Ahrefs vs SEOkicks (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 SEOkicks if

• Fits if you want a second backlink index beside Ahrefs or Majestic
• Works for pulling link counts into your own scripts through the API

Look elsewhere if

• Skip it if you want to see a price or try it free first: plans only show in the sign-up flow, and no free plan or trial is listed
• Not for you if you want alerts when a link appears or disappears, as its pages describe none
• Tight if you'll pull lots of link detail by API, at 1 credit per request plus 0.1 per record
• Watch out: prices are net of VAT, and contracts renew for the same term unless cancelled in writing two weeks before it ends
• Too light for outreach of any kind, as it looks links up and nothing more

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.

SEOkicks

• Prices and account types appear only in the sign-up flow, which could not be read, so pricing is unverified here.
• The terms say prices are net of VAT and that contracts renew for the same term unless cancelled in writing two weeks before it ends.
• API use is metered in credits: 1 per request, plus 0.1 for each record returned by a detail query.
• Its pages describe link lookups, exports and the API; they do not describe alerts when a link changes.

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.

SEOkicks

Own link index

Link data comes from SEOkicks' own crawlers rather than a third party, in an index the company puts at more than 200 billion link records.

Link popularity counts

Shows Linkpop (links found), Domainpop (linking domains), IP-Pop and Class-C pop, so sitewide links can be told apart from broad linking.

Link details

Lists linking domains with their link counts, the exact linking pages with link attributes, anchor texts by frequency, link targets and recently found links.

Affiliate publisher search

Pick an AWIN affiliate program and a country to see which sites link to it, a way to find publishers in a niche.

IP lookup

Enter an IP address instead of a domain to see the domains hosted on it.

CSV export and REST API

Data can be exported as CSV or pulled from a REST API that returns XML or JSON; each request costs 1 credit, plus 0.1 per record for detail queries.

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.

SEOkicks

Pricing could not be confirmed. See seokicks.de.

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.

SEOkicks

No public discounts listed.