Cheap SEO Tools in 2026: 10 Compared on Real Prices

The cheapest useful SEO tools in 2026 cost $0 to $40 a month. Google Search Console and Screaming Frog are free. DidYouSEO, Ahrefs Starter, Ubersuggest, Mangools and SpyFu sit between $19 and $39 a month. After that, the next step up is $69 a month or more.

We checked every price below on each vendor's own pricing page on 21 October 2026. That matters, because a lot of "cheap SEO tools" lists are quoting plans that are gone. Moz's pricing page now starts at $99 a month, not the $49 Starter plan many lists still show. SE Ranking's entry plan is now Core at $129 a month, not the $52 Essential plan.

Full disclosure: we make DidYouSEO, and it's on this list. We've tried to be as specific about its limits as about everyone else's.

Cheap SEO tools at a glance

"Tracks AI search" means the plan checks whether AI assistants such as ChatGPT or Perplexity mention your site. Half of the tools on this list now include it on their cheapest plan.

Start with the $0 stack

Before you pay for anything, set up the free tools. For a small site, they answer most of the questions people buy SEO tools for.

• Google Search Console shows the searches you appear for, your clicks and your average position, straight from Google. No paid tool has better data about your own site, because every paid tool estimates what Search Console measures.
• Bing Webmaster Tools gives you the same for Bing, plus a backlink report. It also feeds Copilot, which matters more now that AI answers send traffic.
• Screaming Frog crawls up to 500 URLs for free. That covers most small business sites in one pass: broken links, missing titles, redirect chains.
• Ahrefs Free audits your own verified site and shows its backlinks. It can't look at competitors.

The catch is that free tools only show your own site. The moment you want to see a competitor's keywords or backlinks, you need a paid plan. That's what the rest of this list is for. If you only want a free audit, our comparison of free SEO audit tools covers that in more detail.

Affordable SEO tools under $40 a month

DidYouSEO: $19 a month

DidYouSEO's Starter plan is $19 a month, or $15.83 billed yearly, for one website. It audits up to 5,000 pages a month with 40+ checks per page, tracks 2 competitors, and runs a keyword gap report for the top 20 keywords they rank for and you don't. It also checks whether ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity mention your brand, for 10 questions you choose. The free plan audits 30 pages a month with no card.

Where it stops: DidYouSEO has no keyword database or backlink index of its own. Keyword and backlink lookups use AI credits, and Starter includes 100 a month. Rankings come from your connected Search Console, not a separate rank tracker. If keyword research is your main job, a tool like Mangools gives you more lookups for the money. See what each plan includes.

Ahrefs Starter: $29 a month

Ahrefs Starter is the cheapest way into Ahrefs data. The Ahrefs pricing page lists it at $29 a month. It runs on credits: you spend them when you open reports in tools like Site Explorer and Keywords Explorer, and a small monthly allowance runs out fast if you research a lot. Site Audit and Rank Tracker have their own limits instead.

It's a good fit if you want to check a few competitors a month with one of the largest backlink indexes. It's a poor fit for daily keyword research. The next plan, Lite, is $129 a month.

Ubersuggest: $29 a month, or $290 once

Ubersuggest costs $29 a month for one site, and it also sells a one-time "lifetime" plan for $290. That lifetime price is unusual: after 10 months, it costs less than paying monthly.

It covers keyword ideas, a site audit, rank tracking and basic backlink data. The data is lighter than Ahrefs or Semrush, but for a small business picking blog topics, it's often enough. Before you buy a lifetime plan from any tool, check what happens if the plan changes later.

Mangools: $30.50 a month, or $18.85 billed yearly

Mangools Basic is $30.50 a month, or $18.85 a month billed yearly ($226.20 a year). That makes it the cheapest yearly option on this list after DidYouSEO. It's built around KWFinder, one of the easiest keyword research tools to learn.

Basic gives you 100 keyword lookups a day, 200 tracked keywords updated weekly, 20 site analyses a day and 100,000 backlink rows a month. It now includes AI Search Watcher, which tracks prompts across AI assistants. There's no free trial, but Mangools offers a 48-hour money-back guarantee.

SpyFu: $39 a month, or $29 billed yearly

SpyFu is built for one job: seeing what your competitors rank for and what they bid on in Google Ads. Basic is $39 a month, or $29 a month billed yearly.

If you run paid ads alongside SEO, SpyFu's ad research is the best value here. If you don't, most of what you're paying for goes unused.

Screaming Frog: free, or $279 a year

Screaming Frog's SEO Spider is free up to 500 URLs. A licence is $279 a year, about $23 a month, and removes the limit. It adds scheduled crawls, JavaScript rendering and crawl comparisons.

It's a desktop crawler, not a platform. It finds technical problems on your site in great detail, but it does no keyword research and tracks nothing over time.

Where "cheap" stops: $69 a month and up

These four are good tools, but none of them is cheap anymore. They're here because most "affordable SEO tools" lists still include them, often at prices that are out of date.

• Serpstat Individual: $69 a month, or $50 billed yearly. Five projects, 100 searches a day, 10,000 keyword position checks and 30,000 pages to audit. AI Visibility is only on the Team plan and up. Serpstat pricing has a 7-day free trial.
• Moz Pro Standard: $99 a month, or $79 billed yearly. Three tracked sites, 300 tracked keywords and 400,000 crawled pages a month. It now includes AI visibility: 150 prompts across 4 AI models, checked weekly. The Moz Pro pricing page no longer shows a $49 plan.
• SE Ranking Core: $129 a month, or $103.20 billed yearly. Ten projects, 2,000 keywords tracked daily and 100 AI prompts a day. There's a 14-day free trial with no card. The SE Ranking subscription page shows the old Essential plan is gone.
• Semrush SEO: $139 a month, or $117.33 billed yearly. Five websites and 500 keywords tracked daily, with AI search tracking included. Semrush also has a permanent free plan with 10 reports a day, listed on its pricing page.

If one of these fits your work exactly, it can still be worth it. Just don't buy one expecting a $50 tool.

Best SEO tools for small businesses, by job

Most small businesses don't need an all-in-one platform. Pick by the one job you need done.

A common setup for a small business is Search Console plus one paid tool. That's $20 to $40 a month and covers most needs. If you want to know whether AI assistants recommend you, check that the paid tool you pick includes AI tracking on its cheapest plan, not only on the next one up.

Mistakes that make cheap SEO tools expensive

Comparing yearly prices to monthly ones. Mangools looks like $18.85 and SpyFu like $29, but those are yearly prices paid up front. Billed monthly, they're $30.50 and $39. Compare the same billing period across tools.

Running out of credits. Credit-based plans like Ahrefs Starter look cheap until you use them. Before you buy, count how many reports you open in a normal week.

Paying for two tools that overlap. Many small businesses pay for a keyword tool and an all-in-one platform that both do keyword research. Write down the jobs you need done, then make sure each tool covers a different one.

Buying keyword data before you have content. If your site has 10 pages, the problem is usually not finding keywords. It's fixing the pages you have and publishing more. Start with an audit and Search Console, then buy keyword data when you're writing regularly.

Trusting old price lists. Prices in this space change often. Moz and SE Ranking have both replaced their entry plans with more expensive ones. Check the vendor's own pricing page before you subscribe, including this one.

FAQ

What is the cheapest SEO tool?

Google Search Console is free and has the most accurate data about your own site. The cheapest paid all-in-one plan we found is DidYouSEO Starter at $19 a month. For keyword research, Mangools Basic billed yearly works out to $18.85 a month.

Are cheap SEO tools worth it?

Yes, if you pick by job. A $19 to $39 tool covers audits, competitor checks and keyword ideas for most small sites. What you give up is data depth: smaller keyword databases, fewer lookups and less history than Ahrefs or Semrush.

What is the best SEO software for a small business?

For most small businesses, Search Console plus one paid tool under $40 a month is enough. Choose the paid tool by your main job: audits and AI tracking, keyword research, or competitor research.

Do cheap SEO tools track AI search like ChatGPT?

Some do. DidYouSEO Starter and Mangools Basic include AI tracking on their cheapest plans. Moz, SE Ranking and Semrush include it too, but their plans start at $99 a month or more. Serpstat only includes it on the Team plan and up.

Try the $0 version first

You don't need to pay to find out what your site needs. Run a free DidYouSEO audit on your homepage. It checks 40+ things per page, takes under a minute and needs no card. Then decide which paid tool, if any, covers what's left.