Every tool at a glance
Entry price is the cheapest paid plan. Limits are what that plan allows, so read the two columns together: a cheap plan with a 10,000-page cap and an expensive one with no cap are different products. Sources are in each category section below.
| Tool | Category | Entry paid price | Billing | Crawl or data limit at entry price | Free option | Compared |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| bseoa | Desktop crawler and CLI | $279 once | One-time; optional hosted connector $15/month or $120/year | No crawl limit | 14-day trial, every feature, no page limit, no card | Pricing |
| Screaming Frog SEO Spider | Desktop crawler | $279 a year | Yearly, per user | No set limit; depends on memory and storage | Free version, 500 URLs, no JavaScript | vs bseoa |
| Sitebulb | Desktop crawler (cloud option) | $18 a month (Lite) | Monthly or yearly ($180) | 10,000 URLs per audit | 14-day trial, no card | vs bseoa |
| Netpeak Spider | Desktop crawler | $20 a month (Pro) | Monthly, $193 a year, or $496 lifetime | Unlimited URLs | Free version, 500 URLs; 3-day trial | vs bseoa |
| SEO PowerSuite WebSite Auditor | Desktop crawler (part of a suite) | $149 a year (Professional) | Yearly; full suite $349 a year, or 2- and 3-year plans | Unlimited crawling | Free version, 500 URLs, no saving | vs bseoa |
| Semrush | Cloud SEO suite | $139 a month (SEO) | Monthly or $117.33 a month billed annually | Not stated for SEO; Starter ($199): 100,000 pages a month | Free plan, 100 pages a month; 7-day trial | vs bseoa |
| Ahrefs | Cloud SEO suite | $129 a month (Lite) | Monthly or $1,290 a year | 100,000 crawl credits a month; 25,000 pages per project | Ahrefs Free for verified sites; no trial | vs bseoa |
| Moz Pro | Cloud SEO suite | $49 a month (Starter) | Monthly or yearly (Standard $950 the first year) | Starter: not published; Standard ($99): 400,000 pages a month | Free trial of Medium, card required | vs bseoa |
| SE Ranking | Cloud SEO suite | $129 a month (Core) | Monthly or $103.20 a month billed annually | 250,000 audit pages a month | 14-day trial, no card | vs bseoa |
| Serpstat | Cloud SEO suite | $69 a month (Individual) | Monthly or $50 a month billed annually | 30,000 audit pages; 5,000 tool credits | 7-day trial, card required ($1 hold) | |
| Ubersuggest | Budget SEO suite | $29 a month (Individual) | Monthly, $192 a year, or $290 lifetime (limited-time offer) | Site audit of 1,000 pages, weekly; 1 project | Free account; 7-day trial on monthly plans | |
| Mangools | Keyword research suite | $61 a month (Basic) | Monthly or $452.40 a year | 100 keyword lookups a day, 200 tracked keywords; no site audit | Free account | |
| Similarweb | Traffic and competitive intelligence | $199 a month; SEO tools from $399 | Monthly or $125 a month billed annually ($333 for the SEO tier) | Entry tier has no SEO tools; SEO tier site audit limit not stated | Free trial; terms not stated on the plan | |
| Majestic | Backlink index | $49.99 a month (Lite) | Monthly or $499.99 a year | 1M analysis units, 5,000 rows, Fresh Index only; no crawler | No free plan; 7-day money-back guarantee | |
| Surfer | Content optimization | $59 a month (Discovery) | Monthly or $49 a month billed yearly | 120 documents, 10 tracked pages; no technical crawler | "Start for free" trial; terms not stated | |
| Clearscope | Content optimization | $129 a month (Essentials) | Monthly; no self-serve annual price | 50 tracked queries, 50 monitored pages | 14-day trial | |
| JetOctopus | Enterprise cloud crawler | $349 a month (Growth, billed yearly) | Yearly ($4,188) or quarterly ($459 a month) | 500,000 URLs a month; 2M log lines | 7-day trial, 10,000 URLs, no card | vs bseoa |
| Lumar (formerly DeepCrawl) | Enterprise cloud crawler | Quote only | Modular subscription | Credit-based; not published | Demo only | vs bseoa |
| Oncrawl | Enterprise cloud crawler | Quote only | Order form, auto-renewing term | Monthly crawl tokens set in the order form | Demo only | vs bseoa |
| Botify | Enterprise cloud crawler | Quote only | Quote | Not published | Demo only | vs bseoa |
| Profound | AI-visibility tracker | Quote only | Agency plan price not published; Enterprise by quote | Trial: 50 prompts a day for 7 days, 3 AI engines | 7-day trial | |
| AthenaHQ | AI-visibility tracker | $295 a month (Starter) | Monthly or $245 a month billed annually | 3,600 credits a month (1 credit = 1 AI response) | Free Essential plan, 300 credits | |
| Conductor | Enterprise SEO and AI-visibility platform | Quote only | Usage-based contract | Essentials: 500 tracked keywords, 100,000 pages monitored | Free trial offered; terms not stated |
For crawler prices plan by plan, see SEO crawler pricing. Each "vs bseoa" link goes to a page with every plan, monthly and yearly, and all 19 feature rows for that vendor.
Three kinds of tool, and a fourth that does something else
Prices on this page range from $0 to quotes in the tens of thousands, and most of that spread comes from what the tool is, not how good it is.
- Desktop crawlers (bseoa, Screaming Frog, Sitebulb desktop, Netpeak Spider, WebSite Auditor) run on your computer. Crawl size is limited by your machine's memory and disk, not by a monthly quota, and you pay per user. They audit sites. They do not have keyword databases, rank tracking or backlink indexes of their own.
- Cloud SEO suites (Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz Pro, SE Ranking, Serpstat, Ubersuggest, Similarweb's SEO tier) sell keyword research, rank tracking and backlink data, with a site audit included. The audit draws on a monthly page or credit quota. Mangools, Majestic, Surfer and Clearscope are narrower tools in the same buying conversation: keywords, links and content, with no technical crawler.
- Enterprise cloud crawlers (JetOctopus, Lumar, Oncrawl, Botify) crawl millions of URLs on a schedule from their servers and join the results to server logs and Search Console. Three of the four sell only through a demo and a quote.
- AI-visibility trackers (Profound, AthenaHQ, and the AI tracking in Conductor) measure whether ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and other assistants mention or cite your brand when people ask them questions. They send prompts to AI engines and count the answers. Profound and AthenaHQ do not crawl your site for technical issues; Conductor sells its tracking alongside an enterprise website-monitoring crawler. A tracker tells you whether you appear in AI answers; a crawler tells you whether AI crawlers can read your pages. Several suites (Moz, SE Ranking, Semrush, Surfer, Similarweb, Ubersuggest, Clearscope) now bundle some prompt tracking too.
Feature matrix: the crawl-capable tools
Thirteen tools that crawl a site for technical issues, on the features that most often decide a purchase. Yes, No or Partial, with the reason in a few words. Each comparison page has all 19 rows with a source link per cell: Runs where; Price model; Entry price; Crawl limit at entry price; JavaScript rendering; Command line and automation; API or scriptable output; Scheduled crawls; Log file analysis; Backlink data; Keyword and rank data; Search Console integration; AI assistant integration; AI-readiness checks; Reporting and exports; Users and seats; Platforms; Free tier or trial; Source code guarantee. Of those, only bseoa publishes a source code guarantee.
| Tool | Runs where | JavaScript rendering | Command line and automation | Scheduled crawls | Log file analysis | Backlink data | Keyword and rank data | AI assistant integration | AI-readiness checks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| bseoa | Desktop and CLI: Windows, macOS, Linux; optional hosted connector | Yes, desktop and CLI; not the hosted connector | Yes, full CLI | No built-in scheduler; cron the CLI | No | No | No | Yes: local MCP server and hosted connector for Claude.ai and ChatGPT | Yes: 26 checks |
| Screaming Frog | Desktop and CLI: Windows, macOS, Linux | Yes, paid license | Yes, CLI and headless mode | Yes, paid license | Partial: separate Log File Analyser | Partial: from link tools you subscribe to | No | Partial: local MCP, paid license | Partial: by hand |
| Sitebulb | Desktop (Windows, Mac) or cloud | Yes, every plan | No | Partial: Pro and Cloud, not Lite | No | No | No | Yes: read-only MCP; cannot start crawls | Partial: JavaScript-dependent content |
| Netpeak Spider | Desktop: Windows, macOS | Yes, Free and Pro | No | No | No | No | Partial: Search Console data per URL | No | No |
| WebSite Auditor | Desktop: Windows, macOS, Linux | Yes | Partial: scheduled tasks, no CLI | Yes, paid licenses | No | Partial: in the suite's SEO SpyGlass | Partial: in the suite's Rank Tracker | No | No |
| Semrush | Cloud | Partial: Pro+ and Advanced only | No | Yes, daily or weekly | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial: MCP app; no Site Audit data documented | Partial: AI bots in robots.txt, llms.txt |
| Ahrefs | Cloud | Yes | No; API | Yes | Partial: CDN logs, beta | Yes | Yes | Yes: hosted MCP, Lite and up | Partial: AI bots in robots.txt, pages needing JavaScript |
| Moz Pro | Cloud | Not documented | No | Yes, weekly | No | Yes | Yes | Partial: with the separate Moz API | Not documented |
| SE Ranking | Cloud | Yes | No; API | Yes, weekly or monthly | No | Yes | Yes | Yes: MCP server; audit data not confirmed | Not documented |
| JetOctopus | Cloud | Yes, every plan | Partial: API and MCP, no CLI | Yes | Yes | Partial: through Ahrefs | Yes | Yes: hosted MCP, every plan | Partial: AI bots in logs |
| Lumar | Cloud | Yes | Partial: GraphQL API and test suites, no CLI | Yes | Yes | Partial: Majestic, if in your package | Partial: Search Console data | Yes, add-on | Yes, add-on |
| Oncrawl | Cloud | Yes, 3 tokens per URL | Partial: REST API, no CLI | Yes | Yes, Core and Scale | Partial: Majestic connector | Partial: Search Console data | Yes | Partial: AI bots in logs |
| Botify | Cloud | Yes, on request | Partial: REST API and BQL, no CLI | Yes | Yes | No | Partial: Search Console data | Partial: listed, no public docs | Partial: AI bot analytics |
Competitor cells summarize the vendor pages linked from each comparison page, read on October 31, 2026. bseoa's 26 AI-readiness checks are listed under technical SEO warnings.
Three-year cost for one person
List prices, cheapest first, for one user over 36 months. Yearly billing where the vendor offers it, unless the row says otherwise. Quote-only tools are at the bottom because there is nothing to add up.
| Tool and plan | 3-year cost | How it adds up |
|---|---|---|
| bseoa Single License | $279 | One-time; updates included |
| Ubersuggest Individual, lifetime | $290 | One-time, under an offer the page said was ending; non-refundable |
| WebSite Auditor Professional, yearly | $447 | 3 x $149 |
| Netpeak Spider Pro, lifetime | $496 | One-time |
| Sitebulb Lite, yearly | $540 | 3 x $180; 10,000 URLs per audit |
| Ubersuggest Individual, yearly | $576 | 3 x $192 |
| Netpeak Spider Pro, yearly | $579 | 3 x $193 |
| bseoa Single License plus hosted connector | $639 | $279 + 3 x $120 |
| SEO PowerSuite Professional, 3-year plan | $717 | All four apps, paid up front |
| Screaming Frog, one license | $837 | 3 x $279 |
| Sitebulb Pro, yearly | $1,275 | 3 x $425 |
| Mangools Basic, yearly | $1,357.20 | 3 x $452.40; no site audit |
| Majestic Lite, yearly | $1,499.97 | 3 x $499.99; no crawler |
| Moz Pro Starter, monthly | $1,764 | 36 x $49; one website |
| Surfer Discovery, yearly | $1,764 | 36 x $49; no technical crawler |
| Serpstat Individual, annual | $1,800 | 36 x $50 |
| Moz Pro Standard, yearly | $2,850 | 3 x $950, if the first-year price holds at renewal |
| SE Ranking Core, annual | $3,715.20 | 3 x $1,238.40 |
| Ahrefs Lite, annual | $3,870 | 3 x $1,290 |
| Semrush SEO, annual | About $4,224 | 36 x $117.33 |
| Clearscope Essentials, monthly | $4,644 | 36 x $129; no annual price published |
| AthenaHQ Starter, annual | $8,820 | 36 x $245 |
| Semrush Pro+, annual (cheapest with JavaScript rendering) | About $8,934 | 36 x $248.17 |
| Similarweb Competitive Intel and SEO and AEO, annual | $11,988 | 36 x $333; cheapest tier with SEO tools |
| JetOctopus Growth (in-house), yearly | $12,564 | 3 x $4,188; seats are not charged |
| Lumar, Oncrawl, Botify, Conductor, Profound | Quote only | No public price to multiply |
A cheap three-year figure is not the same as a cheap tool for your job. The suites near the bottom of the list sell keyword and backlink data that a crawler does not have, and the enterprise crawlers include log analysis and unlimited seats. The figure matters when the site audit is the part you use.
Desktop crawlers: what you pay for
You pay for the crawler and the machine does the work, so there is no page quota to run out of. You get JavaScript rendering on every paid plan here (Screaming Frog's free version lacks it), exports, and, for bseoa and Screaming Frog, a command line. What you do not get: keyword research, rank tracking or a backlink index. Scheduling is built into Screaming Frog, Sitebulb Pro and WebSite Auditor; bseoa runs from cron or Task Scheduler instead.
- Screaming Frog: $279 a year per user for 1 to 4 licenses, $265 for 5 to 9, $249 for 10 to 19, $235 for 20 or more. The Log File Analyser is a separate product at £99 a year (no USD price shown). Source: screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/licence, screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/pricing.
- Sitebulb: Lite $18 a month or $180 a year (10,000 URLs per audit), Pro $42 or $425 (500,000 URLs per audit), Cloud from $125 a month or $1,500 a year. Source: sitebulb.com/pricing.
- Netpeak Spider: Pro $20 a month, $193 a year or $496 lifetime; free version 500 URLs. Source: netpeaksoftware.com/pricing/spider.
- SEO PowerSuite WebSite Auditor: $149 a year Professional or $359 Enterprise on its own; the four-app suite is $349, $599 or $899 a year, with 2- and 3-year plans. It is billed yearly; one-time keys apply only to licenses ordered before 25 January 2020. Source: link-assistant.com/pricing.html.
- bseoa: $279 once for a Single License, $1,999 once for the Agency License, updates included, no crawl limit, JavaScript rendering in the desktop app and CLI, a local MCP server, and a source code guarantee. The optional hosted connector for Claude.ai and ChatGPT is $15 a month or $120 a year with a license, $50 a month or $500 a year without one, and does not render JavaScript. Source: bseoa pricing.
Cloud SEO suites: what you pay for
Most of the money buys data: keyword volumes, rankings, backlink indexes and competitor traffic. The site audit is included and capped by a monthly quota, and the cheapest plans sometimes leave out JavaScript rendering (Semrush below Pro+) or do not state their audit limit (Semrush SEO, Moz Starter, Similarweb). What you do not get: a command line, local crawls of staging sites, or crawls beyond the quota without upgrading.
- Semrush: Free (100 pages a month), SEO $139 a month ($117.33 billed annually), Starter $199 ($165.17), Pro+ $299 ($248.17), Advanced custom. Source: semrush.com/prices, Semrush KB: pages per audit.
- Ahrefs: Lite $129 a month or $1,290 a year, Standard $249 or $2,490, Advanced $449 or $4,490, Enterprise $1,499 a month on an annual commitment. Source: ahrefs.com/pricing.
- Moz Pro: Starter $49 a month, Standard $99 ($950 the first year), Medium $179 ($1,719), Large $299 ($2,868). Source: moz.com/products/pro/pricing.
- SE Ranking: Core $129 a month ($103.20 billed annually), Growth $279 ($223.20), Enterprise by quote. Source: seranking.com/subscription.html.
- Serpstat: Individual $69 a month ($50 billed annually), Team $129 ($100), Team x2 $209 ($169), Agency $499 ($410). Source: serpstat.com/page/pricing-plans.
- Ubersuggest: Individual $29 a month, $192 a year or $290 lifetime; Business $49, $326 or $490; Enterprise/Agency $99, $657 or $990. The lifetime prices sat under a "90% off, offer ends soon" countdown. Source: ubersuggest.com/en/pricing.
- Similarweb: Competitive Intelligence $199 a month ($125 billed annually) with no SEO tools; Competitive Intel and SEO and AEO $399 ($333), which adds keyword research, rank tracking, site audit and backlinks; with Ads $649 ($542); business plans by quote. Source: similarweb.com/packages/web.
- Mangools: Basic $61 a month or $452.40 a year, Premium $81 or $632.40, Agency $141 or $1,172.40. The page was running a price test, so you may see different figures. Source: mangools.com/plans-and-pricing.
- Majestic: Lite $49.99 a month or $499.99 a year, Pro $99.99 or $999.99, API $399.99 or $3,999.90. Source: majestic.com/plans-pricing.
- Surfer: Discovery $59 a month ($49 billed yearly), AI Search Analytics $95 ($82), Standard $119 ($99), Pro $219 ($182), Peace of Mind $359 ($299). Source: surfer.ai/pricing.
- Clearscope: Essentials $129 a month, Business $399 a month, Enterprise by quote. Source: clearscope.io/pricing.
Enterprise cloud crawlers: what you pay for
Scale, scheduling, server-log analysis, Search Console joins and seats for a whole team, run on the vendor's servers. JetOctopus is the only one of the four that publishes prices. What you do not get: a public price for the other three, a self-serve trial for Lumar, Oncrawl or Botify, or crawls of sites only your own network can reach.
- JetOctopus: Growth $349 a month billed yearly or $459 billed quarterly (in-house), Pro $809 or $1,089, Ultra $1,559 or $2,069; agency prices differ; Unlimited by quote. Source: jetoctopus.com/pricing.
- Lumar: quote only; crawls draw on credits, and GEO reporting and the MCP server are add-ons. Source: lumar.io/pricing.
- Oncrawl: quote only; its pricing page returned 404 on October 31, 2026. Plans (Basic, Core, Scale) are set in an order form, and one URL costs 1 crawl token, 3 with JavaScript rendering. Source: oncrawl.com/tos, Oncrawl help: crawl tokens.
- Botify: quote only; the pricing page offers a demo. Source: botify.com/pricing.
AI-visibility trackers: what you pay for
A count of how often AI assistants mention and cite you, across a set of prompts you choose, over time. Pricing scales with prompts, AI responses or credits. What you do not get from Profound or AthenaHQ: a crawl of your site, technical issues, or any check of whether GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot can read your pages. If assistants never mention you, a tracker shows the zero; a crawler with AI-readiness checks helps find out why.
- Profound: Enterprise by quote; an agency plan is listed without a price; a trial tracks 50 prompts a day for 7 days on 3 engines. Source: tryprofound.com/pricing.
- AthenaHQ: free Essential plan with 300 credits; Starter $295 a month or $245 a month billed annually for 3,600 credits; Enterprise by quote. Source: athenahq.ai/plans.
- Conductor: every plan by quote; Essentials lists 500 tracked keywords and 100,000 pages monitored, Growth 5,000 keywords and 500,000 pages. Source: conductor.com/pricing.
Every competitor price on this page was read on October 31, 2026. Some vendors draw their price tables with JavaScript; for Sitebulb, Serpstat, Mangools, Ubersuggest, Surfer, Similarweb and AthenaHQ we read the figures from the data the vendor's own pricing page loads. Annual totals for Semrush, Serpstat and AthenaHQ are monthly-equivalent prices times twelve.
Questions
What is the cheapest SEO crawler with JavaScript rendering?
Free: Netpeak Spider's free version renders JavaScript but stops at 500 URLs (Windows and macOS). Monthly: Sitebulb Lite at $18 a month renders JavaScript with a 10,000-URL cap per audit. Over three years: bseoa at $279 once, with no crawl limit, is the cheapest paid option; Sitebulb Lite costs $540 and Netpeak Spider's lifetime license $496 over the same period. The Screaming Frog free version does not render JavaScript, and Semrush renders it only from Pro+ at $299 a month. Prices checked on 31 October 2026.
Is there a lifetime SEO tool license?
A few. bseoa is $279 once for a Single License, updates included. Netpeak Spider Pro has a $496 lifetime license. Ubersuggest showed lifetime plans from $290 on 31 October 2026, under a limited-time offer its page said ends soon. SEO PowerSuite no longer sells one-time licenses: it bills yearly, and its one-time keys apply only to licenses ordered before 25 January 2020. Screaming Frog, Sitebulb, Semrush and Ahrefs are subscriptions.
What does Semrush Site Audit cost?
Site Audit comes with a Semrush plan. Checked on 31 October 2026: the free plan audits 100 pages a month; SEO is $139 a month ($117.33 billed annually) with a Site Audit limit Semrush does not state; Starter is $199 a month with 100,000 pages a month, 20,000 per audit and no JavaScript rendering; Pro+ is $299 a month with 300,000 pages and JavaScript rendering; Advanced is a custom price with 1,000,000 pages a month.
Is Screaming Frog a one-time purchase?
No. A Screaming Frog SEO Spider license is $279 per user per year and expires after a year unless renewed, with volume prices from $265 to $235 per license. The free version crawls up to 500 URLs without JavaScript rendering. bseoa is the one-time alternative: $279 once.
Which SEO tools have an MCP server?
On 31 October 2026, the vendors' own sites documented MCP servers or apps for bseoa (local and hosted), Screaming Frog (local, paid license), Sitebulb (read-only), Ahrefs, Semrush (keyword, domain and backlink data), SE Ranking, JetOctopus, Oncrawl, Lumar (add-on), Similarweb (business plans), Serpstat (Team and up), Mangools, Ubersuggest, Surfer, Profound, AthenaHQ and Conductor. Moz offers one with its separate API product, and Botify lists MCP as a module without public documentation. We found none for Netpeak Spider, SEO PowerSuite, Majestic or Clearscope.
What are the free options?
Free versions: Screaming Frog (500 URLs, no JavaScript), Netpeak Spider (500 URLs, with JavaScript), WebSite Auditor (500 URLs, no saving), the Semrush free plan (100 audit pages a month), Ahrefs Free for sites you verify, and AthenaHQ's free Essential plan. Trials without a credit card: bseoa (14 days, every feature, no page limit), Sitebulb (14 days), SE Ranking (14 days) and JetOctopus (7 days, 10,000 URLs). Lumar, Oncrawl and Botify offer demos only.
Every comparison page
- bseoa vs Screaming Frog SEO Spider
- bseoa vs Sitebulb
- bseoa vs Semrush Site Audit
- bseoa vs Ahrefs Site Audit
- bseoa vs Moz Pro
- bseoa vs SE Ranking
- bseoa vs Lumar (formerly DeepCrawl)
- bseoa vs Oncrawl
- bseoa vs Botify
- bseoa vs JetOctopus
- bseoa vs Netpeak Spider
- bseoa vs SEO PowerSuite WebSite Auditor
- SEO crawler pricing, plan by plan