Best SEO Tools (2026): 7 Picks, From Free Crawls to Suites

Semrush sells its SEO Toolkit in Pro, Guru and Business tiers. Its pricing-limits page lists 5 projects and 500 tracked keywords on Pro, 15 projects and 1,500 keywords on Guru, and 40 projects and 5,000 keywords on Business. Guru adds historical data and multi-location tracking, and Business adds Share of Voice and API access. The company also offers Semrush One as a separate bundle, so check which package a page is describing.

The free account is useful for evaluation. According to Semrush's own help material, free users get about 10 Keyword Magic reports a day, a Site Audit allowance of 100 pages a month and Position Tracking for 10 keywords on one website. The knowledge base describes the Keyword Magic database as over 27 billion keywords, a vendor figure.

Prices have changed over time and appear differently on different Semrush pages, so we are not printing them. Check the current price on the pricing page.

Skip it if you only need a single task such as crawling a site or checking Search Console data, since a suite is more than you need.

Ahrefs organizes its product around Site Explorer for competitor and backlink research, Keywords Explorer for keyword discovery, Site Audit for technical issues and Rank Tracker for positions. Its help pages say Keywords Explorer can analyze up to 10,000 keywords in bulk and shows Traffic Potential next to search volume. Ahrefs says its backlink index is refreshed every 15 minutes, which is a vendor claim we could not check independently.

The old Ahrefs Webmaster Tools is now called Ahrefs Free. It works on unlimited verified websites, and Ahrefs lists 5,000 crawl credits per verified project per month. Paid tiers are Starter, Lite, Standard, Advanced and Enterprise, and Enterprise needs an annual commitment. Ahrefs also offers annual billing on Lite, Standard, Advanced and Enterprise.

Because Ahrefs has changed its plans recently and older blog posts list different numbers, we are not printing a price. Check the current price before you buy.

Skip it if you mainly want content-writing guidance or a low-cost tool for a single small site.

Google Search Console reports how your own site appears in Google Search. The Performance report lists clicks, impressions, click-through rate and position, grouped by query, page, country or device. The Page indexing report lists the issues that kept some URLs out of Google's index, and the URL Inspection tool checks individual pages. A Core Web Vitals report shows real-world performance.

Google's documentation says you do not have to sign up for Search Console to appear in search results, and says that if your site has fewer than 500 pages you probably do not need the page indexing report, suggesting a site: search for key URLs instead. Discover and News reports appear only when a site has enough traffic.

It is free, so it works as the baseline for any other SEO tool. It cannot show competitors' rankings or backlinks, which is what paid tools add.

Skip it if you want competitor data, since Search Console only covers sites you own and can verify.

The SEO Spider is a crawler you install on your computer. Screaming Frog says the free version crawls a maximum of 500 URLs per crawl, cannot save crawls and restricts the configuration options. The paid licence removes the 500 URL limit, allows you to save and open crawls and unlocks features such as JavaScript rendering and Google Search Console integration.

Licences are annual and the tool reverts to the free version when a licence expires. The licence page says two users need two individual licences and lists lower per-licence prices for groups of 5, 10 and 20. Screaming Frog quotes its price in pounds sterling, and other pages show a converted figure, so check the licence page for the current amount.

A crawler tells you what is on your site, such as broken links, redirect chains, missing titles and duplicate content. It does not provide keyword volumes or backlink data, so most people pair it with a suite or Search Console.

Skip it if you want a web dashboard, ongoing rank tracking or keyword discovery.

Seobility's pricing page lists a Basic plan that is free with no time limit. It includes 1 website project, 10 tracked keywords, 5 daily tool credits, a limited website audit and 100 pages per crawl. Paid tiers start with Premium, which lists 3 projects, 25,000 pages per crawl and 300 keywords for ranking monitoring, and higher tiers raise those limits. Every paid plan has a 14-day free trial.

The pricing page shows prices in euros while other Seobility pages show dollar figures that do not match, so we are not printing a price. Extra projects do not include keywords, and keyword packages add 100 keywords each.

For a small business that wants a site audit, rank monitoring and on-page checks without a large budget, the free plan is a low-risk place to start. Larger teams will probably find the project and keyword limits tight and the data less deep than the big suites.

Skip it if you need extensive competitor backlink data or large-scale keyword research.

Mangools combines several focused tools. KWFinder handles keyword research, SERPWatcher tracks rankings and SiteProfiler analyzes domains, and Mangools says all of them are included in every subscription and cannot be bought separately. Plans are named Entry, Basic, Premium and Agency, with higher plans raising limits.

Its FAQ says a free plan exists without a credit card and that subscriptions auto-renew. A full refund is offered if you are not satisfied within 48 hours of payment, but not for two consecutive subscriptions. API plans for KWFinder and SERPChecker are separate products, and SERPWatcher API access is available on request.

Prices on Mangools pages vary with promotions, annual billing and add-on bundles, so check the current price on the plans page. The interface is simpler than the large suites, which many beginners like, though the data depth is smaller.

Skip it if you need very large keyword databases, deep backlink analysis or agency-scale reporting.

Surfer is built around content. The Content Editor needs an active subscription and credits, and Surfer's pricing FAQ says 1 credit equals 1 article. The Content Audit tracks rankings, alerts you to drops and suggests articles with the best quick-win potential to refresh. Surfer says annual billing saves up to 17% compared with paying monthly.

Plan names and prices differ between the pages we found, with older pages describing different tiers, so we are not printing a price. Check the current plans on the pricing page.

Because it concentrates on writing and refreshing pages, it fits alongside a keyword tool or Search Console rather than replacing them. It does not provide backlink analysis or a deep technical crawler.

Skip it if you need technical audits, backlink research or a broad keyword database.