Majestic vs Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Majestic Prices in Seven Kinds of Unit — You Cannot Estimate Your Usage Before Buying
Screaming Frog's Free Version Stops at 500 URLs — That Is the Entire Decision
The short answer
- Entry price
- Majestic is priced in $ and Screaming Frog SEO Spider in £ ($49.99/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
- We rate Screaming Frog SEO Spider higher — 3.7/5 against 4.5/5.
- Against the rest of the category
- Of the 6 seo content tools we have reviewed that publish a starting price, Majestic is the 4th cheapest to start and Screaming Frog SEO Spider the 6th.
Majestic
from $49.99/monthLite is $49.99, Pro is $99.99, API is $399.99. Each plan is defined by seven separate unit allowances — analysis units, retrieval units, index item units, report units, data rows, analysis depth and users — and none of them map to anything you can count before you have used the tool.
What works
- ✓ Lite at $49.99 is among the cheapest entry points for dedicated backlink data
- ✓ Annual billing cuts the monthly equivalent to $41.67 on Lite and $83.33 on Pro
- ✓ Pro multiplies the Lite allowances 20-fold for double the price
- ✓ Every allowance is published per plan rather than hidden behind a sales call
What does not
- ✗ Seven different unit types, none of which mean anything until you have spent them
- ✗ Lite and Pro both include exactly 1 user — the 5-user plan costs $399.99
- ✗ The cost of additional seats is not stated on the pricing page
- ✗ Lite's 5,000 analysis depth is a hard ceiling on large-site link analysis
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 Majestic if this is the thing that matters most to you:
Lite at $49.99 is among the cheapest entry points for dedicated backlink data.
What most often rules it out: Seven different unit types, none of which mean anything until you have spent them.
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 Majestic 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.