Ahrefs alternative

What each one is

Ahrefs Site Audit is a site-wide audit crawler, one tool inside a five-tool SEO platform. Their own summary of the audit, quoted in the questions below, covers 170+ issues. It works on every page of a site rather than a list you choose: their product page says "Site Audit crawls all your website's pages", "Blazing fast. Up to 170k URLs crawled each minute", and "Executes JavaScript." A scheduled audit reports what was wrong when it ran. Around it sits the rest of the platform: keywords, backlinks and rank tracking, sold on "the world's second-most active crawler and 10+ years of web-scale data".

stillindexed is the other kind of tool, a monitor. You choose the URLs and we re-check exactly those on a schedule: up to 375 URLs on Starter every 30 minutes, up to 1250 on Agency every 15, with robots.txt, the sitemap and the TLS certificate re-checked daily and the domain expiry weekly. When a check flips you get an alert: a noindex appears, a redirect target domain changes, a canonical is rewritten, a title or H1 changes, a status turns into an error, a certificate is about to expire. That is the whole product, and there is nothing else around it.

The numbers

Ahrefs figures read from ahrefs.com/pricing and ahrefs.com/site-audit on 2026-08-29. Per-URL cost is not compared here: a crawl credit is not a monitored URL. The reasoning is below. Their Starter plan at USD 29/mo exists; their pages do not say whether it includes Site Audit. Our figures and prices are current as of 2026-08-23.

Choose Ahrefs if

• You want a whole-site audit. Their tool runs on every page of a site, "Site Audit crawls all your website's pages", and finds 170+ issues against our 7 check families on a list you choose. If the job is "audit everything", that job is theirs.
• You want the platform around the audit. Keywords, backlinks and rank tracking. We are monitoring only.
• You want a free tier to start on. The free-tier quote in the table above is a real way to start at no cost. We have no free tier and no trial.
• You want history in years, not months. 6 months of historical data on Lite, 2 years on Standard, 5 on Advanced. Ours is 90 days on Starter and 365 on Agency.

Choose stillindexed if

• You want a monitor, not a crawl. A scheduled audit tells you what was wrong when it ran. Watching a fixed list of client URLs every 30 minutes, or every 15 on Agency, and being told within one check cycle when something changes, is the entire product here.
• You watch a fixed list of client URLs. Starter watches up to 375 URLs for $39 a month, and every check family is in every tier.
• You want the frequent re-check to be included. Their always-on audit is a paid add-on at USD 20/mo per project. Our 30 minute cadence is the plan, not an upgrade.
• You want a refund they do not offer. Their no-refunds line is quoted in the table above. Ours is 30 days, no questions.
• You want to stop paying monthly. $349 once, forever, at5-site entitlements.
• You want the tools free and ungated. Every check we run is a free tool with no account. You can see exactly what the checker reports before you spend anything.

What we would want to know in your position

The size gap here is real and it runs in one direction. They find 170+ issues to our 7, crawl every page to our chosen URLs, and wrap the audit in keywords, backlinks and rank tracking. If what you want is a whole-site audit and the platform around it, buy them. Our refund does not help if the tool is not the thing you need.

We refuse the per-URL price comparison on purpose. A crawl credit is how much they fetch during a scheduled crawl, and it is not a continuously monitored URL. Dividing their credits or page allowances by our monitored URLs would produce arithmetic that looks like a comparison and measures nothing. So the table above stops at the numbers that are real.

Cadence is where this comparison is easiest to fudge, so here it is in full. Their "always-on" language is real but it costs extra: the add-on quoted in the questions below runs USD 20/mo per project, with a Max tier at USD 200/mo per project at 30 pages per minute. The standard recrawl schedule of a normal project is not published. Rather than guess, the table says so. Our every-30 minutes, or 15 on Agency, is the base product at the base price.

Their free tier beats our nothing. Free, limited Site Audit access is a real way to get value without paying, and we have no free tier at all. On money they hold two firm lines: "We never run discounts." and no refunds. Our position is the opposite: 30 days, no questions.

Questions

Is Ahrefs Site Audit better than stillindexed.com?

For whole-site auditing, yes. Ahrefs Site Audit crawls every page of a site; their own summary is "Identify, prioritize, and fix 170+ SEO issues." stillindexed.com runs 7 check families over a list of URLs you choose. They are different products, and for the audit and platform job most people should pick Ahrefs. But an audit is not a monitor: a scheduled audit reports what was wrong when it ran, while a monitor watches chosen URLs and alerts on a change.

How much does Ahrefs Site Audit cost?

Lite is USD 129/mo, Standard USD 249/mo, Advanced USD 449/mo, and Enterprise USD 1,499/mo with an annual commitment required. Always-on auditing is a paid add-on on top: USD 20/mo per project at 10 pages per minute. They say "Pay annually, save up to 17%". Their pricing stance: "We never run discounts." Prices and quotes read from ahrefs.com/pricing and ahrefs.com/site-audit on 2026-08-29. Our Starter is $39 a month with the 30 minute cadence included.

Does Ahrefs have a free tier?

Yes. Their FAQ says a website owner can "sign up for Ahrefs Free to get free limited access to Site Explorer & Site Audit". That is a real way to get value from them without paying, and we have nothing like it. We have no free tier and no trial; instead every check runs as a free ungated tool at /tools, and paid plans carry a 30 day refund.

Does Ahrefs offer a refund?

No. Their FAQ, verbatim: "Ahrefs does not issue refunds in general." We take the opposite position: 30 days, no questions. If the tool does not earn its keep in a month, you get the money back.

What does their always-on audit add-on cost?

USD 20/mo per project for their always-on add-on, described as "Always-on site audit, 10 pages per minute", with a Max tier at USD 200/mo per project at 30 pages per minute. Their pages do not state the standard recrawl schedule of a normal project, so we do not state one either. Our cadence of every 30 minutes, or 15 on Agency, is included in the price of every plan.

Can you use both?

Yes, and they answer different questions. Ahrefs runs a whole-site audit and gives you keywords, backlinks and rank tracking around it. stillindexed.com watches a list of URLs and alerts on the next check after a directive changes, at most 30 minutes later. A common setup is both: their audit periodically, and a monitor like ours on the client URLs between audits.

Next

See the whole category compared, run a free check, or look at pricing.