SEOmatic vs Yoast SEO (2026): which should you pick?
As of Oct 23, 2026, SEOmatic and Yoast SEO share a 2.6 GPA, and only Yoast SEO has a free plan.
Checked Oct 23, 2026 · graded Oct 23, 2026 by ToolGPA
SEOmatic grades higher on value for money. Yoast SEO grades higher on the free plan and features. They get the same grade on ease of use and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
SEOmatic
SEO plugin for Craft CMS covering meta tags, JSON-LD and sitemaps
Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugin with content analysis, schema and sitemaps
Which one is for you
Pick SEOmatic if
- Fits if you build sites on Craft CMS and want the SEO tags drawn from content fields
- Works for Craft Commerce stores that need product structured data
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if your site isn't on Craft CMS 3, 4 or 5
- Too light for 404 redirects, which need its maker's separate Retour plugin
- Pricey if you run lots of sites, since each Craft installation needs its own license
- Watch out: updates after the first year cost $69 a year
Pick Yoast SEO if
- Fits if your site runs on WordPress and you want SEO checks shown while you write
- Works for writers who want readability notes next to the SEO ones
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if your site isn't on WordPress, as Yoast for Shopify and the Google Docs add-on are separate products
- Tight if you stay free, since redirects, link suggestions and AI drafts all need Premium
- Pricey if you run several sites, as each needs its own $118.80 a year and bulk discounts start at 5
- Watch out: AI Brand Insights on AI+ checks 5 questions once a week, and another brand means another $358.80
How we grade them
| 2.6GPASEOmaticGood | 2.6GPAYoast SEOGood | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | A$99 once per Craft installation, under a year of this category's $10.99 middle subscription. Updates after the first year are $69 a year, so two years come to $168, and licenses can be returned within 30 days. | CPremium is $118.80 a year for one site before VAT, about $9.90 a month, a bit above this category's cheaper quarter ($8.25). WooCommerce SEO is $178.80 and AI+ is $358.80, each for one site or brand. |
| Free plan and trial | CNo free plan for live sites, but you can try it in a Craft development environment with no time limit. A license is needed before it goes live. | BThe free plugin writes meta tags, canonicals, sitemaps, schema, breadcrumbs and llms.txt, and checks one keyphrase per post. One site could run on it, but redirects, link suggestions and AI drafts aren't in it at all. |
| Features | CMeta tags from your own fields with per-entry overrides, JSON-LD, Twitter and Open Graph tags, sitemaps with files, images and video, robots, humans and ads.txt, and tracking scripts. 404 redirects aren't included; its maker points to the separate Retour plugin. | BContent and readability checks, meta tags, schema, sitemaps, redirects, internal link suggestions, Local, Video and News SEO, and an AI crawler blocker. It covers the whole job, with redirects and links on Premium only. |
| Ease of use | CNo store rating on record. It's a plugin for your own Craft site, and someone has to map each section's fields to the SEO title, description and image. | CNo rating on record. It sits in the WordPress admin, but each post needs a keyphrase set before the checks tell you much, and there are site-wide settings to go through first. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb, inside Craft CMS 3 to 5 and Craft Commerce, with Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Facebook Pixel, LinkedIn Insight and HubSpot code, and GraphQL for headless sites. No phone or desktop app. | BWeb only, inside WordPress, with no app of its own. It works with Semrush, Wincher, Elementor, Site Kit, WooCommerce, Advanced Custom Fields, Algolia and Jetpack. The Shopify version is a separate product. |
| Best for | meta tags, JSON-LD and sitemaps on Craft CMS | SEO checks inside the WordPress editor |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: SEOmatic and Yoast SEO. How we grade
Price against what you get
SEOmatic starts at $5.75 a month when paid by the year and scores 2.3 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. Yoast SEO starts at $9.90 a month when paid by the year and scores 2.7.
Yoast SEO scores higher, and starts $4.15 a month higher: the question is whether the extra is worth that to you. Of the other SEO plugins and apps on the chart, 5 score higher than SEOmatic for less, and 1 scores higher than Yoast SEO for less.
Features, ease of use and platforms, averaged
What paid plans start at, a month (each step along is roughly double) →
- The best score at each price
- Has a free plan
- No free plan
Where they differ
- Yoast SEO also covers AI search visibility and internal linking.
At a glance
| SEOmatic | Yoast SEO | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free trial | Free plan |
| Starts at | $99 one-time per Craft installation, then $69 a year for updates | $118.80 per year for 1 site, ex VAT |
| Free plan | None | Free plugin from WordPress.org: SEO and readability analysis for one keyphrase, meta tags, canonicals, XML sitemaps, schema, breadcrumbs, llms.txt and a bulk metadata editor. |
| Free trial | Free to try with no time limit in a Craft development environment; a license is needed for a live site | None listed |
| Web | ||
| Made by | nystudio107 | Yoast BV |
| Price read from | plugins.craftcms.com | yoast.com |
| Checked | Oct 23, 2026 | Oct 23, 2026 |
Worth knowing
SEOmatic
- Runs only on Craft CMS (versions 3, 4 and 5).
- It does not handle 404 redirects; its maker points to its separate Retour plugin for that.
- Each Craft installation needs its own license, and updates after the first year cost $69 a year.
Yoast SEO
- It runs only inside WordPress; Yoast SEO for Shopify and the Google Docs add-on are separate products.
- Each paid subscription covers one site, billed yearly before VAT; bulk discounts start at 5 subscriptions bought together.
- Redirects, internal linking suggestions and AI drafting need Premium; the free plugin has none of them.
- AI Brand Insights runs one weekly analysis of 5 questions per brand, with no extra runs; another brand needs another subscription.
Key features
SEOmatic
- Meta tags from your content
- Pulls the SEO title, description and image from chosen fields for each section, entry type, category group and Commerce product type, per site, with field-level overrides.
- JSON-LD structured data
- Outputs JSON-LD microdata alongside the HTML meta tags, with tools for validating and debugging the metadata.
- Social sharing tags
- Writes Twitter Card and Facebook Open Graph tags that mirror the general SEO settings unless you set them separately.
- XML sitemaps
- Builds a sitemap index per site group with paginated sitemaps per section, and can add PDFs and other files, images and videos from Asset fields.
- Robots, humans and ads files
- Generates robots.txt, humans.txt and ads.txt, and handles SEO-friendly pagination tags.
- Tracking scripts
- Adds Google Analytics, gtag.js, Google Tag Manager, Facebook Pixel, LinkedIn Insight and HubSpot code from the control panel, only on the live site.
Yoast SEO
- Content and readability analysis
- Red, orange and green ratings in the editor for SEO and readability. The free plugin checks one keyphrase; Premium checks up to five, with word forms in 20+ languages.
- Technical SEO and schema
- Writes meta tags, canonical URLs, XML sitemaps, breadcrumbs and Schema.org data automatically. Premium outputs more schema types and joins them into one graph.
- AI metadata drafts
- Premium drafts SEO titles and meta descriptions page by page or in bulk, and nothing saves until it is approved. There is no separate AI subscription or credit pack.
- Redirects and internal links
- Premium prompts for a redirect when a page is moved or deleted, imports redirects by CSV, suggests internal links while writing and finds orphaned posts.
- AI crawler controls
- Manages an llms.txt file on every plan; Premium adds a bot blocker for AI training crawlers such as GPTBot, CCBot and Google-Extended.
- AI Brand Insights
- On the AI+ plan, a weekly report on whether 5 set questions in ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity mention the brand, with sentiment, citations and competitor ranking.
Plans
SEOmatic
Standard$99
one-time per Craft installation, then $69 a year for updates
One license per Craft installation with a year of updates; renew at $69 a year for later updates. Licenses can be returned within 30 days.
Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO$0
The free WordPress.org plugin: content and readability analysis, meta tags, sitemaps, schema, breadcrumbs and llms.txt.
Yoast SEO Premium$118.80
per year for 1 site, ex VAT
AI titles and descriptions, 5 keyphrases per page, redirect manager, internal linking, Local, Video and News SEO plugins and 24/7 support.
Yoast WooCommerce SEO$178.80
per year for 1 site, ex VAT
Everything in Premium plus product schema, product content checks, store sitemaps, canonicals and AI metadata for products.
Yoast SEO AI+$358.80
per year for 1 brand, ex VAT
WooCommerce SEO plus AI Brand Insights: a weekly check of 5 brand questions in ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity, with sentiment and citations.
Ways to pay less
SEOmatic
No public discounts listed.
Yoast SEO
- Other savings
Bulk discount from 5 subscriptions
Yoast takes 5% off 5 or more subscriptions of the same product bought in one order, rising to 40% off 75 or more; 100 or more is quoted.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, SEOmatic or Yoast SEO?
As of Oct 23, 2026, SEOmatic is cheaper to start with: $5.75 a month when paid by the year, against $9.90 a month when paid by the year for Yoast SEO. SEOmatic starts at $99 one-time per Craft installation, then $69 a year for updates, and Yoast SEO starts at $118.80 per year for 1 site, ex VAT.
Which has a free plan, SEOmatic or Yoast SEO?
As of Oct 23, 2026, only Yoast SEO has a free plan. SEOmatic does not, though it has a free trial.
More comparisons
How this page was made
- The verdict at the top follows a fixed rule. When both tools are in the same category and either is in our top three for it, the verdict follows that ranking: the higher-placed tool is our pick. The top three weigh who each tool suits as well as its grades, so a pick can go against the GPA. Otherwise the page does not pick one and says which grades higher: the higher GPA first; on a tie, the one with a free plan, then the one that starts cheaper in dollars a month, counted the same way for both; if they are still level, what the choice depends on.
- The grades are our own, from each tool’s review or report card. The GPA is their average.
- Prices, plans and platforms come from each tool’s listing. The table above says where each price was read and when.
- The differences and the answers to the questions are worked out from those listings.