Ahrefs Pricing 2026: Which Plan Is Actually Worth It?

Prices verified April 2026 from ahrefs.com/pricing · 12 min read

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Ahrefs Pricing – All Plans at a Glance

Ahrefs has five plans in 2026: Starter, Lite, Standard, Advanced, and Enterprise. All prices below are monthly billing rates. Annual billing saves up to 17% – Ahrefs switches to 2 months free on annual rather than a percentage discount.

Plan	Monthly	Annual/mo	Projects	Keywords tracked	Best for
Starter	$29	N/A – monthly only	5	N/A	Testing the interface
Lite	$129	~$108	5	750	Backlink monitoring only
Standard	$249	~$208	20	2,000	Freelancers and agencies
Advanced	$449	~$374	50	5,000	Lean in-house teams
Enterprise	$1,499+	Annual only	Custom	10,000+	Large agencies

Prices verified April 2026 directly from ahrefs.com/pricing. Annual billing requires contacting Ahrefs support to switch.

The Starter Plan – $29/Month

The Starter plan is Ahrefs’ lowest-cost entry point at $29/month. It gives you limited access to Site Explorer and Keywords Explorer for up to 5 projects. It is not a full Ahrefs experience – reports are capped at 1,000 rows, crawl credits are limited to 1,000 URL credits per user per month, and you cannot access Content Explorer, Portfolios, or Batch Analysis.

Who it is for: creators and site owners who want to check their own backlink profile and run occasional keyword research without committing to Lite. It is also the only way to evaluate Ahrefs before paying for a full plan since Ahrefs has no free trial.

• 5 projects
• 750 tracked keywords
• 100,000 crawl credits per month
• 1,000 credits per user per month for reports
• No Content Explorer, no Portfolios, no Batch Analysis
• Monthly billing only – no annual option

Lite – $129/Month

Lite is Ahrefs’ entry professional plan at $129/month monthly or approximately $108/month annually. It covers the core Ahrefs use case – backlink analysis – with 5 projects, 750 tracked keywords, and 6 months of historical data.

The key limitation that surprises most buyers: Lite does not include Content Explorer – the feature most professional SEOs use for link building prospecting. Content Explorer is only available from Standard upward. If link building prospecting is central to your workflow, Lite is the wrong plan.

• 5 projects
• 750 tracked keywords
• 6 months of historical data
• 100,000 crawl credits per month
• 1,000 credits per user per month
• No Content Explorer
• No Portfolios
• Add 2 extra users at $40/month each

Lite at $129/month is comparable to SE Ranking Core at $103.20/month. SE Ranking Core covers more use cases – rank tracking, site audit, white-label reporting, AI search tracking – at a lower price. Ahrefs Lite is worth the premium only if backlink analysis is your primary need.

Na plan vergelijking:

Standard – $249/Month

Standard at $249/month monthly (approximately $208/month annually) is the plan where Ahrefs becomes genuinely powerful for agency use. It adds Content Explorer, Portfolios, 20 projects, 2,000 tracked keywords, and 2 years of historical data.

• 20 projects
• 2,000 tracked keywords
• 2 years of historical data
• 500,000 crawl credits per month
• Unlimited credits per user per month
• Content Explorer – essential for link building prospecting
• Portfolios – track multiple domains in one view
• Batch Analysis
• SERP comparison
• Brand Radar – web visibility tracking
• Add 5 extra users at $60/month each

Standard at $249/month is the right plan for freelancers and small agencies who use Ahrefs as their primary link building and backlink research tool. At this price point, it competes with SEMrush Guru at $208.33/month – the main difference being that SEMrush Guru adds PPC research and the Content Marketing Platform while Ahrefs Standard adds the larger and more frequently updated backlink index.

Advanced – $449/Month

Advanced at $449/month adds Looker Studio integration, 50 projects, 5,000 tracked keywords, 5 years of historical data, and higher data export limits. It is designed for lean in-house marketing teams at larger companies.

• 50 projects
• 5,000 tracked keywords
• 5 years of historical data
• 1,500,000 crawl credits per month
• Looker Studio integration
• Agency directory listing
• HTTP authentication for auditing password-protected sites
• Add 10 extra users at $80/month each

Advanced is rarely the right choice for independent agencies. At $449/month, the cost is difficult to justify unless you are running extremely high-volume SEO operations with a team that actively uses Looker Studio integration and needs 5-year historical data across 50 simultaneous projects.

Ahrefs vs Competitors – Price Comparison

Tool	Monthly price	Annual price	Free trial	Best for
Ahrefs Lite	$129/mo	~$108/mo	No (Starter $29)	Backlink analysis
Ahrefs Standard	$249/mo	~$208/mo	No	Link building agencies
SE Ranking Core	$129/mo	$103.20/mo	14 days	All-round agency SEO
SEMrush Pro	$139.95/mo	$117.33/mo	14 days	All-in-one agencies
SEMrush Guru	$249.95/mo	$208.33/mo	14 days	Agency + content marketing
Mangools Basic	$44.90/mo	$29/mo	Free plan	Beginners

Should You Buy Ahrefs or SE Ranking?

The honest answer depends on your primary workflow.

Choose Ahrefs if: link building is a core service you offer clients, you need the largest and most frequently updated backlink index available, and Content Explorer is central to how you find link prospects. Ahrefs is the best tool in the market for these specific use cases.

Choose SE Ranking if: you need an all-in-one platform covering rank tracking, site audit, keyword research, competitor analysis, and white-label reporting. SE Ranking covers 80% of what most agencies need day-to-day at $103.20/month – with a 14-day free trial versus Ahrefs’ no-trial policy.

Many professional agencies use both: SE Ranking for day-to-day monitoring and reporting, Ahrefs for link building campaigns. The combined cost is $232.20/month – comparable to SEMrush Guru at $208.33/month with a stronger backlink index.

Frequently Asked Questions