Screaming Frog SEO Spider vs SEO Score API (2026): which should you pick?

Pick Screaming Frog SEO Spider if

• Fits if you're a technical SEO who audits large sites from your own computer
• Works for sites under 500 URLs, which the free version crawls with no time limit

Look elsewhere if

• Skip it if you want keyword research, rank tracking or backlinks, as it only crawls
• Not for you if you'd rather not learn technical SEO terms, XPath or regex
• Tight if your computer is short on memory or storage, since crawl size depends on it, and there's no web or phone version
• Pricey if a team needs it: licences are $279 per user a year, so two people need two
• Watch out: the free version can't save crawls, render JavaScript, schedule audits or connect to Google data

Pick SEO Score API if

• Fits if you want a build to fail when a page's SEO score drops
• Works for developers adding page checks to their own apps or dashboards

Look elsewhere if

• Skip it if you need backlinks, keyword research or rank tracking, which it doesn't do
• Tight if you're on Free, with 20 audits a month and only 2 checks per category shown
• Pricey if you want Deep Site Audits, which start on Pro at $39 a month or $12 for a single audit
• Watch out: extra AI citation checks cost $10 for 500, and the pages don't say which AI engines are checked
• Watch out: the product is labeled as being in public beta

Screaming Frog SEO Spider

• Licences are per user and last one year; two people need two licences.
• It is a desktop app, so crawl size depends on the computer's memory and storage.
• The free version cannot save crawls, render JavaScript, schedule audits or connect to Google data.

SEO Score API

• It audits pages only: no backlinks, keyword research or rank tracking, which the vendor says to get from suites such as Ahrefs or Moz.
• Deep Site Audits come only with Pro (20 a month) and Ultra (100), or as credit packs from $12 for one audit to $499 for 100.
• Extra AI citation checks cost $10 for 500 or $36 for 2,000; the pages read do not say which AI engines are checked.
• The product is labeled as being in public beta.

Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Technical SEO audit

Find broken links, server errors, redirect chains, missing or duplicate titles and descriptions, and directives such as noindex and canonicals.

JavaScript rendering

With a licence, render pages in a built-in Chromium to crawl sites built with frameworks such as React, Angular and Vue.

Custom extraction and search

Pull any data from page HTML with XPath, CSS Path or regex, and search source code across a whole crawl (licence only).

Google and AI integrations

Pull Google Analytics, Search Console and PageSpeed Insights data into a crawl, or run pages through OpenAI and Gemini (licence only).

Scheduling and crawl comparison

Schedule crawls with exports to Google Sheets or run them from the command line, and compare crawls or staging against production.

Site visualisations and sitemaps

See site structure as force-directed and tree diagrams, and generate XML and image sitemaps from a crawl.

SEO Score API

80+ checks per URL

Titles, headings, canonical tags, robots.txt, sitemaps, structured data, Open Graph, page weight and accessibility, each marked pass, warning or fail with a fix.

AI readability and GEO audits

26 checks on whether AI crawlers such as GPTBot and ClaudeBot can read a page, including llms.txt and bot access; GEO audits measure visibility to AI search.

SXO, AEO and AIO scores

Paid plans score search experience, how well a page answers questions for snippets and AI Overviews, and how easily language models can take it in.

Deep Site Audit

An asynchronous audit of about 90 seconds against a 14,000+ check catalog across nine areas, with an AI pass and a scan for leaked API keys.

Monitoring and history

Watch scores on a set of URLs, pull a page's score history, run batch audits, and share HTML reports and score badges.

SDKs, CI and agents

Python, Node.js and Go clients, an n8n node, an MCP server, a Claude Code skill and a GitHub Action that fails a build when a score drops.

Screaming Frog SEO Spider

• Free$0

  Up to 500 URLs per crawl, broken links, redirects, metadata, duplicates, XML sitemaps and site visualisations.

• Paid licence$279

  per user / year, for 1 to 4 licences

  No crawl limit beyond memory and storage, saved crawls, scheduling, JavaScript rendering, crawl comparison, integrations and support. £199 in pounds.

SEO Score API

• Free$0

  20 audits a month on 50+ checks, with partial results, no history and no AI citation tracking.

• Starter$5

  per month for 200 audits, billed monthly

  All 80+ checks, SXO, AEO and AIO scores, AI citation tracking with 15 prompts, 5 monitored URLs and 30 days of history.

• Basic$15

  per month for 1,000 audits, billed monthly

  Adds 1 GEO audit a month, 30 tracked prompts, 10 monitored URLs and 90 days of history.

• Pro$39

  per month for 5,000 audits, billed monthly

  20 Deep Site Audits, 5 GEO audits, 75 tracked prompts, 25 monitored URLs, a year of history and priority support.

• Ultra$99

  per month for 25,000 audits, billed monthly

  100 Deep Site Audits, 10 GEO audits, 200 tracked prompts, 50 monitored URLs, unlimited history and dedicated support.

• EnterpriseCustom

  Custom audit volume and limits on an annual agreement with invoicing. Through sales.

Screaming Frog SEO Spider

• Other savings

  Volume pricing from 5 licences

  Buying 5 to 9 licences at once costs $265 each a year, 10 to 19 cost $249 each, and 20 or more cost $235 each, against $279 for 1 to 4.

SEO Score API

• Annual discount

  Two months free with annual billing

  SEO Score API bills paid plans yearly for the price of 10 months: Starter is $50 a year and Pro $390, with monthly allowances unchanged.