Ahrefs vs Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Every Ahrefs Plan Includes One Seat — Price It Per Person, Not Per Plan
Screaming Frog's Free Version Stops at 500 URLs — That Is the Entire Decision
The short answer
- Entry price
- Ahrefs is priced in $ and Screaming Frog SEO Spider in £ ($29/month against £199/year). We do not convert between them, because the rate on the day you read this is not the rate we would be quoting.
- Our rating
- 4.4/5 against 4.5/5. That gap is inside our own margin, so treat these as rated level and decide on the specifics below rather than on the score.
- Against the rest of the category
- Of the 6 seo content tools we have reviewed that publish a starting price, Ahrefs is the 2nd cheapest to start and Screaming Frog SEO Spider the 6th.
Ahrefs
from $29/monthLite $129, Standard $249, Advanced $449 — and all three include exactly one user. Extra seats run $40 to $80 a month each, so a three-person team on Standard is $369, not $249. There is a $29 Starter plan and a free tier most people never hear about.
What works
- ✓ Starter at $29/month exists and is rarely mentioned in comparisons
- ✓ Ahrefs Free gives access without a paid plan at all
- ✓ Standard at $249 covers 20 projects, 2,000 tracked keywords and 2 years of historical data
- ✓ Crawl credits are large: 100,000 on Lite, 500,000 on Standard, 1,500,000 on Advanced
What does not
- ✗ Every standard plan — Lite, Standard and Advanced alike — includes just 1 user
- ✗ Extra seats are $40/month on Lite, $60 on Standard and $80 on Advanced
- ✗ Lite caps historical data at 6 months, which undercuts trend work
- ✗ Content Kit and Report Builder are separate add-ons from $99/month each
Screaming Frog SEO Spider
from £199/yearThere is a free version and a £199-per-year version, and the only difference that decides it for most people is the 500-URL crawl cap. Licences are per person, not per company — two people need two licences — and they expire after twelve months.
What works
- ✓ The free version is a real tool, not a demo — it crawls 500 URLs with no time limit
- ✓ One flat £199 per year, with no usage metering or credit system
- ✓ Bulk licences drop to £169 each at 20 or more
- ✓ Paid crawling has no URL ceiling at all
What does not
- ✗ Licences are per user — two people require two individual licences
- ✗ The licence lasts one year and then must be renewed to keep working
- ✗ 500 URLs is a small site, and most real sites exceed it immediately
- ✗ 'Unlimited' crawling is explicitly dependent on your own memory and storage
Who should pick which
Pick Ahrefs if this is the thing that matters most to you:
Starter at $29/month exists and is rarely mentioned in comparisons.
What most often rules it out: Every standard plan — Lite, Standard and Advanced alike — includes just 1 user.
Pick Screaming Frog SEO Spider if this is the thing that matters most to you:
The free version is a real tool, not a demo — it crawls 500 URLs with no time limit.
What most often rules it out: Licences are per user — two people require two individual licences.
Figures come from our review of each product, checked against the vendor's own pricing page. We do not convert currencies or rank prices quoted on different billing periods — where that applies it is said above, not quietly resolved.
A third option, and what it is not
Bonfire Terminal is an AI agent that runs as a desktop app on your own machine — no cloud, nothing you type leaves your computer. It does not do what Ahrefs or Screaming Frog SEO Spider do, and we will not pretend it does. If either is doing its job for you, keep it.
What the $27 actually gets you→The way in is the AI Marketers Club — $27 one-time, including 21 days of access. Keeping it after that is a separate purchase; the vendor's FAQ states Bonfire Terminal starts at $5,000. We earn a commission at no extra cost to you, which is why both tools' drawbacks are printed in full above and the $5,000 is here rather than left for you to find later.