Moz is often the first SEO tool a team buys, and it tends to stay on the invoice long after the team has outgrown it. The moment usually comes when you try to track keywords for a new product line and hit the Standard plan’s 300-keyword limit.
Leaving isn’t automatic, though. Moz has kept improving, and its $99 Standard plan now tracks 150 AI prompts, more than most rivals include at that price. So the right move depends on which limit you’re hitting. For this guide, I compared seven Moz alternatives, including a free setup, against Moz’s current plans. For each one, you’ll see what it does better than Moz, its pros and cons, and what it costs as of October 2026, plus what to do about Moz Local if you manage business listings.
The best Moz alternatives at a glance
- Semrush for the broadest all-in-one replacement, covering SEO, content, paid search, and AI visibility
- Ahrefs for the deepest backlink data and competitor research
- SE Ranking for the most tracked keywords and seats for the money
- Serpstat for a low-cost suite with three users on the Team plan
- Search Atlas for AI that applies on-page fixes for you
- SpyFu for competitor research across SEO and paid search on a small budget
- The free stack (Google Search Console plus Ahrefs Free) for monitoring your own site at no cost
Why teams look for Moz alternatives
Moz still has real strengths. Its interface is one of the easiest in SEO for non-specialists to learn, Domain Authority is a metric most marketers recognize, and for teams with physical locations, Moz Local handles business listings alongside the SEO work. So teams rarely leave because Moz stopped working. They leave because of limits.
Tracked keywords are the most common pressure point. Moz Pro’s Standard plan tracks 300 keywords for $99 a month, while SE Ranking’s entry plan tracks 2,000 for $129. Research limits come next: Standard allows 150 keyword queries a month, which a content team planning topic clusters can use up quickly.
Seats are the third. Standard includes one user, Medium includes two for $179 a month, and you need the $299 Large plan for three. Adding a writer or a second strategist usually means moving up a plan.
What to do about Moz Local when you switch
Most of the tools below focus on search research, so if you use Moz Local to manage business listings, treat local SEO as its own decision. Start by listing what you rely on it for today, whether that’s keeping your business details consistent across directories, tracking local rankings, or monitoring reviews.
From there, you have two options. Semrush offers a Local Toolkit for listings and local rankings in the same account as its SEO tools. Alternatively, you can pair any of the SEO suites below with a dedicated tool from this roundup of local SEO tools.
What to look for in a Moz alternative
Since most teams leave Moz because of limits, the best replacement is the one that removes those limits without creating new ones. Check these five things before you commit.
- Tracked keywords per dollar. Compare how many keywords each plan tracks, and how often, against the number you track in Moz today plus room to grow.
- Seats and pricing as you grow. Work out the cost for everyone who needs access, including writers and stakeholders who only check reports.
- Local SEO coverage. If you use Moz Local, check whether the alternative manages business listings and local rankings, or plan for a separate local tool.
- Backlink and keyword data quality. Test the same competitor domains and keywords you research in Moz, and see which tool gives you more usable results for your market.
- AI search visibility. Moz now tracks AI prompts weekly. If you need daily tracking or more AI platforms, compare what each alternative includes and whether it costs extra.
Running your current Moz campaigns through a free trial is the quickest way to compare these side by side.
Moz alternatives pricing compared
Here’s each tool’s entry plan next to Moz Pro’s, including how many keywords and AI prompts you can track and how many people can use the account. All prices are for monthly billing, as of October 2026.
| Tool | Plan | Monthly price | Tracked keywords | AI prompts tracked | Seats included |
| Moz Pro (for reference) | Standard | $99 | 300 | 150, weekly | 1 |
| Moz Pro (for reference) | Medium | $179 | 1,500 | 300, weekly | 2 |
| Semrush | SEO | $139 | 500 | 50 daily on Starter ($199) | Extra users from $45/month |
| Ahrefs | Lite | $129 | 750 | 5 | 1 (extra users $40/month) |
| SE Ranking | Core | $129 | 2,000, daily | 100, daily | 1 (extra users from $16/month) |
| SE Ranking | Growth | $279 | 5,000, daily | 250, daily | 3 |
| Serpstat | Team | $100 | 50,000 position checks a month | Separate LLM Brand Monitor | 3 |
| Search Atlas | Growth | $199 | 3,500 | 100 queries | 3 |
| SpyFu | Basic | $39 | 5,000, weekly | AI Brand Monitoring (limited) | 1 |
| The free stack | Free | $0 | Your own site only | None | Unlimited |
The pattern is clear once you line them up. If tracking more keywords is the goal, SE Ranking gives you the most for the money. If you need more people in the account, Serpstat Team includes three users for $100, less than Moz Standard costs for one. And if AI prompt tracking is your priority, Moz itself is competitive on volume, so compare how often each tool checks and which AI platforms it covers.
How I compared these Moz alternatives
I use Semrush for keyword and competitor research on client projects and SE Ranking to track my own site, so those sections include screenshots from my own accounts. For SpyFu, I ran moz.com through its free Domain Overview. Every price comes from the vendor’s pricing page in October 2026.
1. Semrush
Best for: teams that work across more than SEO and want content, paid search, and AI visibility data in one place
Semrush is the broadest replacement for Moz on this list. It covers everything Moz Pro does, and it adds paid search research, content tools, local SEO, and AI search tracking that shows how your brand appears in ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google’s AI features.
Pros
- Covers SEO, content, paid search, local, and AI visibility in one account
- Keyword Gap and the Keyword Magic Tool make content planning faster
- A Local Toolkit that can replace Moz Local
- A free plan with 10 reports a day, plus a seven-day free trial
Cons
- The SEO plan tracks 500 keywords, fewer than SE Ranking’s 2,000
- Extra users start at $45 a month each
What Semrush does better than Moz
Research depth for content planning. Moz’s Standard plan allows 150 keyword queries a month, which a team building topic clusters can use up quickly. In Semrush, the Keyword Magic Tool is the closest match to Moz’s Keyword Explorer, with filters and subtopic grouping that turn one seed keyword into the outline of a cluster.
Competitor gaps are the other big difference. Keyword Gap puts your site next to up to four competitors and shows the keywords they rank for and you don’t. When I compared my site with three content agencies, it surfaced 17 keywords all three ranked for and I didn’t, which became a ready-made topic shortlist. Position Tracking then replaces Moz’s rank tracking with daily updates.
Semrush pricing
The SEO plan costs $139 a month, or $117.33 a month billed annually, with five websites and 500 tracked keywords. Starter costs $199 a month and adds 50 AI prompts tracked daily. Extra users start at $45 a month, and there’s a seven-day free trial plus a free plan with 10 reports a day.
Choose Semrush when your team works across more than SEO, and you want everything in the same place.
2. Ahrefs
Best for: teams whose SEO work is driven by backlink and competitor link research
Ahrefs is the strongest choice if links are the main reason you use Moz. Its backlink index is widely regarded as one of the most thorough available, and it pairs that with strong keyword and competitor research.
Pros
- One of the most thorough backlink indexes available
- Strong keyword and competitor research alongside the link data
- A free plan, Ahrefs Free, for sites you verify
- Report Builder on every plan for scheduled PDF reports
Cons
- Lite includes one user, with extra users at $40 each up to three
- Only five AI prompts on Lite; more means Brand Radar AI from $199 a month
What Ahrefs does better than Moz
Link research. If your routine involves checking who links to competitors, finding pages that attract links, or vetting outreach prospects, Ahrefs gives you more to work with. Sorting a Backlinks report by referring page traffic, as in the screenshot above, shows which links are likely to send visitors rather than only pass authority, which is a more useful filter than a single authority score.
Its Domain Rating plays the same role as Moz’s Domain Authority, so if your reports or outreach rely on an authority metric, record a fresh baseline in Ahrefs rather than comparing the two scores directly.
Ahrefs pricing
Lite costs $129 a month for one user and 750 tracked keywords, Standard costs $249, and Advanced costs $449. Extra users cost $40 a month on Lite, $60 on Standard, and $80 on Advanced. There’s also a $29 Starter plan for light research and a free plan for your own verified sites.
Choose Ahrefs when backlink research and competitor link analysis drive most of your SEO work.
3. SE Ranking
Best for: teams whose main problem with Moz is keyword limits
SE Ranking is the best value if Moz’s keyword limits are what’s holding you back. It covers keyword research, competitor research, backlinks, site audits, content tools, and AI search tracking, and I use it to track my own site.
Pros
- Tracks 2,000 keywords a day on the $129 Core plan, more than Moz Medium’s 1,500 at $179
- Tracks 100 AI prompts a day on Core
- Extra seats start at $16 a month
- A 14-day free trial with no card required
Cons
- You need the $279 Growth plan to get three seats included
- Keyword history goes back six months on Core
What SE Ranking does better than Moz
Keywords and seats per dollar. For $30 more than Moz Standard, Core tracks almost seven times as many keywords, and it updates every one of them daily. When a page drops, it shows up in the Rankings report the next day, without waiting for a weekly check.
AI tracking runs daily too. Moz Standard includes more prompts (150 vs. 100), but tracks them weekly. If you report on AI visibility often, SE Ranking’s daily checks give you a clearer trend line. And adding a writer costs from $16 a month rather than a plan upgrade.
SE Ranking pricing
Core costs $129 a month, or $103.20 billed annually, with one seat, 2,000 keywords tracked daily, and 100 AI prompts. Growth costs $279 a month, or $223.20 billed annually, with three seats, 5,000 keywords, and 250 AI prompts. Extra seats start at $16 a month, and an AI Search add-on for larger prompt volumes costs $89 a month. There’s a 14-day free trial that doesn’t require a card.
Choose SE Ranking when you need to track far more keywords than Moz allows without a big jump in cost.
4. Serpstat
Best for: budget teams that need several people in one account
Serpstat is a lower-cost all-in-one suite with keyword research, competitor analysis, backlinks, rank tracking, and site audits. Its Team plan gives three users access for $100 a month, which is roughly what Moz charges for a single user on Standard.
Pros
- The Team plan includes three users for $100 a month
- API access and a ChatGPT and Claude integration (MCP) on the Team plan
- Batch analysis for checking many domains or keywords at once
- Up to 27% off with annual billing
Cons
- Daily search limits of 100 on Individual and 500 on Team
- AI brand monitoring is a separate product, not part of the SEO plans
What Serpstat does better than Moz
Price per person. Three people on Serpstat Team cost $100 a month. On Moz, three users means the $299 Large plan. For a team where a writer, an editor, and a strategist all need to run their own searches, that difference adds up quickly.
A typical content workflow starts in the Competitors report. Enter your domain, sort by common keywords to find the sites you compete with in search, then open the missing keywords for one of them to see the topics you haven’t covered. Batch analysis then checks difficulty and volume for the whole list at once.
Serpstat pricing
Individual costs $50 a month for one user and 100 searches a day. Team costs $100 a month for three users, unlimited projects, and 500 searches a day. Agency costs $410 a month for 30 users. Annual billing saves up to 27%, and there’s a seven-day free trial.
Choose Serpstat when you want several people in the account on a tight budget and your research volume is moderate.
5. Search Atlas
Best for: small teams that want AI to handle routine on-page work
Search Atlas combines SEO research with automation. Its OTTO SEO feature finds on-page and technical issues and can deploy the fixes, Content Genius handles AI-assisted content, and from the Growth plan up it tracks AI visibility in ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google AI Mode.
Pros
- OTTO SEO can deploy fixes to titles, meta descriptions, schema, alt text, and internal links
- An approval mode lets you review each change before it goes live
- AI visibility tracking from the Growth plan
- Three seats on Growth for $199 a month
Cons
- No AI visibility tracking on the $99 Starter plan
- The free trial requires a card
What Search Atlas does better than Moz
Moz’s Site Crawl and On-Page Grader tell you what to fix. OTTO can make the fix. You connect your site with a pixel, through Cloudflare, or with a CMS connector, and OTTO applies the changes you allow, category by category.
Because it edits your live site, start with approval mode on, enable one category, and review the first batch of changes before allowing more. Agree with your team up front on what OTTO can touch, especially on pages your writers maintain.
Search Atlas pricing
Starter costs $99 a month for one seat and 2,000 tracked keywords, with no AI visibility tracking. Growth costs $199 a month for three seats and 3,500 keywords, and adds AI tracking. Pro costs $399 a month for five seats. Starter and Growth come with a seven-day trial that needs a card to activate.
Choose Search Atlas when your team is small and you want AI to take on routine on-page work.
6. SpyFu
Best for: teams that want competitor data across SEO and paid search on a small budget
SpyFu focuses on competitor research across both organic and paid search, with more than 10 years of ranking and ad history. It’s a good fit if you used Moz mainly to understand competitors and you’d like their ad strategy in the same view.
Pros
- Organic and paid search history for competitors in one place, from the Pro + AI plan
- Unlimited search results and exports from the Pro + AI plan
- The lowest starting price on this list, at $39 a month
- A 30-day money-back guarantee
Cons
- The Basic plan caps search results and exports at 10,000 rows
- Rankings on Basic are tracked weekly, not daily
What SpyFu does better than Moz
Paid search intelligence. Moz Pro focuses on organic search, so it won’t show you what competitors spend on ads. When I ran moz.com through SpyFu’s free Domain Overview, it estimated that Moz bids on 26,843 keywords in Google Ads with a budget of about $396,300 a month, and showed history going back to May 2013.
For a content team, that’s a useful buying signal. Keywords a competitor keeps paying for over months or years usually convert, which makes them strong candidates for bottom-of-funnel articles. For a closer look at how SpyFu stacks up, the comparison of SpyFu alternatives goes deeper.
SpyFu pricing
Basic costs $39 a month, or about $29 a month billed annually, for one user, 10,000 rows of results, and 5,000 weekly tracked rankings. Pro + AI costs $59 for the first month and $119 a month after that, with unlimited results and the full organic and ad history, which Basic doesn’t include. Team/Agency costs $249 a month with five users. Every plan comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Choose SpyFu when competitor research is your main need and budget is tight.
7. The free stack (Google Search Console plus Ahrefs Free)
Best for: teams that mainly used Moz to monitor their own site
If you mainly used Moz to monitor your own site, you may not need a paid replacement at all. Google Search Console shows the queries and pages earning impressions and clicks, straight from Google, along with indexing issues.
Pair it with Ahrefs Free, formerly Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, which is free once you verify your site. It audits for more than 170 technical and on-page issues and shows up to 1,000 of your keywords and backlinks at a time, on as many verified sites as you like.
Pros
- Costs nothing
- Search Console data comes straight from Google, not from an estimate
- Ahrefs Free works on unlimited verified sites
- Moz’s own free Domain Authority Checker still works for quick checks
Cons
- Very little competitor data
- No rank tracking on Ahrefs’ free plan
What the free stack does better than Moz
Accuracy on your own site. Moz, like every paid tool here, estimates traffic. Search Console shows the real clicks, impressions, and average positions Google recorded, for up to 16 months. And if you still want Domain Authority for reports, Moz’s free checker gives you three lookups a day without a login.
What the free stack costs
Nothing. Google Search Console and Ahrefs Free are both free once you verify your site. The trade-off is competitor data, so plan to pair the free stack with one paid tool once you’re researching competitors every week.
Choose the free stack when you want to cut your SEO tool bill to zero, or pair it with one lighter paid tool.
Moz vs. Semrush vs. SE Ranking
These three are the most common shortlist for teams leaving Moz, so here’s how their entry plans compare on the points that usually drive the decision, as of October 2026.
| Moz Pro | Semrush | SE Ranking | |
| Entry price | $99/month (Standard) | $139/month (SEO) | $129/month (Core) |
| Tracked keywords | 300 | 500 | 2,000, daily |
| Seats included | 1 (3 on the $299 Large plan) | Extra users from $45/month | 1 (3 on Growth), extra from $16/month |
| AI search tracking | 150 prompts, weekly | 50 daily prompts on Starter ($199/month) | 100 daily prompts on Core |
| Authority metric | Domain Authority | Authority Score | Domain Trust |
| Best for | Ease of use | All-in-one marketing | Keyword volume per dollar |
Put simply, Moz is easiest to learn and generous on AI prompts, Semrush covers the most ground, and SE Ranking tracks the most keywords for the money.
How to switch from Moz without losing your history
Before your Moz renewal date, export your tracked keywords, campaign data, and any link prospect lists, so you can load them into the new tool and keep a record of past rankings. Then run both tools side by side for a week or two if your trial allows it, since rankings and metrics will differ between platforms and you’ll want to understand the gap before you report on it.
If your reports include Domain Authority, each tool calculates authority differently, so record a fresh baseline in your new tool rather than comparing against old DA scores. If you’re also weighing Ahrefs itself, the comparison of Ahrefs alternatives covers the same tools from the other direction, and the guide to the best SEO tools for B2B teams goes beyond the all-in-one suites.
If your team has the tools but isn’t sure which content to create from the data, book a call with me. I’m a B2B SaaS writer and strategist, and on the call, we’ll look at your keyword data and decide what to publish first.
Frequently asked questions about Moz alternatives
What is the best alternative to Moz?
Semrush is the most complete alternative to Moz Pro, covering keyword research, backlinks, rank tracking, site audits, content, paid search, local SEO, and AI search tracking in one platform. If your main frustration with Moz is keyword limits, SE Ranking is the better value, tracking 2,000 keywords a day on its $129-a-month Core plan.
Is there a free alternative to Moz?
Yes. Google Search Console and Ahrefs Free, formerly Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, are both free and cover your own site’s keywords, backlinks, and technical health. Semrush also has a free plan with 10 reports a day, and SpyFu’s Domain Overview is free. For deeper competitor research, you’ll need a paid tool.
Is Ahrefs better than Moz?
For backlink research, most SEOs prefer Ahrefs, since its link index is among the most thorough available. Moz is easier for beginners to learn, includes more AI prompt tracking on its entry plan, and offers Moz Local for teams that manage business listings. For a team that relies heavily on link data, Ahrefs is usually the stronger choice.
What’s the best Moz alternative for local SEO?
If you want local SEO in the same account as your keyword and backlink research, Semrush’s Local Toolkit covers business listings and local rankings. If you only need local features, a dedicated tool may cost less, and this comparison of local SEO tools covers the main options.
Is Moz Pro still worth it in 2026?
Moz Pro is still worth it for small teams that value an easy interface, want AI prompt tracking on an entry plan, or manage local listings through Moz Local. It’s less of a fit once you need to track more than a few hundred keywords or give several people access, because alternatives like SE Ranking track 2,000 keywords daily for $129 a month.
Which Moz alternative is best for small teams?
For small teams, SE Ranking and Serpstat usually offer the best value. SE Ranking’s Growth plan includes three seats and 5,000 tracked keywords for $279 a month, and Serpstat’s Team plan includes three users for $100 a month, both as of October 2026.
