SE Ranking vs Ahrefs: prices, rank tracking and which one to pick

Quick verdict

• Pick SE Ranking if rank tracking across many sites is the core of the work: Core tracks 2,000 keywords daily across 10 projects for $129 a month, and Growth 5,000 across 30 projects.
• Pick Ahrefs if you research other sites' backlinks and keywords every day: Site Explorer and Keywords Explorer are its core, and Standard ($249) and above list unlimited per user credits.
• SE Ranking is cheaper for teams: Growth includes 3 manager seats; every Ahrefs plan below Enterprise includes 1 user, and extra users cost $40/mo (up to 2) on Lite to $80/mo (up to 10) on Advanced.
• If you only work on your own site, Search Console and Ahrefs Free cost nothing, and you may not need either paid plan.

SE Ranking vs Ahrefs pricing: every plan

Both start at $129 a month for a full plan (SE Ranking Core, Ahrefs Lite); Ahrefs also sells a smaller Starter plan at $29 and goes up to $1,499 for Enterprise, while SE Ranking's top plan is a custom price. SE Ranking takes 20% off for yearly billing, so Core falls to $103.20 a month. Ahrefs says paying annually saves up to 17%, but its pricing page shows monthly prices only. Our SE Ranking pricing and Ahrefs pricing guides cover each plan in more depth.

Mind the refund terms before paying yearly. SE Ranking says: payments are non-refundable unless the service was not delivered as promised. Ahrefs says: no refunds in general; unused monthly plans may be refunded on request.

What an agency with 3 users pays

For 3 users, SE Ranking Growth is $279 a month with every seat included, against $209 for Ahrefs Lite and $369 for Ahrefs Standard once you add two users. The sums below are our arithmetic on each plan's included seats and the extra-user price on its pricing page, at monthly billing.

Two add-ons change the sum for agencies. SE Ranking's Agency Pack adds white-label reports, client seats and a lead generator for +$69 a month on annual billing only. Ahrefs sells Report Builder for $99 a month. Ahrefs also lists a casual extra Lite user (6 to 100 credits a month) for $20 a month, which would bring Lite to $169 for 3 users if two of them only look things up now and then.

Keyword research

Both research keywords and competitors for any domain from their own databases; Ahrefs meters that research with credits on its smaller plans, while SE Ranking includes it in Core and Growth.

• Ahrefs: Keywords Explorer and Site Explorer show search volumes, keyword difficulty and the keywords another domain ranks for. On Starter and Lite, opening a report, applying a filter or asking for more data spends a credit: Starter includes 200 a month and Lite 1,000 per user, with pay-as-you-go credits on Lite at $50 per 500. Standard and above list unlimited per user credits.
• SE Ranking: keyword and competitor research come inside Core and Growth, with no credit meter on its pricing page, and AI visibility tracking is included, with more prompts sold from $71 a month.

Neither vendor publishes its keyword database size counted the same way, so we do not rank their databases. Ahrefs keeps 6 months of history on Lite, 2 years on Standard and 5 years on Advanced; SE Ranking's pricing page does not list a history length in our dataset.

Backlinks

Both sell backlink research on any domain from their own web-wide link index; Ahrefs is the tool most teams pick when links are the main job. Each counts its index differently, so we do not compare their sizes. Ahrefs Free shows 1,000 backlinks and keywords visible at once for sites you verify, which covers your own links at no cost. To compare link data on a domain you know well, use SE Ranking's 14-day free trial, no credit card; Ahrefs lists no trial listed; Ahrefs Free instead. Our Semrush vs Ahrefs and Ahrefs vs Moz comparisons cover Ahrefs against the other link tools.

Site audit

Both include a crawler-based site audit on paid plans, and both raise the allowance on higher plans. Ahrefs counts audits in crawl credits: 100,000 a month on Lite, 500,000 a month on Standard and 1,500,000 a month on Advanced, and Site Audit does not spend report credits. Ahrefs Free audits sites you verify with 5,000 crawl credits per project a month, checking 170+ technical and on-page issues. SE Ranking's audit caps are not in our dataset, so we do not quote them. For a single page, our free site audit runs with no sign-up.

Rank tracking

SE Ranking tracks more keywords for the money and updates them daily; Ahrefs updates rankings weekly.

At $129 a month, SE Ranking Core tracks 2,000 keywords, 2.7 times the 750 on Ahrefs Lite at the same price. Ahrefs Standard reaches 2,000 for $249, and SE Ranking Growth matches Ahrefs Advanced's 5,000 for $279 against $449. SE Ranking also sells extra tracked keywords from $22.40. Rank Tracker does not spend Ahrefs credits. For trackers built only for this job, see best rank tracking software.

Where MrKeyword fits

If you only need a rough read of a domain's links, MrKeyword, which we make, has a free backlink checker and a free domain authority checker; for your own sites it is free for one website and $10 a month after that. It is not a replacement for SE Ranking or Ahrefs:

• The backlink checker lists a domain's referring domains with their Link Authority, and the domains gained or lost between web graph releases.
• 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 will not match it.
• 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, so treat every figure as an estimate.

For your own site, MrKeyword reads your Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools data, keeps a daily history, crawls your site and gets keyword volumes from Google Keyword Planner through the official Google Ads API.

• No web-scale keyword index. It cannot list every keyword a competitor ranks for. Its search volumes come from Google Keyword Planner through the official Google Ads API, for the keywords you research.
• Competitor positions are predicted, not measured. The Competitors tab in rank tracking estimates where rival domains rank from MrKeyword's own index and labels every figure Predicted.
• No live SERP checks. It never scrapes Google. Your positions are Google's own average positions from Search Console (and Bing Webmaster Tools), for sites you verify, with Google's usual 2 to 3 day delay.
• A smaller link index. Backlinks and Link Authority come from MrKeyword's web graph, which is smaller than the link indexes the big suites run.
• No local pack, map or ads tracking, and no social media or PPC toolkits.

For every vendor side by side, see SEO tool pricing compared. SE Ranking and Ahrefs are trademarks of their owners, used here only to compare them. MrKeyword is not affiliated with either.

Questions and answers