We checked the entry plans of 10 SEO tools on each vendor's own page and ranked them by what a year really costs, from the free Google tools to Semrush.
SEO & AI Search
Last updated: October 2026.
Ranked by what a year really costs, the cheapest paid SEO tools are Yoast SEO Premium at $118.80, Ubersuggest Individual at $144 and Mangools Basic at $226.20, followed by the Screaming Frog SEO Spider licence at $279, Ahrefs Starter at $348 and Moz Pro Starter at $470. The big all-in-one suites cost far more: Serpstat Individual is $600 a year, SE Ranking Core $1,238.40 and Semrush’s cheapest plan $1,407.96. And Google Search Console plus PageSpeed Insights cost nothing at all, which for a lot of small sites is all you need for the first few months.
If you run a small business site, write a blog, or have just been told “you’re doing the SEO now”, the pricing pages are not written for you. They lead with discounted per-month figures, hide seat and keyword limits in comparison tables, and quietly mix plugins, crawlers and full research suites as if they did the same job. This guide puts the entry plan of each tool side by side at the price you would actually pay for twelve months.
Short answer: Start with the free Google tools. Search Console shows the searches you already appear for and any indexing problems; PageSpeed Insights checks page speed. When you need keyword research and rank tracking, Ubersuggest Individual ($12 a month, $144 a year) is the cheapest paid toolkit we found for one site; Mangools Basic ($226.20 a year) is the step up if you track rankings for more than one site. Pay for Semrush, SE Ranking or Ahrefs Lite only when you are tracking hundreds of keywords or several sites and will use the extra data every week.
Ranked by the cheapest way to pay for a year of each tool’s entry plan at list price, for one user: the annual prepay where offered, otherwise 12 times the monthly price. All prices in US dollars, excluding VAT and sales tax.
| Tool (entry plan) | Monthly | Annual | 12-month cost | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Google Search Console + PageSpeed Insights | Free | Free | $0 | Every site, from day one |
| 2. Yoast SEO Premium | Not offered | $118.80/year | $118.80 | WordPress on-page help |
| 3. Ubersuggest Individual | $12 | Offer only* | $144 | One site on a tight budget |
| 4. Mangools Basic | $30.50 | $226.20/year ($18.85/month) | $226.20 | Bloggers, first keyword research |
| 5. Screaming Frog SEO Spider | Not offered | $279/year per user | $279 | Technical site audits |
| 6. Ahrefs Starter | $29 | Not offered | $348 | Occasional lookups |
| 7. Moz Pro Starter | $49 | $470/year | $470 | One site, Moz metrics |
| 8. Serpstat Individual | $69 | $600/year ($50/month) | $600 | Freelancers, several projects |
| 9. SE Ranking Core | $129 | $1,238.40/year ($103.20/month) | $1,238.40 | Heavy rank tracking |
| 10. Semrush SEO | $139 | $1,407.96/year ($117.33/month) | $1,407.96 | Deep competitor research |
*When we checked, Ubersuggest also showed yearly billing at $80 for Individual as a limited-time offer, and it sells a one-off lifetime licence for $120. We rank on 12 × the regular monthly price because offers come and go. The step-up plans are worth knowing too: Ahrefs Lite is $1,290 a year ($129 month to month) and Moz Pro Standard is $948 a year ($99 month to month).
12-month cost
What a year of each entry plan costs
One user. Cheapest list price, USD, excluding tax.
List prices from each vendor’s own pricing page, checked 18 October 2026. Annual prepay where offered, otherwise 12 × monthly. Ubersuggest: 12 × monthly; its yearly offer is not ranked.
By the numbers: one year of Semrush’s cheapest plan ($1,407.96 on annual billing) costs almost as much as ten years of Ubersuggest Individual ($144 a year at $12 a month). Both do keyword research and rank tracking; the gap pays for deeper data, more reports per day and a bigger competitor database.
On 18 October 2026 we read every price on the vendor’s own pricing page (or, for Moz Pro Starter, the vendor’s own checkout page, which is where the yearly price appears). We did not use review sites, coupon pages or reseller lists, which are often out of date or paid for. For each tool we looked at the cheapest paid tier, flipped the monthly/yearly toggle where there was one, and noted the currency. Prices are in US dollars as listed; Screaming Frog defaults to pounds (£199), so we used its own currency switcher to read the dollar price.
We verified prices and plan limits on each vendor’s page; we did not run a long hands-on test of every tool for this piece. We ignored launch offers and countdown deals, and nothing here is an affiliate ranking. VAT or sales tax is added at checkout almost everywhere.
Common mistake: reading the annual plan’s “per month” figure as the monthly price. Mangools shows Basic at $18.85 a month, but that only applies when you prepay $226.20 for the year; month to month it is $30.50, or $366 over twelve months. Semrush’s $117.33 works the same way: pay monthly and it is $139.
Before you pay anyone, set up the two free tools that come straight from Google. Most beginners get more from a month of reading their own Search Console data than from a year of a paid suite they open twice.
Our step-by-step Google Search Console guide walks you through setup and the reports worth checking regularly. If you want those numbers in a shareable dashboard, Google’s free Data Studio connects to Search Console directly; we compare it with Tableau Public in Looker Studio vs Tableau Public.
The catch: Search Console only covers your own verified sites. It will not tell you what a competitor ranks for, suggest new keywords you do not yet appear for, or track daily positions. That is the point at which a paid tool starts to earn its keep.
Best for: everyone, as the baseline before any paid tool.
Pricing (verified 18 October 2026): free, with a Google account and site verification for Search Console. 12-month cost: $0.
The catch: no competitor data, no keyword ideas beyond the searches you already show up for, and a learning curve. See the section above.
Best for: WordPress site owners who want help with titles, internal links and redirects inside the editor.
Pricing (verified 18 October 2026): $118.80 a year excluding VAT, shown as “$9.90 / month, billed annually” on Yoast’s Premium page. There is no month-to-month option. 12-month cost: $118.80.
The catch: one subscription covers one site, so three blogs cost three subscriptions. It renews automatically each year (Yoast’s terms promise a reminder two weeks before). If you let it lapse, the plugin keeps working but you lose updates, support, word-form analysis and all AI features.
Best for: a single site owner who wants an easy dashboard and the lowest monthly price.
Pricing (verified 18 October 2026): Individual is $12 a month on Ubersuggest’s pricing page; lifetime licences are $120 (Individual), $200 (Business) and $400 (Enterprise). Yearly billing was shown at $80 for Individual as a limited-time offer, which we have not ranked on. 12-month cost: $144.
The catch: one project and 125 tracked keywords is tight once you get going, and the page pushes its lifetime deal with an “offer ends soon” countdown; treat that as a sales tactic, not a reason to rush. The same page also shows a strip of US-dollar price ranges such as “US$29 – US$99” and “US$139 – US$499”. Those are competitors’ prices, not Ubersuggest’s plans, and they are easy to mistake for its own.
Best for: bloggers and small business owners who want simple keyword research and light rank tracking.
Pricing (verified 18 October 2026): $30.50 a month, or $226.20 a year ($18.85 a month), on Mangools’ pricing page. 12-month cost: $226.20.
The catch: rankings update weekly on Basic (daily only on Agency, $586.20 a year) and Basic has no extra seats at all. The page’s “save ~35%” badge actually undersells the annual saving, which works out at about 38%, but you have to pay the full year up front.
Best for: finding broken links, redirect chains, missing titles and duplicate pages across a whole site.
Pricing (verified 18 October 2026): $279 per licence per year (£199 in the UK), with discounts from five licences, on Screaming Frog’s pricing page. 12-month cost: $279.
The catch: it is a specialist audit tool with no keyword research or rank tracking, and the output is dense. Licences are per user and last one year, then must be renewed. The “unlimited” crawl depends on your computer’s memory and storage.
Best for: people who need Ahrefs data now and then rather than every day.
Pricing (verified 18 October 2026): Starter is $29 a month and Ahrefs says it can only be renewed monthly. Lite is $129 a month or $1,290 a year ($108 a month), on Ahrefs’ pricing page. 12-month cost: $348 (Starter) or $1,290 (Lite).
The catch: credits run out fast if you click around, and Ahrefs warns that Starter’s features and limits can change without notice. The jump from Starter to Lite is almost fourfold. Ahrefs’ FAQ says it never runs discounts or free trials.
Best for: one site owner who wants Moz’s Domain Authority and keyword tools without a big plan.
Pricing (verified 18 October 2026): Starter is $49 a month, or $470 a year on Moz’s checkout page (20% annual discount), plus tax. Standard is $99 a month or $79 a month billed yearly, on Moz Pro’s pricing page. 12-month cost: $470 (Starter) or $948 (Standard).
The catch: Moz does not list Starter’s quotas in its comparison table, so check them at checkout before you pay; one site is the headline limit. The free-trial button sits on the Medium plan, not Starter.
Best for: freelancers who want an all-in-one suite with room for several sites.
Pricing (verified 18 October 2026): $69 a month, or $50 a month billed annually ($600 a year), on Serpstat’s pricing page. 12-month cost: $600.
The catch: Individual is strictly one person; shared access, API access and scheduled reports start on Team at $100 a month (billed annually). Rank tracking runs on position-check credits, so tracking many keywords daily eats the allowance faster than the headline suggests.
Best for: small businesses and marketers who track lots of keywords across several sites.
Pricing (verified 18 October 2026): $129 a month, or $103.20 a month billed annually ($1,238.40 a year), on SE Ranking’s pricing page. 12-month cost: $1,238.40.
The catch: one manager seat (extra seats from $16), and the fuller AI Search toolkit is a separate add-on at $71.20 a month on annual billing. Historical data across the project’s lifetime is a Growth-plan feature.
Best for: marketers who live in competitor research and need the biggest single toolkit.
Pricing (verified 18 October 2026): $139 a month, or $117.33 a month billed annually ($1,407.96 a year), on Semrush’s pricing page. 12-month cost: $1,407.96.
The catch: one user only (extra users $45 a month each), no historical data, and the cheapest plan has no custom AI prompt tracking; that starts on Starter at $199 a month. The “save up to 17%” annual badge applies only if you pay the year up front.
Almost every vendor above now sells “AI visibility” tracking, which checks whether ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or Google’s AI answers mention your brand. It is real and growing, but for a small site it is not where your first dollars should go: get your pages indexed and earning clicks first. We explain what generative engine optimisation is, and what it is not, in What is GEO? If you would rather keep AI companies’ crawlers off your content altogether, see how to block AI crawlers with robots.txt.
Decision guide
Pay for the least tool that does the job
Start at the top. Stop at the first yes.
Often not at first. Google Search Console shows the searches you already appear for, your clicks and indexing problems, and PageSpeed Insights covers speed. A paid tool becomes useful when you want keyword ideas you do not rank for yet, competitor data or daily rank tracking.
The Google tools are free. Of the paid plans we checked, Yoast SEO Premium is cheapest at $118.80 a year, but it is a WordPress plugin rather than a research tool. The cheapest all-round keyword and rank-tracking toolkit is Ubersuggest Individual at $12 a month ($144 a year), followed by Mangools Basic at $226.20 a year on annual billing.
At the very bottom, Ahrefs Starter ($29 a month) is far cheaper than Semrush’s SEO plan ($139 a month), but Starter is limited to a small credit allowance. Comparing like with like, Ahrefs Lite is $1,290 a year and Semrush SEO is $1,407.96 a year on annual billing, both for one user.
Usually, yes. The entry plans of Semrush, Ahrefs Lite, SE Ranking, Moz Pro Standard and Serpstat include one user, and Screaming Frog licences are per user. Extra seats cost from $16 a month on SE Ranking to $45 a month on Semrush. Mangools Basic has no extra seats at all.
Assume not. Treat every price here as excluding VAT or sales tax, which is added at checkout depending on where you are. Yoast states this outright with “ex VAT”; Moz’s checkout adds “+ taxes”.
Keep going: set up the free tools first with our Google Search Console guide, learn how AI answers pick their sources in What is GEO?, decide whether to let AI bots read your site in how to block AI crawlers with robots.txt, and turn your search data into a dashboard with Looker Studio vs Tableau Public.
Keep reading
SEO & AI SearchYoast vs Rank Math in 2026: Free Features, Real Renewal Prices and a Clear Verdict4 min read
SEO & AI SearchShould You Block AI Crawlers? A robots.txt Guide for GPTBot, ClaudeBot and More (2026)12 min read
SEO & AI SearchWhat Is GEO? Generative Engine Optimization Explained (2026)12 min readShort, free guides that take you from zero to your first real analysis. No sign-up needed.
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