Ahrefs vs Free Website Checker
Both are in SEO tools. Here is how their plans, prices and features compare, taken from each vendor's own site.
| Ahrefs | Free Website Checker | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free plan · from $29/mo | Free plan |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Not stated by the vendor | No |
| Plans | Free ($0); Starter ($29/mo); Lite ($129/mo); Standard ($249/mo); Advanced ($449/mo); Enterprise ($1,499/mo) | Free checker ($0); Website Checkup ($99 paid once) |
| Fees and pricing notes | None stated | $99 paid once |
| Best for | Not stated | Small business |
| Key features | Site Explorer and Keywords Explorer; Rank Tracker and Site Audit; Tracked AI prompts and Brand Radar; API and MCP access on every plan | Checks HTTPS and the redirect from HTTP; Response status and time, title, meta description, viewport tag and one h1; Tap-to-call link and LocalBusiness or Organization schema; robots.txt rules for GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended |
| Checked on | 2026-10-01 | 2026-10-25 |
Prices change; confirm on the vendor's site before you buy. Full details and sources are on each tool's page.
Ahrefs
- API and MCP access on every paid plan
- A free plan and a $29 Starter plan for light use
- Historical data from 6 months (Lite) up to 5 years (Advanced)
Trade-offs
- Lite starts at $129 a month
- Each plan includes 1 user; extra users cost $40 to $80 a month
- Annual billing, which saves up to 17%, was not priced on the page
Free Website Checker
- Free, with no login mentioned for the checker
- Does not store the submitted URL, the fetched page or the results
- Open-source code is linked
Trade-offs
- Checks one public page per run, and the phone check only looks for a viewport tag
- The AI check detects only whole-site blocks in robots.txt
- It does not say whether JavaScript-rendered content is evaluated