Overview
Ahrefs is one of the most widely used SEO platforms in the world, trusted by marketers at companies like Airbnb, Shopify, and LinkedIn. Founded in 2011, it's built around one of the largest backlink indexes in the industry — crawling over 8 billion pages daily.
We've tested Ahrefs extensively against Semrush, Moz, and Majestic. For backlink analysis and keyword difficulty scoring, it consistently comes out ahead. For on-page optimisation, it's less specialised than tools like Surfer SEO.
- Best-in-class backlink database (12B+ links)
- Highly accurate keyword difficulty scores
- Content Explorer for digital PR and link prospecting
- Site Audit crawls up to 10,000 URLs on Lite plan
- Intuitive, well-designed UI
- Excellent SERP history and traffic potential data
- Expensive — starts at $99/mo
- No free trial (only a paid $7 trial)
- Limited local SEO features
- No built-in content editor
- Credits-based usage can feel restrictive
Key Features
Site Explorer
The crown jewel of Ahrefs. Enter any domain or URL to see its full backlink profile, organic keyword rankings, top pages by traffic, and competitor overlap. The data is consistently more accurate than competitors for backlink discovery.
Keywords Explorer
Search any keyword across 10 search engines and 200+ countries. Ahrefs' Keyword Difficulty (KD) score is arguably the most reliable in the industry — it's based on the actual number of referring domains linking to the top 10 results, not a black-box algorithm. The "Traffic Potential" metric is uniquely useful.
Content Explorer
Search 14 billion pages by topic to find content with high backlink counts and social engagement. Essential for digital PR campaigns and identifying link-building opportunities. No other tool does this as well.
Site Audit
Crawl your website for 100+ technical SEO issues. The visualisation of internal link structure is particularly useful. Audit reports are clean and actionable. For highly technical audits, Screaming Frog goes deeper, but Ahrefs' audit is easier to act on.
Score Breakdown
Pricing
Ahrefs updated its pricing model in 2023, moving to a seat-based model with usage credits. Here's the current breakdown:
- 1 user seat
- 5 projects
- 500 tracked keywords
- 10,000 crawl credits/mo
- 1 user seat
- 20 projects
- 1,500 tracked keywords
- 500k crawl credits/mo
- Content Explorer access
- 1 user seat
- Unlimited projects
- 5,000 tracked keywords
- 3M crawl credits/mo
- API access
Our Verdict
Ahrefs remains our top pick for link building and keyword research. If backlinks are central to your SEO strategy — and they should be — there's no better tool for understanding your link profile and finding opportunities. The Standard plan offers the best value for most individual SEOs and small agencies.