Comparison
OpenSEO vs Ahrefs
Ahrefs is a full SEO suite on a monthly plan. OpenSEO is free software where you pay per lookup. Here is how they differ, and when Ahrefs is the better buy.
Starting price
Ahrefs Lite: $129 a month
- 1 user, 1,000 credits a month
- Extra users $40 a month each
- No free trial on paid plans
List prices on monthly billing, checked in October 2026. Ahrefs sets its own prices and changes them; check its pricing page for current figures. OpenSEO prices are YepAPI's at the time of writing; see Pricing.
| Ahrefs | OpenSEO | |
|---|---|---|
| Price model | Monthly plan from $129; usage counted in credits | Free software; pay YepAPI per call, from $0.01 |
| Users | Paid per seat beyond the first | No seats: self-host for a team, one YepAPI key or several |
| Keyword and backlink data | Own crawler and index, among the largest | Commercial dataset through YepAPI |
| Rank tracking | 750 tracked keywords on Lite | Per check: $0.01 per results page fetched, stops at your page |
| AI agents | Check their current plans | 60 MCP tools and a REST API on every install, spending capped per call |
| Source code | Closed | Open source (MIT), self-hostable |
Choose Ahrefs if
- Link building is your full-time job and you need the deepest backlink index.
- You want one vendor with support, training and every report built in.
Choose OpenSEO if
- You do SEO a few hours a month and a subscription sits idle most of it.
- You want an AI agent to do the research, with a hard spending cap per call.
- You want to own the software and your data.
FAQ
Questions
Is the data as good?
OpenSEO’s data comes from YepAPI, which resells a large commercial SEO dataset. It covers keyword volume, rankings, backlinks and SERPs well, but the big suites run their own crawlers and keyword databases, which are larger. For most site owners the difference matters less than the price; for agencies doing link research all day it can matter more.
What does OpenSEO actually cost?
Nothing for the software. You pay YepAPI per call with your own key: about $0.08 for a keyword search of 150 ideas, $0.01 for a rank check that finds you on page one. New YepAPI accounts get $5 in free credit. A small site tracking 100 keywords weekly spends a few dollars a month.
Can I move from Ahrefs?
There is nothing to migrate for research: run the same searches in OpenSEO. For rank tracking, paste your keyword list into a new tracker; history starts from your first check.
Ahrefs is a trademark of its owner. OpenSEO is not affiliated with or endorsed by Ahrefs.