The short answer
- Lite $129 a month, Standard $249, Advanced $449, Enterprise $1,499 (Enterprise requires an annual commitment). Paying annually saves up to 17%.
- Each plan includes one user. Extra users cost $40 (Lite, up to 2 more), $60 (Standard, up to 5), $80 (Advanced, up to 10) or $100 (Enterprise) a month each.
- Lite caps usage at 1,000 credits per user a month and 2,500 rows per report. Standard and above have unlimited credits.
- Add-ons cost extra: Content Kit from $99 a month, Report Builder $99, Brand Radar AI from $199, prompt packages $50 to $250, Project Boosts $20 or $200 per project.
- There is also a $29 Starter plan and a no-cost Ahrefs Free tier for verified site owners. Ahrefs says it never runs discounts.
Prices from ahrefs.com in October 2026.
Ahrefs pricing starts at $129 a month for Lite and runs to $1,499 a month for Enterprise. The plan price is the floor: users, usage limits and add-ons decide what a team actually pays.
Below is every plan and limit from Ahrefs' pricing page, what a realistic team bill looks like, and which plan fits whom.
Ahrefs plans and prices in 2026
| Lite | Standard | Advanced | Enterprise | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly price | $129 | $249 | $449 | $1,499 (annual commitment) |
| Users included | 1 | 1 | 1 | From 3 |
| Extra users | Up to 2, $40/mo each | Up to 5, $60/mo each | Up to 10, $80/mo each | Unlimited, $100/mo each |
| Credits per user per month | 1,000 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Projects (unverified sites) | 5 | 20 | 50 | 100 |
| Historical data | 6 months | 2 years | 5 years | Unlimited |
| Max rows per report | 2,500 | 30,000 | 75,000 | 150,000 |
| Export rows per month | 500,000 | 1.5M | 4M | From 10M |
| Tracked keywords (weekly updates) | 750 | 2,000 | 5,000 | From 10,000 |
| Site Audit crawl credits per month | 100,000 | 500,000 | 1.5M | From 5M |
| Max pages per audit project | 25,000 | 50,000 | 250,000 | 5M |
| Tracked AI prompts (Brand Radar) | 5 | 10 | 20 | From 83 |
| API and MCP rows per request | 100 | 250 | 500 | Unlimited |
| Report Builder reports | 5 | 5 | 15 | 25 |
Verified-ownership projects are unlimited on every plan. The project limits above apply to sites you track without verifying.
What each tier adds
- Lite: Dashboard, Site Explorer, Keywords Explorer, Site Audit with always-on audits, Rank Tracker, competitive analysis, SERP history, Web Analytics, API and MCP access, Report Builder, and the Social Media Manager and GBP Monitor betas.
- Standard adds Portfolios, Content Explorer, Batch Analysis, SERP comparison, more Site Explorer reports (broken backlinks, broken links, outgoing links), keyword clusters, search intents and AI keyword suggestions.
- Advanced adds the Looker Studio integration, search type distribution, an agency directory listing and HTTP authentication in Site Audit.
- Enterprise adds uncapped API access, custom API endpoints, SSO, access management and audit logs, unlimited history and personalized higher limits.
Starter and Ahrefs Free
Two entry options sit outside the main ladder.
Starter, $29 a month. Ahrefs describes it as a way to see what people search and research competitors. It is a lighter plan with tighter limits than Lite, aimed at people who need occasional lookups rather than ongoing SEO work.
Ahrefs Free. Free, limited access for website owners. It includes Site Explorer, Site Audit and Web Analytics for sites you verify, plus Social Media Manager, AI Content Helper and the SEO Toolbar. Ahrefs lists Site Audit at 5,000 crawl credits a month per project, Site Explorer showing 1,000 backlinks and keywords at once, and one AI Content Helper document a month.
Ahrefs Free works for auditing your own site. It does not let you research competitors' sites in depth, which is what most people pay for.
Add-ons and usage charges
| Add-on | Price | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Content Kit | From $99/mo | AI Content Helper and AI Content Grader for writing to search intent |
| Report Builder | $99/mo | 50 reports, 500 widgets, scheduling |
| Brand Radar AI | From $199/mo | Research brands across Ahrefs' prompt database and track your own AI prompts; also sold standalone |
| Prompt package, Basic | $50/mo | 2,500 checks a month, overage $0.020 per check |
| Prompt package, Growth | $100/mo | 7,000 checks a month, overage $0.015 per check |
| Prompt package, Scale | $250/mo | 25,000 checks a month, overage $0.010 per check |
| Project Boost Pro | $20/mo per project | IndexNow auto-submit, AI in Site Audit, faster always-on audits, instant recrawl |
| Project Boost Max | $200/mo per project | Adds patches, batch AI in Site Audit and faster crawling |
A prompt check is one prompt, on one AI platform, in one location. Tracking 50 prompts daily on two platforms is about 3,000 checks a month.
Pay-as-you-go charges
Ahrefs' pricing FAQ states two automatic charges. Additional users not prepaid for are billed pay-as-you-go. And if you enable pay-as-you-go credits and data, you are charged automatically when usage exceeds your plan's limits. Those purchases (report credits, export rows, crawl credits, API units) last three billing months, and prepaid limits are used first.
What a team actually pays
The sticker price is for one person. Worked examples at monthly billing:
| Setup | Calculation | Monthly total |
|---|---|---|
| Solo founder, Lite | $129 | $129 |
| Lite, 3 users (the maximum) | $129 + 2 x $40 | $209 |
| Freelancer, Standard + Content Kit | $249 + $99 | $348 |
| Marketing team of 4, Standard | $249 + 3 x $60 | $429 |
| In-house team of 5, Advanced + Report Builder | $449 + 4 x $80 + $99 | $868 |
| Enterprise, 3 users | $1,499, annual commitment | $1,499 ($17,988 a year) |
Content Kit's price is listed as "from $99", so the higher tiers cost more. Annual billing cuts the main plan prices by up to 17%.
Which Ahrefs plan fits whom
- Starter: you want to look up keywords and competitors occasionally and do not need projects, tracking or exports.
- Lite: one person running SEO for one business. The real constraint is 1,000 credits a month and 2,500 rows per report; heavy competitor research uses credits quickly.
- Standard: freelancers and consultants. Unlimited credits, 2 years of history, Content Explorer and Batch Analysis are the reasons to move up.
- Advanced: in-house teams with several people, larger sites (up to 250,000 pages per audit project) or Looker Studio reporting.
- Enterprise: organizations that need SSO, audit logs, uncapped API access or more than 11 users.
The Lite to Standard jump is the one most people end up making. If you will run more than a few deep competitor analyses a week, price Standard from the start.
Refunds, cancellation and discounts
- Discounts: Ahrefs says it never runs discounts. Annual billing is the only saving.
- Trial: there is no paid-plan trial on the pricing page; Ahrefs Free is the way to try it.
- Refunds: Ahrefs does not issue refunds in general. On monthly plans you can request one if you have not used the service, and it may be declined if there is material activity.
- Contracts: no contracts or setup fees on self-serve plans. Upgrades apply immediately; downgrades and cancellations take effect at the end of the billing period, after which the account moves to Ahrefs Free.
Alternatives to Ahrefs
Ahrefs is a research platform. It gives you data and tools; your team does the analysis and the work. Alternatives fall into two groups.
Other SEO data platforms
Semrush is the closest like-for-like comparison. Our Semrush pricing breakdown covers its current plans and add-ons. For narrower needs, such as competitor keyword and ad research, see SpyFu alternatives. If you need a large backlink index, rank tracking across thousands of keywords, or raw data exports for your own analysis, a data platform like Ahrefs is the better fit.
An agent that does the SEO work
If what you are missing is time rather than data, Sprites' AI SEO agent does the work itself. It runs keyword research with search volume checked against real search behavior, finds competitor keyword gaps, audits pages and sites, writes SEO blog posts and updates existing ones, and publishes to WordPress, Webflow, Shopify or Framer after you approve each change on an editable approval card. It reads Google Search Console and Google Analytics 4.
For AI search, Sprites' AI visibility agent checks how your brand shows up in ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity answers for chosen prompts and writes content aimed at being cited. The side-by-side is on Sprites vs Ahrefs, and plans are on the pricing page, each starting with a 7-day trial for $1.
Before you pick a tier, list how many people need logins and how many competitor reports you run a week. Those two numbers decide your Ahrefs bill more than the plan name does.