Ahrefs vs Moz: prices, DR vs DA and which one to pick

Quick verdict

• Pick Ahrefs if you research other sites' backlinks and keywords often: Site Explorer and Keywords Explorer are its core, and Standard and above list unlimited credits per user.
• Pick Moz if Domain Authority is the number you report on: only Moz calculates DA, MozBar shows it as you browse, and Link Explorer is its backlink tool.
• Moz starts cheaper for real use: Moz Standard is $99 a month with 3 campaigns and 300 tracked keywords; Ahrefs Lite is $129 with 750 tracked keywords but only 1,000 credits per user a month. Ahrefs Starter ($29) and Moz Starter ($49) are the smallest entry points.
• For teams, Moz Medium includes 2 users and Large 3, extra seats $49 a month; Ahrefs Lite, Standard and Advanced include 1 user each, with extra users from $40 to $80 a month.
• If you only work on your own site, Search Console and Ahrefs Free cost nothing, and you may not need either paid plan.

Ahrefs vs Moz pricing: every plan

Ahrefs' plans run from $29 to $449 a month, with Enterprise at $1,499 on an annual commitment; Moz Pro's plans run from $49 to $299 a month. Ahrefs says paying annually saves up to 17%, but its pricing page shows monthly prices only. Moz gives 20% off the base plan when you pay yearly, quoted as the price for your first year. Our Ahrefs pricing and Moz Pro pricing guides cover credits, add-ons, extra users and research limits.

Ahrefs' hidden limit is credits: on Starter and Lite, opening a report, applying a filter or asking for more data spends one. Starter includes 200 a month and Lite 1,000 per user; Site Audit and Rank Tracker do not use credits. Moz caps research differently, with monthly keyword and backlink query allowances per plan.

Domain Rating vs Domain Authority

Ahrefs' Domain Rating (DR) and Moz's Domain Authority (DA) are both third-party scores of a site's link strength on a 100-point scale, and Google uses neither. Moz itself says Domain Authority is not a Google ranking factor. Each score is calculated by one company from its own link index, so the same site gets different numbers in each tool.

• Ahrefs DR measures the strength of a site's backlink profile compared with others in Ahrefs' database. A linking domain's rating is split equally among the domains it links to, then scaled into 0 to 100. Ahrefs' free Website Authority Checker shows it.
• Moz DA is a 1 to 100 score Moz builds with a machine learning model over its Link Explorer index, where linking root domains and link quality weigh most. A free Moz account or MozBar shows it.

Never compare a DR with a DA: a DR of 40 and a DA of 40 do not describe the same strength. Pick one tool and compare your site with competitors inside it. Our guide to what domain authority is covers both scores and Semrush's Authority Score, and what backlinks are explains the links behind them.

Where Ahrefs is better

• Research on any site at depth. Site Explorer shows another domain's backlinks, organic keywords and top pages, and Keywords Explorer handles open-ended keyword research. Standard and above list unlimited credits per user, so daily research is not capped by credits.
• History. Standard keeps 2 years of history and Advanced 5 years.
• More tracked keywords on the top plans. Standard tracks 2,000 and Advanced 5,000, against 3,000 on Moz Large; Ahrefs updates them weekly.
• A stronger free tier for your own site. Ahrefs Free gives Site Explorer, Site Audit and Web Analytics for sites you verify, with 1,000 backlinks and keywords visible at once and 5,000 crawl credits per project a month. Ahrefs says it is not a trial.

Where Moz is better

• Domain Authority. Moz created DA, and many clients, link sellers and agencies still quote it. Only Moz calculates it, so if a report or contract names Moz DA, no other tool can give you the real number.
• MozBar. Moz's free browser toolbar shows Domain Authority, backlinks and linking root domains for the page you are on.
• A lower price for real use. Moz Standard at $99 a month, or $79 a month paid yearly, costs less than Ahrefs Lite at $129, and has no credit meter.
• Users included. Moz Medium includes 2 users and Large 3; every Ahrefs plan below Enterprise includes 1.
• A free trial. Moz Pro offers one (its pricing page does not state the length); Ahrefs offers no free trial on paid plans and points to Ahrefs Free instead.

For a wider field, Semrush vs Ahrefs sets Ahrefs against Semrush, Moz vs Semrush does the same for Moz, and our Moz alternatives page compares Moz Pro with the main suites.

A cheaper option: MrKeyword's free checkers

If you only need a rough read of a domain's link strength, MrKeyword, which we make, has a free domain authority checker and a free backlink checker. They are honest estimates, not a replacement for Ahrefs or Moz:

• The domain authority checker shows Link Authority, MrKeyword's own 0 to 100 score from a PageRank over its link graph. It is not Ahrefs DR and not Moz DA, and will not match them.
• The backlink checker lists a domain's referring domains with their Link Authority, and the domains gained or lost between web graph releases.
• Both read data built from the Common Crawl domain-level web graph plus MrKeyword's own crawler. That is a sample of the web, not a full index, far smaller than Ahrefs' or Moz's, so treat every figure as an estimate.

For your own site, MrKeyword reads your Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools data and keeps a daily history. Free covers 1 website, 25 tracked keywords and 100 audit pages a month; Starter is $10 a month, Growth $19 and Agency $49 (see pricing).

Ahrefs, Domain Rating, Moz, Moz Pro and Domain Authority are trademarks of their owners, used here only to compare them. MrKeyword is not affiliated with either.

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