Ahrefs

In short: Ahrefs is backlinks, keyword research and site auditing software, with freemium pricing and plans from £23/month.

SEO and marketing platform for backlinks, keywords, site audits and AI brand visibility

Ahrefs is a marketing platform made by Ahrefs, a bootstrapped company headquartered in Singapore with a team spread across many countries. It is used by SEO specialists, content marketers and agencies to analyse search visibility for their own sites and for competitors.

Site Explorer shows a domain's backlinks, referring domains, organic keywords and top pages, based on Ahrefs' own web crawler. Keywords Explorer covers search volume, difficulty and related terms, while Site Audit crawls a site for technical issues and Rank Tracker monitors positions over time. Brand Radar, available as an add-on, tracks how brands are mentioned and cited in AI answers, with custom prompt packages for tracking specific queries.

Ahrefs offers a free account for data on a verified site, plus a free AI visibility checker and other free tools. Paid plans run from Starter through Lite, Standard and Advanced to Enterprise, with savings on annual billing, and an API is available for larger teams.