Ahrefs vs Sight AI (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 Sight AI if

• Fits if you track how your brand appears in AI answers and want that and classic rank tracking together
• Works for a small team that wants an agent reachable over MCP

Look elsewhere if

• Pricey if you are one person: Starter is $99 a month and extra seats cost $29 each
• Not for you if you want a free plan: the 7-day trial needs a card
• Watch out: Starter has no site audit, backlink profile, competitor insights or API
• Watch out: credits are shared by articles, checks and chat, and a full visibility check is about 31
• Watch out: annual billing is said to save 20% but its prices were not shown

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.

Sight AI

• Extra sites cost $59 per month each and extra seats $29 per month each on every plan.
• Credits are shared by articles, visibility checks, research and agent chat; the pricing page puts a full all-platform visibility check at about 31 credits.
• Starter has no site audit, backlink profile, competitor insights or API access; those begin on Pro.
• Annual billing is stated to save 20%, but the annual prices were not shown when the page was read.

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.

Sight AI

AI visibility tracking

Checks whether ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Grok mention a brand for tracked prompts; Google AI Mode and AI Overviews tracking start on Pro.

Keyword research and rank tracking

Basic research on Starter and advanced on Pro, with Google positions checked weekly on Starter and every three days on Pro and Business.

SEO suite

From Pro: site audit with fixes, backlink profile, content health, Search Console data and scheduled reports.

Agent and MCP server

An agent in the app and in Slack, plus MCP access from Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and other clients; agents do not take a seat.

Article writing and publishing

Writes articles and publishes them to WordPress, Webflow, Framer, Shopify, Wix or HubSpot, costing about 100 credits per article.

Link outreach

On Business, an outreach agent and mailbox handle backlink and link-exchange emails, with sends approved by the user.

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.

Sight AI

• Starter$99

  per month for 5,000 AI credits, billed monthly

  1 site, 1 seat, 100 tracked AI prompts and 200 keywords tracked weekly, with MCP access, the agent and article publishing.

• Pro$199

  per month for 10,000 AI credits, billed monthly

  3 sites, 2 seats, unlimited prompts, 1,000 keywords tracked every 3 days, site audit, backlinks and REST API; larger credit sizes go to 20,000.

• Business$449

  per month for 27,500 AI credits, billed monthly

  10 sites, 5 seats, 2,500 keywords, outreach with its own mailbox, white-label reports and priority support; credit sizes go to 65,000.

• Enterprise$2,500

  per month and up

  Custom credit, site and seat pools with guided onboarding and a dedicated success manager, sold through sales.

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.

Sight AI

• Annual discount

  Annual billing saves 20%

  The pricing FAQ says annual plans save 20% and grant 12 times the monthly credits up front.