Ahrefs vs Bing Webmaster Tools (2026): which should you pick?

Pick Ahrefs if

• Fits if most of your SEO time goes on backlinks and what's ranking for rivals
• Works for site owners who only need data on their own verified site, which Ahrefs Free covers

Look elsewhere if

• Skip it if you want daily rankings, as Rank Tracker updates weekly on every plan
• Pricey if you're a small business, at about $107.50 a month for Lite even paid yearly
• Tight if you research a lot on Lite, where each user gets 1,000 credits a month; Starter gets 200
• Pricey if you add people: each plan has one user, and extras cost $40 to $80 a month, capped at 2, 5 or 10
• Watch out: AI writing tools start at $99 a month on top, and there's no trial of any paid plan

Pick Bing Webmaster Tools if

• Fits if you want Bing search data next to Google's
• Makes sense if you publish and want to see whether Copilot and Bing AI answers cite you

Look elsewhere if

• Skip it if you want Google, ChatGPT or other engines, as it covers Bing and Microsoft's AI answers only
• Not for you if you can't verify the site, as nothing appears until you do
• Watch out: AI Performance is a public preview, and its Topics Portfolio beta only shows once a site has enough data
• Watch out: grounding query figures are a sample of citations, and opportunity volumes come as ranges

Ahrefs

• Rank Tracker updates rankings weekly on every plan the pricing page lists.
• Lite caps each user at 1,000 credits a month for reports; Starter has 200 and cannot add users or add-ons.
• Each plan includes one user; extra users cost $40, $60 or $80 a month and are capped at 2, 5 or 10.
• AI writing tools (Content Kit) start at $99 a month, and Project Boosts cost $20 or $200 a month per project.

Bing Webmaster Tools

• Reports cover Bing and Microsoft's own AI answers only, not Google, ChatGPT or other engines.
• You must verify the site, by DNS, a file, a meta tag or an import from Google Search Console, before data appears.
• AI Performance is a public preview, and its Topics Portfolio tab is a beta shown only when a site has enough data.
• Grounding query figures are a sample of citation activity, and opportunity queries show volumes as ranges.

Ahrefs

Site Explorer

See the backlinks, organic keywords and top pages of any website, with history going back 6 months to 5 years by plan.

Keywords Explorer

Find keyword ideas with volume and difficulty; Standard and above add AI suggestions, clusters, search intents and translations.

Site Audit

Crawl your sites for 170+ technical and on-page SEO issues, using 100,000 to 1.5 million crawl credits a month by plan.

Rank Tracker

Track 750 to 5,000 keywords on the self-serve plans, with rankings updated weekly.

Brand Radar and AI prompts

Plans track 5 to 20 of your own prompts in AI chat tools daily. Brand Radar AI, for researching any brand's AI mentions, starts at $199 a month.

API and MCP server

Every plan from Lite includes API and MCP access, capped at 100 to 500 rows per request below Enterprise.

Bing Webmaster Tools

Search performance

Impressions, clicks and average position across pages and keywords, with up to 16 months of data.

AI Performance (preview)

Counts citations of your pages in Microsoft Copilot and Bing's AI summaries, with the grounding queries behind them and a Topics Portfolio beta of opportunity queries.

URL Inspection, sitemaps and IndexNow

Check a URL's indexing and crawl status, submit sitemaps, and notify Bing of new, changed or deleted pages at once through IndexNow or the URL submission API.

Site Scan and Site Explorer

An on-demand crawl that flags technical problems such as broken links, duplicate tags and missing metadata, plus a view of your site's structure as Bing sees it.

Keyword research and backlinks

Look up what searchers type and their search volumes, and review referring domains and anchor text for your own site and for competitors.

Copilot assistant

A built-in AI assistant that helps troubleshoot issues and find your way around the reports.

Ahrefs

• Ahrefs Free$0

  Limited Site Explorer and Site Audit for websites you verify as yours. No Keywords Explorer or Rank Tracker.

• Starter$29

  per month, billed monthly

  200 report credits a month, with Keywords Explorer, Rank Tracker and Site Audit. Monthly only; no extra users or add-ons.

• Lite$129

  per month, billed monthly

  1 user, 5 projects, 750 tracked keywords, 6 months of history, 1,000 credits a month, 100,000 crawl credits, API and MCP access.

• Standard$249

  per month, billed monthly

  1 user, 20 projects, 2,000 tracked keywords, 2 years of history, unlimited credits, Content Explorer and keyword clusters.

• Advanced$449

  per month, billed monthly

  1 user, 50 projects, 5,000 tracked keywords, 5 years of history, 1.5 million crawl credits and Looker Studio integration.

• Enterprise$1,499

  per month, annual commitment required

  From 3 users, 100 projects, unlimited history, uncapped API, SSO and audit log. Sold through sales.

Bing Webmaster Tools

• Free$0

  Search and AI citation reports, URL Inspection, IndexNow and sitemaps, Site Scan, keyword research, backlinks and Copilot help.

Ahrefs

• Annual discount

  Save up to 17% by paying annually

  Ahrefs' pricing page offers up to 17% off for annual billing on Lite, Standard and Advanced. Existing monthly customers switch by contacting support.

Bing Webmaster Tools

No public discounts listed.