and integration with Google Docs and Search Console.
• Scalenut: Streamlines content creation with SEO planner, content optimizer, and AI copywriter.
• WriterZen: Budget-friendly tool with AI-powered content optimization and plagiarism checker.

Hope you guys found these alternatives to SurferSEO helpful!