11 Best Paid SEO Tools That Are Worth Every Penny In 2024

SEO is no longer a luxury; it’s NECESSARY for every online business.

Without SEO, you won’t get high-quality leads, traffic, or sales. However, conducting proper SEO for any website is not easy. That’s where paid SEO tools come in.

While many free SEO tools are available, paid tools offer many advantages, such as comprehensive data, support, exclusive features, and more.

In the last 13 years, we’ve used tried and tested hundreds of tools. This post is a handpicked collection of 11 of the BEST professional SEO tools worth your money.

Top 11 Paid SEO Tools for Beginners & Experts (With Pros & Cons)

paid seo tools

1. Semrush

If you’re looking for an all-in-one SEO paid tool that gives excellent value for money, try Semrush, which is used by over 10 million people worldwide.

We’ve been using Semrush for 7+ years and generated excellent ROI in traffic and sales. With Semrush, you can do everything from finding profitable keywords to spying on your competitors.

The best part? It gives access to 55+ tools under one roof.  Whether you’re new to SEO or a seasoned expert, you’ll find many exciting features Semrush offers.

Here’s what its interface looks like;

semrush interface

As you can see above, you’ll find all your website’s metrics, including organic keywords, traffic, and referring domains, in one place and ALL its tools on the left side.

Semrush’s keyword magic tool is one of the best in the industry. It gives you access to everything from question keywords to related keywords.

Have a look;

keyword tool

You can find more features of this fantastic tool by reading our unbiased Semrush review.

Pros:

  • You’ll get access to the world’s most extensive keyword database with over 25 billion keywords. No matter what your industry or topic, you can discover hundreds (if not thousands) of hidden keywords. 
  • Its position tracking tool allows you to track your keyword rankings daily. You can track both mobile and desktop keyword rankings on Google. It also offers a “keyword cannibalization report,” which helps you identify pages that compete against each other.
  • Offers a 14-day free trial on Pro and Guru plans. It also provides a 7-day money-back guarantee on all plans.
  • Gives you access to 55+ tools, including scheduled reports with ALL plans.
  • You can conduct a detailed “Competitor SEO Analysis” to find all your competitors’ keywords, backlinks, and traffic sources.
  • Access to “Content Optimization” tools where you get personalized recommendations to optimize your content.

Cons:

  • It is one of the most expensive paid SEO tools, as its pricing starts at around $120/mo.

Pricing: Semrush offers three different pricing plans, which are listed below. Read our comparison of Semrush Pro vs Guru vs Business for more details.

  1. The pro plan costs $119.95 per month, where you can add up to 5 projects, 500 keywords to track, and 10,000 results per report. It costs $108.33 if billed annually.
  2. The guru plan costs $229.95 per month, where you can add up to 15 projects, 1500 keywords to track, and 30,000 results per report. It costs $208.33 if billed annually.
  3. The business plan costs $449.95 per month, where you can add up to 40 projects, 5000 keywords to track, and 50,000 results per report. It costs $416.66 if billed annually.

It also offers a 14-day free trial, which you can get from here. See Instructions for Activating 14 Days Free Trial of Semrush


2. SE Ranking

SE Ranking is one of the best affordable SEO tools that offers a complete toolkit to boost your website’s search traffic.

It offers an excellent rank tracking tool to help you accurately track your rankings and spot issues in your website’s keyword rankings. 

Here’s what it looks like;

se ranking tracking tool

You can also see your current top 1, top 3, top 5, top 10 ranking keywords in one place.

Have a look;

rank tracker

You can read our in-depth SE Ranking review for more details about this tool.

Pros:

  • You can perform site audits for up to 100,000 pages per account (even with the basic plan)
  • Its Rank Tracker tool is one of the most accurate tools for tracking your keyword positions daily.
  • It gives you access to a powerful “On-page SEO Checker” that helps you optimize your content for search engines.
  • It offers you a backlink checker and monitoring tool that allows you to analyze any domain’s links and keep track of your own domain’s links.
  • Its SEO audit tool gives you a detailed breakdown and suggestions for every significant website issue.
  • It offers an exclusive local marketing tool that makes it easier to find your business in local search.
  • Offers a 14-day free trial for new users.

Cons:

  • This tool lacks advanced SEO features such as Historical data and analysis, customization, and collaboration options.

Pricing: SE Ranking offers three pricing packages, which are mentioned below.

  1. The essential plan costs $55 per month, where you can track 750 keywords daily and create 10 projects with 1 user seat. Its annual plan costs you $44 per month.
  2. The pro plan costs $109 per month, where you can track 2000 keywords daily and create unlimited projects with 3 user seats. Its annual plan costs you $87.20 per month.
  3. The business plan costs $239 per month, where you can track 5000 keywords daily and create unlimited projects with 5 user seats. Its annual plan costs you $191.20 per month.

Grab 14-day Free Trial of SE Ranking

Read: SE Ranking vs Semrush: Which is Better?
Read: SE Ranking vs Ahrefs 2024: An Honest Comparison


3. Serpstat

Serpstat is an affordable alternative to SEO paid tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, and Moz. Serpstat offers all the essential features to conduct keyword research, competitor analysis, site audit, etc.

It has an easy-to-use interface where you can find all your website’s details in one place.

serpstat projects

Also, Serpstat’s Site Audit is a powerful tool to find and fix all the website issues preventing your site from getting better rankings.

site audit serpstat

As you can see, you can all issues along with recommendations to improve your site’s SEO. You can read our honest Serpstat’s review to find more details.

Pros:

  • Keyword research tool to find better keywords for both SEO and PPC campaigns
  • Analyze competitors’ sites.
  • Keyword clustering tool that helps you organize keywords by thematic similarity
  • You can use its site audit tool to find and fix on-site issues on your site.
  • AI content generation tool to automatically generate articles and meta tags

Cons:

  • It’s sometimes slow and not as intuitive as other paid tools like Semrush or Ahrefs.

Pricing: Serpstat has three pricing plans, which are mentioned below.

  1. Individual plan costs $59 per month when billed monthly or $50 per month when billed annually. You’ll get 100 daily keyword searches per day, add up to 5 projects, and track up to 10K keywords a month.
  2. The Team plan costs $119 per month when billed monthly or $100 per month when billed annually. It includes all of the features of the Individual plan plus additional features such as batch analysis, branded reports, etc. You’ll get 500 daily keyword searches per day, add up to 25 projects, and track up to 50K keywords a month.
  3. The Agency plan costs $479 per month when billed monthly or $410 per month when billed annually. You’ll get 5000 daily keyword searches per day, add up to 200 projects, and track up to 500K keywords a month. It includes all of the features of the Team plan, plus additional features such as more users, a white label, more data storage, and more API credits. 

Try Serpstat Free for 7 Days 


4. SurferSEO

Are you looking to create ready-to-rank SEO-friendly articles for your website? Then, you should try SurferSEO.

Its keyword research tool gives an organized list of relevant keyword clusters for ANY topic.

Here’s an example;

surfer clusters

Here’s the best part: SurferSEO allows you to create an entire content plan with one click for the chosen keywords.

You can also use its AI content editor to generate a blog post for ANY topic quickly.

ai content editor

For more details, read our in-depth Surfer SEO review, where you can find all its features.

Pros:

  • It is an all-in-one tool for creating content briefs, writing content, and optimizing for Google.
  • It offers integrations with all major platforms like Google Docs, Jasper, and WordPress.
  • Surfer’s Content Editor is an excellent tool that helps you pick relevant keywords and offers real-time suggestions to optimize your content.
  • Easily export content into WordPress.

Cons:

  • It is quite expensive compared to its competitors like Frase.io or Scalenut.

Pricing: You’ll get the following pricing options from SurferSEO.

  1. The Essential AI plan costs you $139 per month, where you get 5 AI articles a month, 15 content edits, and 2 user seats. Its annual plan costs you $119 per month.
  2. The Advanced AI plan costs you $279 monthly, where you get 10 AI articles a month, 45 content edits, and 5 user seats. Its annual plan costs you $239 per month.
  3. The Max AI plan costs you $499 monthly, where you get 20 AI articles a month, 90 content edits, and 10 user seats. Its annual plan costs you $419 per month.

5. SpyFu

If you want to spy on your competitors’ SEO and PPC campaigns, SpyFu is the BEST SEO toolkit for you.

Also, it is one of the most affordable tools, as its pricing starts only at $39 per month.

You can use its domain overview tool to analyze your competitors quickly. Here’s what it looks like;

spyfu domain overview

Also, SpyFu is one of the best paid SEO tools for finding your competitors’ PPC ad keyword strategies.

Have a look;

ppc overview

As you can see above, you’ll get a monthly PPC overview and the estimated clicks and budget of your competitors who are using PPC ads.

For a more detailed analysis of this tool, read our SpyFu review.

Pros:

  • Offers pocket-friendly pricing plans
  • Excellent tool for finding PPC ad keywords
  • It offers all the features you need to run PPC, SEO, and keyword campaigns effectively.
  • Add unlimited keyword and domain projects with custom reporting.

Cons:

  • Sometimes, the tool gives inaccurate keyword data.

Pricing: Spy offers the following 3 plans.

  • The basic plan costs you $39 monthly ($33/mo if billed annually). You’ll get 10k row search results, 10k row data exports, 100 domain overview PDFs, 6 months of historical data, 250 sales leads & domain contacts, and 5k weekly tracked keyword rankings.
  • The professional plan costs you $79 monthly ($58/mo if billed annually). You’ll get unlimited search & data exports, PDFs & 10+ years of historical data, 500 leads & 15k weekly tracked rankings, API access, etc.

6. Mangools

Mangools is a combination of several SEO tools where you can perform keyword research, track rankings, analyze backlinks, and more.

Mangools offers an exclusive tool called “KWFinder,” which helps you quickly find hundreds of long-tail keywords.

Here’s what it looks like;

mangools keywords

It also offers a backlink tool called “LinkMiner,” which helps you spy on any domain’s backlink profile.

Here’s what it looks like;

linkminer

As you can see, you can quickly discover any domain’s backlinks, referring domains, Citation Flow, and Trust Score.

Want more information about their tools? Read our detailed Mangools review to find all the details.

Pros:

  • Extremely affordable pricing plans when compared to its competitors
  • Easy-to-use keyword research tool
  • Access to SERPWatcher to track your keyword rankings
  • Backlink analysis tool 

Cons:

  • It does not have a comprehensive keyword and backlink database as Ahrefs or Semrush.

Pricing: Mangools offers 4 pricing plans, which are;

  1. Mangools’ entry plan costs $29/mo ($19.90/mo if billed annually). You get 25 Keyword lookups/24h, 50 Keyword suggestions/search, 50 Keywords/import, 15 Competitor keywords/search, 25 SERP lookups/24h, 50 Tracked keywords daily, 1 Tracked domain, 25,000 Backlink rows monthly, 10 Site lookups/24h.
  2. Mangools’ basic plan costs $49/mo ($29.90/mo if billed annually). You get 100 Keyword lookups/24h, 200 Keyword suggestions/search, 200 Keywords/import, 25 Competitor keywords/search, 100 SERP lookups/24h, 200 Tracked keywords daily, Unlimited Tracked domains, 100,000 Backlink rows monthly, 20 Site lookups/24h.
  3. Mangools Premium plan costs $69/mo ($44.90/mo if billed annually). You get 500 Keyword lookups/24h, Unlimited Keyword suggestions/search, 700 Keywords/import, Unlimited Competitor keywords/search, 500 SERP lookups/24h, 700 Tracked keywords daily, Unlimited Tracked domains, 500,000 Backlink rows monthly, 70 Site lookups/24h, 3 Extra seats included.
  4. Mangools Agency plan costs $129/mo ($89.90/mo if billed annually). You get 1,200 Keyword lookups/24h, Unlimited Keyword suggestions/search, 700 Keywords/import, Unlimited Competitor keywords/search, 1,200 SERP lookups/24h, 1,500 Tracked keywords daily, Unlimited Tracked domains, 1,200,000 Backlink rows monthly, 150 Site lookups/24h, 5 Extra seats included.

7. RankMath Pro 

If you’re struggling to improve your content rankings in Google, you need an optimization plugin like RankMath. 

Although it offers a free version, its paid version unlocks all the significant features for you, including the LSI keyword tool, rank tracker, schema generator, and more. We often use it for optimizing our blog content.

Here’s what the content optimization looks like;

rankmath optimization

It gives you a green color score if your content is optimized correctly. You can read our detailed Rank Math SEO review to find more information.

If you’re looking for an in-depth video tutorial of RankMath, including its installation and best practices, watch the following video from the RankMath team.

Pros:

  • Get suggestions to optimize your blog posts and pages for better rankings
  • Track keyword positions on Google
  • Offers a free Content AI Trial with credits
  • Import Schema from any website, generate XML sitemaps, and automate schema implementation. 

Cons:

  • It is MOSTLY a content optimization tool (rather than a complete SEO toolkit, unlike Semrush)

Pricing: RankMath Pro is available in 3 plans;

  1. Pro plan costs $5.75/mo (billed annually), and you can use it on unlimited personal sites. You can track up to 500 keywords with 5K free AI content credits.
  2. The business plan costs $19.08/mo (billed annually), and you can use it on unlimited personal sites and support 100 client websites. You can track up to 10,000 keywords with 12K free AI content credits.
  3. The agency plan costs $45.75/mo (billed annually), and you can use it on unlimited personal sites and support 500 client websites. You can track up to 50,000 keywords with 30K free AI content credits.

8. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is often considered one of the best professional SEO tools available, as it offers a comprehensive suite of tools that can help websites of all sizes.

Want to discover which keywords your competitors’ top pages rank for? You can easily use its site explorer tool to find its top pages or top-performing keywords.

Have a look;

ahrefs top pages

With its backlink analysis tool, you can easily discover the dofollow links of your competitors’ sites (so you can use various tactics like blogger outreach, broken link building to acquire those links).

ahrefs links

You can read our Ahrefs review 2024 to find more details about it.

Pros:

  • Its most significant benefit is the “Site Explorer” tool that helps you find any website’s backlinks, organic traffic, keyword rankings, and more.
  • Its Rank Tracker tool allows you to track your website’s rankings for specific keywords over time. 
  • It has the largest keyword database of over 7 billion keywords, and you can find ideas from Google, YouTube, Bing, Yahoo, Amazon, Baidu, etc.
  • It also offers a few free tools, such as Ahrefs Webmaster Tools.

Cons:

  • No free trial is available. The reporting limits and credits are NOT generous. 

Pricing: You’ll get the following 4 pricing plans from Ahrefs.

  1. The Lite plan costs you $99 monthly ($83 per month when billed annually). It gives you access to 1 user for up to 5 projects to create, track 750 keywords, and perform 100k site crawls monthly.
  2. The standard plan costs you $199 monthly ($166 per month when billed annually). It gives you access to 1 user for up to 20 projects to create, track 2000 keywords, and perform 500k site crawls monthly.
  3. The advanced plan costs you $399 monthly ($333 per month when billed annually). It gives you access to 1 user for up to 50 projects to create, track 5000 keywords, and perform 1.5 million site crawls monthly.
  4. The enterprise plan costs you $999 monthly ($833 per month when billed annually). It gives you access to 1 user for up to 100 projects to create, track 10000 keywords, and perform 5 million site crawls monthly.

9. Moz Pro

Moz is one of the oldest SEO tools available. It was founded in 2004 by Rand Fishkin. If you are looking for a paid SEO tool that is reliable, comprehensive, and backed by a large community of SEO professionals, then Moz is a great option.

You can use its keyword research tool to find better keywords and discover easy-to-rank keywords of any domain.

You can simply enter any of your competitors’ domains in their keyword tool, and it will show you their top-performing keywords.

moz keyword tool

It has the best rank tracking tool that lets you track your keyword rankings and compare your current rankings with your competitors.

Here’s what it looks like;

competitor keywords

You can read our Moz vs Semrush comparison to find in-depth information about both the tools.

Pros:

  • It is one of the easiest tools to conduct keyword research and competitor analysis.
  • Easily generate SEO reports.
  • Offers accurate metrics for search volume, keyword research, and backlink analysis.
  • There are hundreds of free guides and resources on using this tool like a pro.
  • Offers a 30-day free trial to all new users.

Cons:

  • Its basic plan allows you to perform only 150 keyword searches per month, which is NOT recommended for those who perform keyword research daily.

Pricing: Here are the 4 pricing plans offered by Moz Pro;

  1. The standard plan costs $99 per month, where you can track up to 300 keywords, crawl up to 100K pages a week, and perform 150 keyword queries a month. Its annual plan costs you $179 per month.
  2. The medium plan costs $99 per month, where you can track up to 1500 keywords, crawl up to 500K pages a week, and perform 5000 keyword queries a month. Its annual plan costs you $107 per month.
  3. The large plan costs $299 per month, where you can track up to 3000 keywords, crawl up to 1.25 million pages a week, and perform 15000 keyword queries a month. Its annual plan costs you $239 per month.
  4. The premium plan costs $599 per month, and you can track up to 4500 keywords, crawl up to 2 million pages a week, and perform 30000 keyword queries a month. Its annual plan costs you $479 per month.

10. Majestic

If you’re looking for a powerful backlink checker and link building tool for SEO, try Majestic.

It has a massive backlink index of over 384,334,860,701 URLs. The best part? You can simultaneously upload up to 1 million websites for a CSV of crucial SEO metrics.

Here’s what the Majestic’s site explorer looks like;

site explorer majestic

As you can see, you’ll get a detailed backlink profile of any domain.

You can also easily find lost backlinks of any website (including your own or competitors) from its site explorer tool.

Have a look;

lost links

Pros:

  • It has the most up-to-date information of any domain’s backlink profile, updated frequently throughout the day.
  • Access to historical data of most websites since 2006.
  • Provides you with key metrics such as Trust Flow and Topical Trust Flow to determine the quality of backlinks.
  • Offers a keyword checker tool for conducting keyword research.

Cons:

  • This tool is not ideal for those who want to perform site audits and in-depth keyword research.

Pricing: Majestic offers three pricing plans, which are listed below.

  1. Lite plan costs $49.99 monthly, with access to 1 million analysis units. Its annual pricing costs you $41.67 monthly.
  2. Pro plan costs $99.99 per month, allowing you to access 20 million analysis units, including exclusive features like Historical Index, Index Merger, Raw Data Exports, and more. Its annual pricing costs you $83.33 monthly.
  3. API plan costs $99.99 per month, allowing you to access 100 million analysis units, including exclusive features like API access, Historical Index, Custom Monthly Data, Raw Data Exports, and more. Its annual pricing costs you $333.33 monthly.

11. Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Screaming Frog is a freemium SEO tool that offers an advanced SEO site audit tool to crawl both small and large websites.

Screaming Frog SEO Spider is widely used by many website owners to audit their websites. If you’re looking for an inexpensive paid SEO tool, you can’t go wrong with Screaming Frog.

Here’s what the crawl analysis looks like;

screaming frog

You can also watch their official video to learn how to use the tool;

Pros:

  • It is one of the best tools to crawl a website instantly and find broken links (404s) 
  • Find technical errors & redirects of your website easily
  • Analyse page titles and meta descriptions. You can identify missing, duplicate, long, short, or multiple titles and meta descriptions. 
  • Review meta robots & directives.
  • Analyze the number of words on every page.
  • Audit hreflang attributes (which specify a webpage’s language and targeted region)
  • Quickly identify exact duplicate URLs causing content issues on your website.
  • Generate XML sitemaps to allow search engines to crawl all your pages
  • Unlimited crawl limit with the paid plan
  • The ability to connect to Google Analytics, Search Console, and PageSpeed Insights
  • It also offers a free version which allows you to crawl up to 500 URLs

Cons:

  • It takes a lot of time for large websites to crawl all the URLs.

Pricing: Screaming Frog offers a free plan. However, if you want to unlock all its features, including unlimited crawl credits, you’ll need to grab its paid version, which costs $259 annually.


Final Thoughts on Premium SEO Tools

Remember, the best way to choose the RIGHT SEO tool depends on your specific website priorities and needs. No tool is PERFECT.

That’s why you must try several tools (try their free trials) before investing your money.

If you’re looking for a complete tool, we’d suggest Semrush or SE Ranking. So, what are your thoughts on the top paid SEO tools mentioned here? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. 

About Author
Anil Agarwal is the Founder of Bloggerspassion. He is a full-time blogger and SEO expert who has been helping people build profitable blogs for over a decade Now. He has been featured in Over 100 Publications including Forbes, The HuffPost, HubSpot, Shopify, Semrush, Kinsta, Bluehost, Hostinger and G2.com etc. Know more about Anil Agarwal from here.

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