As of 28 September 2026, a 10-domain client portfolio — 1,000 tracked keywords, three seats, ten white-label reports — costs $468 a month on Ahrefs, $589 on Semrush without the API line ($839 with it), and from $49 on Moz, where the price is published and the limits are not.
The search cluster is the clearest case of why the marketing section resists comparison. The 30-page dataset read the marketing cluster’s email tools as one document and found four patterns; this piece takes the search tools in that same cluster — Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz — and does the reconciliation at the tier level: what each tier actually includes, dated to the check date, and then a counted 10-domain bill on top. Not a ranking. A count.
How to read the dates below.
- The date is the check date, not the publication date. Ahrefs was checked live on 28 September 2026; the 27 September 2026 archived capture matches it. Semrush and Moz were checked on 27 September 2026 archived captures, because the live pages returned bot-wall responses (HTTP 403 and 448) on the check date. Moz’s prior state is the 3 June 2025 capture; Ahrefs’ prior state is the vendor’s own pricing blog of 9 March 2026.
- Where the vendor’s own documents disagree, the plan page is the source of truth. The dated older figure sits beside it, not instead of it — that is the reconciliation policy, and every such pair below carries both dates.
- “From $X” is the published entry price. The cap behind it is either dated in the tables or marked not published. Unverified is a state, not an estimate.
Why the search tools resist comparison
The email half of the marketing cluster splits into two unit systems — contacts metered by sends, versus subscribers metered by nothing — and the per-recipient piece prices the difference on one list. The search half splits three ways, and the split is structural, not cosmetic:
Ahrefs bundles three meters per tier. Crawl credits (Site Audit), tracked keywords (Rank Tracker), and usage credits (report loads) are each a separate cap, and the tier is the row that sets all three at once. The API is included on every paid tier, capped by rows per request (28 September 2026, vendor page).
Semrush bundles two meters per tier. Websites to monitor and keywords to track — with the tracking metered daily on every tier (27 September 2026, vendor capture). The crawl allowance is inside Site Audit but its count is not on the page I could verify, and the API line sits on the top tier only.
Moz bundles one meter at a cadence. Tracked keywords, weekly on the $49 product and daily on the $360 one; the comparison table on the product page puts “complimentary API access” in the $360 row and not in the $49 row (27 September 2026, vendor capture). The per-plan keyword count is not on that page.
Three vendors, three nouns for the same workload — “tracked keywords”, “keywords to track”, “rank tracking” — and three different answers to “which number on this page will hit me first”. The meter each vendor picked decides which part of the agency’s operation becomes the line item. The reconciliation is the translation job.
The dated tier-inclusion matrix
First, the prices, as published, with the check date on each row.
| Vendor | Tiers, as published | Check date |
|---|---|---|
| Ahrefs | Lite $129/mo, Standard $249/mo, Advanced $449/mo, Enterprise $1,499/mo (annual commitment required); below them Starter $29/mo and a free plan | 28 September 2026 (vendor page; 27 September 2026 archived capture identical). Annual billing “save up to 17%” is the page’s own line |
| Semrush | SEO $139/mo, Starter $199/mo, Pro+ $299/mo, Advanced $549/mo; annual equivalents $117.33 / $165.17 / $248.17 / $455.67 per month; free plan $0 (one demo project, 10 reports/day) | 27 September 2026 (archived capture of the vendor pricing page). The page’s own tier names changed: Pro/Guru/Business were still the names in the vendor’s own FAQ on 20 April 2025 |
| Moz | Moz Pro from $49/mo (weekly rank tracking); STAT from $360/mo (daily rank tracking); 7-day free trial; “save up to 40% — ends today” banner live on the capture | 27 September 2026 (archived capture of the vendor products page). The prior state: same products, STAT at $720/mo, on the 3 June 2025 capture |
The tier-inclusion matrix. Each cell is the vendor’s own progression across its paid tiers; the date applies to the whole row.
| Line (dated) | Ahrefs (Lite → Standard → Advanced → Enterprise) | Semrush (SEO → Starter → Pro+ → Advanced) | Moz (Moz Pro → STAT) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Additional users, price (28 Sep 2026 / 27 Sep 2026 / 27 Sep 2026) | +2 at $40, +5 at $60, +10 at $80, unlimited at $100 per month; one user included on every tier | “Starting at $45/mo” — the price is published, the included count is not on the capture | Not published |
| Tracked keywords, per tier (same dates) | 750 → 2,000 → 5,000 → from 10,000, updated weekly on all tiers | 500 → 500 → 1,500 → 5,000, updated daily on all tiers | Weekly on Moz Pro, daily on STAT; the per-plan count is not on the products page |
| Sites/projects cap (same dates) | 5 → 20 → 50 → 100 unverified projects; verified-ownership projects unlimited on every tier | 5 → 5 → 15 → 40 websites to monitor | Not published |
| Crawl (same dates) | 100,000 → 500,000 → 1,500,000 → from 5,000,000 crawl credits/month; per-project page caps 25,000 → 50,000 → 250,000 → 5,000,000 | Site Audit included (marked “AI-ready” from Starter); the monthly crawl count is not on the capture | Technical SEO audit included (Moz Pro product card); the crawl count is not on the products page |
| Usage credits (Ahrefs’ second meter) | 1,000 per user on Lite; unlimited on Standard and above (28 September 2026). The 9 March 2026 vendor blog said 500/month on Lite — the page is the source of truth, the blog is the dated prior state | — (not a meter on this page) | — |
| Historical data depth (same dates) | 6 months → 2 years → 5 years → unlimited | “Historical SEO data” appears at Pro+ and above; the depth is not quantified on the capture | Not published |
| API (same dates) | Included on every paid tier; max rows per request 100 → 250 → 500 → unlimited; “Ahrefs Connect” integration units 200,000 → 800,000 → 2M → 4M+ per month | “API data integration” on the Advanced tier only | “Complimentary API access” in the STAT row; not in the Moz Pro row |
| White-label reporting (same dates) | Report Builder add-on $99/mo (50 reports, 500 widgets, scheduling); the plan itself includes 5 → 5 → 15 → 25 reports | Base Report $10/mo per report; Pro Report $20/mo per report — the Pro line is the one with “branding and white-labeling” | “Automated custom reports” on Moz Pro; no per-report price on the products page |
| AI visibility line (same dates) | Tracked AI prompts 5 → 10 → 20 → from 83 (checks/month 150 → 300 → 600 → from 2,500); standalone Brand Radar AI from $199/mo | 50 → 100 → 200 prompts to track daily; Starter adds 300 AI visibility reports per day | Not on the products page |
Two rows do the work, and they point at different vendors. The keyword row is where Ahrefs and Semrush diverge on the same number: 2,000 weekly (Ahrefs Standard) against 1,500 daily (Semrush Pro+) — the same workload, a different cadence, a different tier gate. The website row is where Semrush gates the agency: five websites on the two bottom tiers, so any portfolio above five properties starts at the $299 tier, whatever the keyword count. Ahrefs’ gate is the keyword count; Semrush’ is the property count; Moz does not publish either gate, which is its own finding.
The unit definitions
What each meter actually limits, because the same word is not the same meter here:
“Crawl credit” (Ahrefs). One page crawled by Site Audit. The meter has two parts that the buyer usually reads as one: a monthly pool (100,000 on Lite to from 5,000,000 on Enterprise, 28 September 2026) and a per-project page cap (25,000 to 5,000,000 on the same dates). A 2,000-page client site fits the Lite per-project cap with room; ten of them at one full crawl a month is 20,000 credits before recrawls — inside the Lite pool, which is why the crawl meter is not the line that bites on this workload (the keyword meter is — see the count below).
“Usage credit” (Ahrefs’ second meter, not the same word as the crawl credit). One report load or filter in the data tools. 1,000 per user on Lite; unlimited from Standard (28 September 2026). The vendor’s own blog of 9 March 2026 put this at 500/month on Lite — the allowance moved inside the year, and the page is the source of truth for what it is now.
“Keywords to track” (Semrush). The number is per plan, and the cadence is per plan too: daily on every tier (27 September 2026). Semrush’ own FAQ as of 20 April 2025 still carried the old tier names (Pro, Guru, Business) with analytics search limits of 3,000 / 5,000 / 10,000 per day — the naming change landed between that FAQ and the 27 September 2026 capture, and the redirect of /pricing/ to the new /pricing/seo-ai-search/ page is dated 7 August 2026. What an existing Guru contract maps to is the rep’s question, not the page’s.
“Tracked keywords” (Moz). Weekly cadence on the $49 product, daily on the $360 one — cadence is the tier structure, on the products page of 27 September 2026. The per-plan keyword count is not published there. For the “link research” line: Domain Authority, the link metric that row is built on, was developed by Moz (per Wikipedia, checked 28 September 2026) — the vendor’s own metric, dated like everything else here.
The reconciliation, stated plainly: 1,000 tracked keywords is one workload on all three pages, but it is 1,000 weekly positions on Ahrefs, 1,000 daily positions on Semrush, and an unpublished count on Moz. Same noun, three meters, one of them not on the page. That is the whole comparison, and the rest of the article is the arithmetic it forces.
The workload test: a 10-domain client, counted
The scenario, fixed and stated before any number:
- Ten client domains, averaging 2,000 indexable pages each. One full crawl of every domain per month plus recrawls of changed pages (assumed 50% of pages) = 30,000 crawl credits/month in Ahrefs units — the only vendor that publishes a crawl count, so it is the unit of record.
- 1,000 tracked keywords (100 per domain), the portfolio’s reporting baseline.
- Ten domains under backlink monitoring (the link-research line).
- Three agency seats — the analyst doing the work and two who read the output.
- Ten white-label client reports per month.
- A custom reporting pipeline via API — stated requirement; counted as an option where the vendor gates the API by tier.
- US list prices, held at the check dates; annual equivalents where the page publishes them; no discount assumed.
The tier each workload line forces, then the counted bill.
| Line | Ahrefs (28 Sep 2026) | Semrush (27 Sep 2026) | Moz (27 Sep 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tier the workload fits | Standard — Lite is short on the keyword gate (750 < 1,000); the crawl pool (100,000) and per-project cap (25,000) both fit | Pro+ — the two bottom tiers cap at 5 websites to monitor; 10 domains do not fit | Moz Pro at weekly cadence — the per-plan keyword count is not published, so the fit is an entry price, not a counted package; STAT if the agency wants daily cadence or the API |
| Base tier | $249/mo | $299/mo | from $49/mo |
| Seats (3 people) | +$120 (2 additional × $60) | +$90 (2 additional × $45) | Not published — unverified, not estimated |
| White-label reports × 10 | +$99 (Report Builder add-on, 50 reports) | +$200 (10 × $20 Pro Report, the white-label line) | Not published on the products page |
| API line | Included (250 rows/request cap) | Advanced tier only → the base tier becomes $549 | STAT row only → the base becomes from $360 |
| Counted monthly bill | $468 | $589 without the API line; $839 with it | from $49 (weekly, one seat, caps unverified); from $360 on STAT (daily + API) — and the $360 sits under a “save up to 40%” banner, so it is a dated banner price, 27 September 2026 |
The arithmetic, shown so the table means what it says. Ahrefs: $249 (Standard) + $120 (two seats at $60) + $99 (Report Builder) = $468. Semrush without the API line: $299 (Pro+) + $90 (two seats at $45) + $200 (ten white-label reports at $20) = $589; with it, the base tier is the $549 Advanced: $549 + $90 + $200 = $839. Moz: the only figure the products page publishes for the weekly product is the entry — from $49 — with the seat, keyword and report lines absent from the page, so the counted bill is the entry price plus whatever the quote adds.
Three readings, dated. Ahrefs is the cheapest counted bill on this workload, and the reason is the keyword gate, not the sticker — Standard’s 2,000-keyword cap holds 1,000 with double headroom, and the API rides inside the tier from the first paid tier. Semrush is the most expensive counted bill because its gate is the website count: the same 10 domains start at $299 regardless of how few keywords the agency tracks, and the white-label line — $20 per report, ten reports — is the single largest add-on line in the count ($200, more than the two seats combined). Moz is the only vendor where the counted bill is an entry price, because the products page of 27 September 2026 publishes the $49 and the cadence but not the cap behind them — which is not a flaw in the count, it is the count: the dated number the agency can plan against is the one that is on the page, and the rest is a quote.
The agency angle: who actually pays
The client never sees any of these lines. They ride inside the retainer’s margin, and the seat math is the part of the bill the agency controls least, because the vendor’s seat price is not the seat’s real price.
Price per seat is a rumor until you count the seats. Counted from the vendor pages (28 September and 27 September 2026):
| Seat line, as published | Marginal cost of the 3rd seat | Per client, spread over 10 |
|---|---|---|
| Ahrefs, Standard tier | $60/mo (the +5-at-$60 band, 28 September 2026) | $6.00/client/mo |
| Semrush, any paid tier | $45/mo (“starting at”, 27 September 2026) | $4.50/client/mo |
| Moz, either product | Not published | — |
Set the stated scenario next to it: an agency billing $1,000 a month per client for this workload (a stated assumption, not a vendor number). Ten clients is $10,000 of monthly revenue against the same ten domains the tools meter. The counted bill is 4.7% of that on Ahrefs ($468), 5.9% on Semrush without the API line ($589), 8.4% with it ($839) — and 0.5% on the Moz entry price, which is precisely why the Moz cell is the one to re-verify before it is quoted: a bill that looks like 0.5% until the caps arrive is a bill whose real size is a conversation, not a page.
The structural point, dated: on two of the three pages the per-client seat cost is a published line ($6.00 and $4.50, spread across ten clients); on the third it is not on the page at all. When the vendor moves that line at renewal — Ahrefs’ own documents show its Lite crawl allowance moving between March and September 2026 — 250,000/month on the 9 March 2026 blog, 100,000/month on the 28 September 2026 page — the agency eats the diff first, and the client’s retainer only moves if the agency re-quotes. The client pays the tool through the margin; the agency is the only party on the invoice who can read the fine print.
What quietly costs more
The lines that are published, on the same pages, that the sticker does not say:
The API line is a tier gate, not an add-on — on one vendor. Ahrefs includes the API on every paid tier, gated by rows per request (100/250/500/unlimited) and by Ahrefs Connect integration units (200K/800K/2M/4M per month, 28 September 2026). Semrush puts “API data integration” on the Advanced tier only (27 September 2026) — so the API is worth a $250 tier jump on that page, from Pro+ to Advanced, the single largest step in its count. Moz puts “complimentary API access” in the STAT row and not the Moz Pro row (27 September 2026) — the API there is a $311 step from the $49 entry, on the dated banner price. Same need (a reporting pipeline), three different prices, one of them a quote.
White-label reporting is the second meter, priced per report. Ahrefs’ plans include 5/5/15/25 reports; the 10-report white-label bill is the $99 Report Builder add-on (50 reports, 500 widgets, 28 September 2026). Semrush prices the report itself — $10 Base, $20 Pro, the Pro line being the one with branding and white-labeling (27 September 2026). The per-report price is the line that scales with the client count, not the team: grow the book ten clients and that line doubles, on the Semrush page at least.
Historical depth is the tier, on Ahrefs. Six months on Lite, two years on Standard, five on Advanced, unlimited on Enterprise (28 September 2026) — the depth the buyer gets is the tier they pay for, so a renewal that moves the tier moves the data window with it, no separate line. Semrush surfaces “historical SEO data” at Pro+ and above without quantifying the depth on the capture I could verify (27 September 2026); Moz does not put the line on the products page. Unverified where the page is quiet — noted, not estimated.
The AI line, metered before it is tiered. Ahrefs meters tracked AI prompts by tier (5/10/20, from 83 on Enterprise; checks 150/300/600/from 2,500 per month) and sells standalone Brand Radar AI from $199/month (28 September 2026). Semrush meters prompts to track daily (50/100/200) plus 300 AI visibility reports per day from its second tier (27 September 2026). The meter is on the page before the agency workload in this article touches it — the same pattern the 30-page dataset logged across categories: the AI feature arrives as a metered add-on, then migrates into the tiers, and the migration is the next repricing.
What to watch before your next renewal
Dated, in the order a bill will punish them:
- Ahrefs Lite, the crawl allowance. 250,000 crawl credits/month on the vendor’s own pricing blog of 9 March 2026; 100,000 on the 28 September 2026 pricing page — a 60% cut inside the year, on the vendor’s own two documents, with the page as the source of truth. The usage-credit line moved the other way (500/month then, 1,000 per user now). Re-check both at the next annual renewal; a Lite account on a 10-domain workload is already short on keywords, so the crawl cut is the quiet one.
- Semrush under a new owner, with the page moved and the tiers renamed. Per Wikipedia (checked 28 September 2026), Semrush is a wholly owned subsidiary of Adobe following an acquisition that completed in April 2026 — the company had traded on the NYSE as SEMR until then. The pricing page itself relocated: /pricing/ redirected to /pricing/seo-ai-search/ on the 7 August 2026 capture, and the tier names went from Pro/Guru/Business (the vendor’s own FAQ, 20 April 2025) to SEO/Starter/Pro+/Advanced (27 September 2026). Existing contracts at renewal will need the mapping answered by a rep, because no dated page states it.
- Moz STAT’s entry price, in half. $720/month on the 3 June 2025 capture; $360/month on the 27 September 2026 capture, with a “save up to 40% — ends today” banner live on that capture. A 50% cut on the page in fifteen months, and the base price behind the banner is not published — re-pull the page after the banner comes down, and treat $360 as a dated banner price until then.
- Ahrefs Enterprise, nine dollars. $1,499/month on the 28 September 2026 page; $1,490 in the 9 March 2026 blog. Both dated, the page is the source of truth — but a $9 drift inside the year on the top tier is exactly the line that re-prices a renewal with no visible change to the page.
- The AI meter, per day or per month. Semrush meters AI prompts per day (50/100/200, 27 September 2026); Ahrefs per month (5/10/20, with checks 150/300/600, 28 September 2026) and prices standalone Brand Radar AI from $199/month. Two meters for the same emerging workload, neither of which the 10-domain count above yet touches — the first one to cross into the base tiers is the next repricing, and it will not be announced as a model change.
The pattern is the product; the vendor is one instance of it. Three vendors, three meters, one counted bill on a named workload — $468, $589–839, and a from-$49 that is a price without its cap. When the pages change, the matrix re-renders; the units are the part that stays. The pricing page is the spec sheet: meter, cap, hidden line, date. And at renewal, run the count on the page you already have — check the diff, not the ad.
Related on this site
- What 30 SaaS Pricing Pages Actually Say — the dataset this piece inherits its method from; the search cluster’s rows (Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz) were outside that 30-page set, which is why they get the dated treatment here.
- Email Marketing for B2B (2026): Mailchimp vs Brevo vs HubSpot — the other unit split in this section: contacts versus subscribers. The per-recipient meter there is the email-cluster twin of the crawl-versus-keyword meter above.