Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover seo & discovery and research & trends. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| Ahrefs | SpyFu | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $129 | From $39 |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Paid subscription |
| Free tier | Yes | No |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | Not stated |
| Runs on | Web | Web |
| Covers | SEO & Discovery, Research & Trends | SEO & Discovery, Research & Trends |
| Works with | Nothing in particular | Nothing in particular |
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
Backlink and keyword data at full depth
Ahrefs runs its own crawler, which is why its backlink index is the one other tools get compared against, and why the keyword data goes deeper than the free alternatives. Site Explorer and Content Gap are what most people open it for. It is priced for businesses rather than for individuals, and the company states outright that it never discounts.
Our note
Between this and Semrush the split is old but holds: Ahrefs for backlinks and content research, Semrush for advertising data and rank tracking breadth. Pick on which half of the job is yours, because paying for both is rarely worth it.
Every keyword a competitor has bought or ranked for
SpyFu is built around one question: what is the other site doing. It keeps more than a decade of history on which keywords a domain ranked for, which ads it ran and what it paid, which is the part the general SEO suites treat as a side feature. For research on a competitor rather than maintenance on your own site, it is the cheaper specialist.
Our note
SpyFu is the cheap way to answer one question well: what is the competition ranking and bidding on. Pair it with a free rank tracker rather than treating it as a replacement for a full SEO platform.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.