The verdict
- Pick Ahrefs if you need its backlink index, keyword data and rank tracking, and want the site audit in the same account.
- Pick Ahrefs if you want audits that run in the cloud on a schedule, with Search Console data and an API on every paid plan.
- Pick bseoa if the audit is what you use: $279 once against $1,290 a year for Ahrefs Lite, with no crawl credits and no 25,000-page cap per project.
- Pick bseoa if you need a CLI, raw crawl files, or llms.txt and byline checks that Ahrefs' AI Discoverability issues do not list.
- Use both if Ahrefs is your link and keyword tool: keep it for research and run bseoa for full crawls of large sites and pre-deploy checks.
Pricing
Ahrefs Site Audit
| Plan | Monthly | Yearly | Site Audit limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ahrefs Free (Webmaster Tools) | $0 | $0 | Limited Site Audit for sites you verify |
| Lite | $129 | $1,290 | 100,000 crawl credits a month; 25,000 pages per project |
| Standard | $249 | $2,490 | 500,000 crawl credits a month; 50,000 pages per project |
| Advanced | $449 | $4,490 | 1,500,000 crawl credits a month; 250,000 pages per project |
| Enterprise | $1,499 (annual commitment) | $17,988 | From 5 million crawl credits a month; 5 million pages per project |
One user is included on each plan; extra users cost $40 a month on Lite, $60 on Standard and $80 on Advanced. Only internal HTML pages that return 200 use crawl credits, and each verified project gets its first 5,000 credits a month free on any plan. Ahrefs says it never runs discounts and offers Ahrefs Free instead of a trial. A $29 Starter plan is also listed; the page did not show a Site Audit allowance for it.
Source: ahrefs.com/pricing, Ahrefs help: crawl credits. Checked on 31 October 2026.
bseoa
| Plan | Monthly | Yearly | One-time | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single License | Not offered | Not offered | $279 | No crawl limit; updates included |
| Agency License | Not offered | Not offered | $1,999 | No crawl limit; for a team |
| Hosted connector, with a license | $15 | $120 | Not offered | Claude.ai and ChatGPT; 25,000 pages per rolling 30 days, 2,000 per crawl, results kept 90 days |
| Hosted connector, without a license | $50 | $500 | Not offered | Same limits as above |
| Free trial | $0 | $0 | $0 | 14 days, every feature, no page limit, no credit card |
Updates are included with both licenses, and every purchase carries the source code guarantee. The hosted connector is only needed to run audits from Claude.ai or ChatGPT in the browser; the license already covers the desktop app, the CLI and the local MCP server.
Source: bseoa pricing. Checked on 31 October 2026.
Three-year cost for one user
| Tool and plan | Three-year cost | How it adds up |
|---|---|---|
| bseoa Single License | $279 | One-time; updates included |
| bseoa Single License plus hosted connector | $639 | $279 + 3 x $120 |
| Ahrefs Lite, annual billing | $3,870 | 3 x $1,290 |
| Ahrefs Lite, monthly billing | $4,644 | 36 x $129 |
| Ahrefs Standard, annual billing | $7,470 | 3 x $2,490 |
List prices in USD before tax, from the tables above. Checked on 31 October 2026.
Feature matrix
Yes, No or Partial, with a numbered note for every Partial. Competitor cells that are not obvious link to the page we read on 31 October 2026.
| bseoa | Ahrefs Site Audit | |
|---|---|---|
| Runs where | Desktop GUI and CLI on your own machine; optional hosted connector | Cloud, in the browser |
| Price model | One-time license; the hosted connector is an optional subscription | Monthly or annual subscription to the Ahrefs suite |
| Entry price | $279 once | $129 a month (Lite); $1,290 a year (source) |
| Crawl limit at entry price | No limit | 100,000 crawl credits a month, 25,000 pages per project (source) |
| JavaScript rendering | Yes. Headless Chrome in the desktop app and CLI; the hosted connector does not render JavaScript | Yes. Execute JavaScript setting in the crawl settings (source) |
| Command line and automation | Yes. Full CLI for scripts, cron jobs and CI pipelines | No. No command line; automation is through the API |
| API or scriptable output | Yes. JSON, JSONL, CSV, XML and HTML exports; every crawl is kept in a local SQLite file | Yes. API access on Lite and up, with Site Audit endpoints (source) |
| Scheduled crawls | Partial0. No built-in scheduler; run the CLI from cron or Task Scheduler | Yes. By day, time and timezone (source) |
| Log file analysis | No | Partial1. Bot Analytics reads CDN logs (Cloudflare, Vercel, CloudFront, Fastly), in beta |
| Backlink data | No | Yes. Ahrefs backlink index |
| Keyword and rank data | No | Yes. Keywords Explorer and Rank Tracker |
| Search Console integration | No | Yes. GSC Insights (source) |
| AI assistant integration | Yes. Local MCP server in Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, Codex and Perplexity; hosted connector in Claude.ai and ChatGPT | Yes2. Hosted MCP server on Lite and up; Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot and other MCP clients |
| AI-readiness checks | Yes. 26 checks: AI crawler access in robots.txt, llms.txt, bylines and dates, JavaScript-dependent content (example) | Partial3. AI Discoverability: AI bots blocked in robots.txt, inconsistent AI bot policies, pages requiring JavaScript; no llms.txt or byline check listed |
| Reporting and exports | HTML reports with your own templates, CSV, XML, JSON, a broken-links CSV and an interactive site map | Exports, API and Looker Studio (Advanced) (source) |
| Users and seats | Per license; the Agency License covers a team | 1 user included; extra users $40 to $80 a month (source) |
| Platforms | Windows, macOS, Linux | Any browser |
| Free tier or trial | 14-day trial, every feature, no page limit, no credit card | Ahrefs Free for verified sites; no trial (source) |
| Source code guarantee | Yes (what it covers) | No. None published |
0. bseoa has no scheduler of its own. The CLI runs headless, so a cron line or a Windows scheduled task gives you recurring crawls, and two stored crawls can be compared after each run.
1. Ahrefs Bot Analytics shows which bots, including AI crawlers, request your pages, from logs pushed by Cloudflare, Vercel, Amazon CloudFront or Fastly. It is in beta. It is not a general-purpose log file analyzer for uploaded server logs. Source: Ahrefs Bot Analytics.
2. Ahrefs MCP is a remote server only, available on Lite and higher plans; the help page names Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot, Lovable, n8n and Opencrawl. The help page does not say which Site Audit data it exposes or whether it can start a crawl. MCP use is metered in API units, and Ahrefs' API has Site Audit endpoints. Sources: Getting started with Ahrefs MCP, Site Audit API.
3. Ahrefs added an AI Discoverability issue category in September 2026: pages blocked from AI bots in robots.txt, pages too slow or heavy for AI crawlers, inconsistent AI bot policies, similar AI-generated content, and pages requiring JavaScript rendering. llms.txt, bylines and dates are not on the list. Source: Ahrefs, new in September 2026.
Where Ahrefs Site Audit wins
- The data around the audit: one of the largest backlink indexes, keyword research, rank tracking and Search Console insights in the same account.
- Cloud scheduling and an API on every paid plan, so audits run without anyone's machine and feed dashboards.
- A free tier for site owners: Ahrefs Free audits sites you verify, and every verified project gets 5,000 free crawl credits a month on any plan.
- A hosted MCP server on every paid plan, listed for Claude and ChatGPT.
- AI bot traffic from CDN logs through Bot Analytics, which bseoa does not do.
Where bseoa wins
- Cost when the audit is what you need: $279 once against $3,870 over three years for Ahrefs Lite on annual billing.
- No credit budget or project cap. Lite stops at 25,000 pages per project and 100,000 credits a month; a bseoa license has no crawl limit.
- A CLI and local files: every crawl in a local SQLite file with JSON, JSONL, CSV and XML exports, for CI checks before a deploy and for staging sites the cloud cannot reach.
- AI-readiness checks Ahrefs does not list: llms.txt presence and quality, visible bylines and dates, and article markup, among 26 checks.
- A 14-day trial of every feature and a source code guarantee; Ahrefs offers no trial of paid plans.
Who should pick which
- Agency: Ahrefs if link building and keyword research are what you sell; its audit comes with that. Add bseoa for client sites larger than your Ahrefs plan's per-project cap, and for crawls on staging or behind a VPN.
- In-house technical SEO: bseoa for full crawls and AI-readiness checks; Ahrefs if the team already uses it for links and keywords, and its scheduled audit is enough between deep crawls.
- Developer: bseoa. It runs in CI, crawls localhost and staging, and works from Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code and Codex through the local MCP server.
- Enterprise: Ahrefs Enterprise if you need millions of pages per project crawled in the cloud with an uncapped API. bseoa as a scriptable crawler for engineering teams alongside it.