SE Ranking vs SEO Utils (2026): which should you pick?

Pick SE Ranking if

• Fits if you track lots of keywords daily across several client sites
• Works for small marketing teams who want research, audits and tracking under one login

Look elsewhere if

• Pricey if you're one person with one site, as Core is $103.20 a month even on yearly billing and there's no lower plan
• Tight if you need old data, since Core keeps 6 months of history and has 1 manager seat; extra seats start at $16 a month
• Pricey if you want white-label reports, as the Agency Pack is $69 a month extra and sold on yearly billing only
• Watch out: deeper AI search tracking is an add-on at $71.20 a month on yearly billing ($89 monthly)
• Watch out: payments are non-refundable unless the service wasn't delivered as promised, and there's no desktop or phone app

Pick SEO Utils if

• Fits if you'd rather pay once for a desktop app than pay for an SEO suite every month
• Works for people who already pay DataForSEO for search data and want an app on top

Look elsewhere if

• Not for you if you want to try it first, as there's no free plan or trial on record
• Watch out: keyword, backlink, traffic and AI answer data are billed to your own DataForSEO account
• Pricey if you want it in a browser or on a phone, as Remote Access is $5.99 a month plus $1.99 per extra seat
• Skip it if you want a technical site audit, as none is on record beyond Search Console and internal link checks
• Watch out: updates stop after a year unless you renew, an expired key can't move to another computer, and MCP is $59.99 extra

SE Ranking

• Core keeps only 6 months of historical data and includes 1 manager seat; extra seats start at $16 a month.
• White-label reports need the Agency Pack, $69 a month and sold on annual billing only.
• Deeper AI search tracking is an add-on at $71.20 a month billed annually ($89 billed monthly).
• Payments are non-refundable except where the service was not delivered as promised.

SEO Utils

• Backlink, traffic, keyword and AI answer data come from your own DataForSEO account, billed separately; AI tracking costs about $1.20 per 1,000 queries.
• Using the app from a browser or phone needs Remote Access at $5.99 a month for 1 seat, plus $1.99 a month for each extra seat.
• The MCP server for Claude and other AI clients is a separate $59.99 one-time purchase.
• Updates stop after a year unless the license is renewed, and an expired key cannot be activated on another computer.

SE Ranking

Rank Tracker

Track rankings daily across major search engines, devices and locations, with Google top-100 tracking and share of voice.

Keyword, competitor and backlink research

Research keywords, competitors' traffic and backlinks with no usage caps on either plan, plus backlink monitoring.

Website audit

Crawl sites for technical issues, from 250,000 pages a month on Core to 2 million on Growth, with an on-page checker.

AI visibility tracking

Track 100 or 250 prompts a day across five AI models, with AI source tracking and AI competitor research by domain.

Reports and local SEO

Report Builder (10 or 30 reports), and local tools covering 3 locations, map rank tracking and listings in 100+ directories.

API and MCP

Plans include 25,000 or 100,000 research API credits a month and MCP access for querying the data from AI assistants.

SEO Utils

Organic Rank Tracker

Track unlimited keywords on Google or Bing, on desktop and mobile, with 10+ SERP features and competitor benchmarks, and sync GA4 conversions by page.

LLM Rank Tracker

Checks whether Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT (with and without web search) and Gemini mention or cite a brand, with sentiment and competitors.

Google Maps tracking and citations

Grid-based Google Business Profile rank tracking in square, circle or custom shapes, plus a finder for inconsistent name, address and phone listings.

Keyword research and clustering

Keyword Explorer for Google and Bing, local semantic clustering with no keyword limit, and SERP clustering for up to 200,000 keywords.

Search Console tools

Keeps Search Console data beyond Google's 16-month limit, flags cannibalization, runs SEO split tests and submits URLs for indexing in bulk.

Internal links and log files

Suggests new internal links with the sentence to add, applied to WordPress on approval, and reads server logs for Googlebot, Bingbot and AI crawlers.

SE Ranking

• Core$103.20

  per month, billed annually ($129 billed monthly)

  1 manager seat, 10 projects, 2,000 keywords and 100 AI prompts tracked daily, 250,000 audit pages a month and 6 months of history.

• Growth$223.20

  per month, billed annually ($279 billed monthly)

  3 manager seats, 30 projects, 5,000 keywords and 250 prompts daily, 2 million audit pages, all-time history and guest links.

• EnterpriseCustom

  Custom limits and terms, full API and advanced integrations, through sales.

SEO Utils

• Desktop License Key$69

  one-time, with one year of updates

  Every feature of the app on your own computer. After the year of updates you can keep using the last version you received.

SE Ranking

• Annual discount

  Save 20% with annual billing

  SE Ranking's pricing page lists Core at $103.20 a month billed annually instead of $129 monthly, and Growth at $223.20 instead of $279.

SEO Utils

No public discounts listed.