SEO February 19, 2021  |  12734   84   |  23 min read  – Read later

How Much Will The Daily SEO Toolkit Cost: Guide For Pros And Newbies

how much SEO tools cost
 Катерина Бородина
Katerina Borodina
SEO Team Lead at
Boosta
When I started SEO, I was sure that Google Search Console and Google Analytics are literally everything you can dream of. But I was wrong. With each new challenge, it became apparent that the SEO specialist toolbox was growing faster than you might imagine. Also, new tools and services are released several times a year that greatly facilitate daily work. However, over time, it turns out that some of them are used many times a day, while others are not at all worth the money spent.
In this article, I will tell you about the tools that you definitely cannot do without, and at the end, I will name several handy and interesting services that help me solve non-standard SEO tasks.
Every internet marketer realizes that there are processes that are worth automating. These include routine searching and selecting keywords, site audit, position checking, analysis of the competitive environment, and reporting.

There is a wide range of services and tools on the market. Their field of activity is highly competitive. In this regard, developers are actively working on services in an attempt to defeat rivals. Therefore, it is quite tricky for beginners to choose the optimal set of services that will simultaneously provide all possible assistance and not cost an arm and a leg.

Let's examine a list of tools that an ordinary specialist needs for daily work. All services have features and differ in functionality. Therefore, I will consider them in the context of these features.

Basic tools

Site analytics

A tool that is a must for every SEO specialist, starting from project launch. Google Search Console is installed directly on the site and collects statistics on the project. It is most often used to analyze keywords for which a website is ranking, to track trends in traffic, CTR, and position.

Price: free.

Main features:
Performance
A report where you can see how effective a site or its pages are in the Google search engine. It analyzes website traffic, the number of impressions in SERP, CTR, and position.
Coverage
This report shows the indexing state of all URLs that Google has visited or tried to visit, in your property and the reason for that status.
Improvements
A set of reports where you can find information about issues that do not directly affect indexing but can affect the site's display in search results, page loading speed, and the site's usability on mobile devices.
Other reports can show if the site has security issues, Google manual sanctions, crawl statistics, etc.
How To Add A Site To Google Search Console
Like Google Search Console, it is installed by adding a special code to all site pages. It allows you to track the performance of not only the organic traffic channel. This tool's functionality is extensive and used by everyone involved in Internet marketing and analytics.

Price: free.

Main features:
analysis of site traffic;
analysis of sales, conversions, performance of targeted actions;
site audience analysis;
analysis of user behavior on the site.
Google Analytics 4 Overview:
To Leave Or To Stay?
A simple tool that sends a notification when your site has loading issues.

Price: Free when monitoring up to 50 sites.

Below is an example of a site unavailable notification:
UptimeRobot
A service for a quick checkup of website loading speed and issues that may affect it. The service allows you to check the download speed both on a desktop and on a mobile device simultaneously and indicates problem areas that you should pay attention to.

Price: free.

Site audit

Before promoting a site in search engines, it is better to conduct a comprehensive technical audit. It includes checking the indexability of pages, the presence of basic SEO tags and meta tags on the pages, linking, the absence of pages on the site that give 404, 301, and any other "not 200" server response code.

This also includes checking for many other parameters, which require a separate article to describe with a technical website auditing program. There are many desktop applications and online services that allow you to conduct a quality audit. Screaming Frog and Netpeak Spider remain the main competitors among desktop applications.
A desktop application that allows you to evaluate a site by 70+ parameters. Works on the same principle as Screaming Frog and any other robot, including search engines.

Price: $15 to $79 per month, but there is a Freebie version.

Main features:
site check for all necessary SEO parameters;
custom site crawling;
working with large sites (100K + pages);
obtaining a complete site structure;
checking links;
reports export;
segmentation.
A desktop application that runs on all popular operating systems. The Screaming Frog robot crawls site pages and collects all the data that an SEO specialist needs when conducting a comprehensive site audit.

Price
: £149/yr, but there is a limited free version.

Main features:
search for broken links;
audit of redirects;
analysis of Title tags and meta tags;
search for duplicate content;
collecting additional data on the site using XPath;
checking site indexing directives;
generation of XML sitemap;
script scanning;
visualization of the site structure.
Below is an example of a site crawl window and issues to check:
screaming frog interface
3
Site audit with Serpstat and Semrush
Multifunctional services Serpstat and Semrush contain modules for complex technical analysis of the site.

With Serpstat and Semrush you can:
add missing tags;
create titles, meta descriptions and other HTML tags that will be understandable to users and search engines;
fix damaged images and add alt tag;
find duplicate content;
analyze server response codes.
Considering the price of services and the depth of analysis, it is enough to use Serpstat and Semrush to conduct an audit. However, for large sites or complex operations, it is better to master the desktop software.
Effective Site Audit With Serpstat: Tool Overview

Multifunctional SEO platforms

Some tools are tailored for specific features, such as setting up contextual advertising, selecting keywords, or auditing a site.

However, it is convenient for webmasters to use one service where everything is at hand. Therefore, when cloud technologies appeared on the market, new generation services began to appear. They combined all the functionality necessary for the optimizer.
1
Serpstat
A product that automates and improves the efficiency of a digital marketer. The service combines everything from search analytics to tools necessary for creating a content plan.

Price: from $69 to $500 per month; has a limited free subscription plan, and you can also buy an advanced version for the needs of a large company.

Main features:
collection and analysis of keywords;
search analytics (search and analysis of competitors, visibility, tracking competitors' positions);
analysis of paid search results;
backlink analysis;
content marketing tools;
monitoring site positions;
market research;
site audit.
An example of a report on the analyzed domain:
serpstat domain analysis
On the left are additional reports that can be viewed. The analysis capabilities are extensive; you can find out almost any information about the site's marketing strategy.
Multipurpose service for internet marketing. There are a lot of tools collected here that help an SEO specialist.

Price: from $100 to $400 per month.

Main features:
collection and analysis of the semantic core of the site;
conducting a technical audit of the site (scanning the site for technical issues, analyzing log files);
analysis of competitors;
a set of content marketing tools;
tracking site positions;
set of tools for SMM;
link analysis.
However, if the project is small, you shouldn't worry about purchasing this tool.
Serpstat has undergone a lot of changes over the past months and the tool provides extensive functionality for website promotion.
3
This service provides a large amount of data that is needed to promote a project.

Price: from $99 to $999 per month.

Main features:
analysis of the link mass of the site;
analysis of traffic and keywords on the site;
search for keywords, collection of the semantic core;
site audit;
site position tracker;
content analysis.
Ahrefs backlink checker allows you to collect keywords, conduct link analysis and compare competitors. However, some operations are more convenient to perform in Serpstat or Semrush. For example, their keyword databases are of better quality, and their search analytics functionality is richer, so Ahrefs is not an ideal option for collecting semantics.

Many users are unhappy that Ahrefs shows volume and CPC starting with the Professional plan. It costs $179/month, which is too expensive for many novice SEOs. You cannot do without volume; otherwise, you risk turning the database of keywords into a dictionary.

Keyword research

A tool from Google that allows you to collect keywords for which you plan to rank your site. The tool itself is designed more for contextual advertising specialists, but it is also suitable for SEOs.

Price: Free, but to get accurate data on the frequency of keywords, you need to run ads in Google Ads.
2
Serpstat
Serpstat Keyword Analysis module allows you to collect a semantic core and conduct in-depth analysis of keywords.

Price: from $69 to $400 per month.

Sample reports:
Serpstat keyword research
Personal demonstration
Our specialists will contact you and discuss options for further work. These may include a personal demonstration, a trial period, comprehensive training articles, webinar recordings, and custom advice from a Serpstat specialist. It is our goal to make you feel comfortable while using Serpstat.

Positions tracking

Positions are not always the primary metric that SEO focuses on, but it isn't easy to understand where specific actions on the site lead without analyzing them. There are a lot of position collection services. Besides, many companies create such services purely for their own needs and do not use external resources. Below are examples of the most popular services.
A rank tracking tool from Mangools built with a focus on effectivity and ease of use. It uses handy interactive online tracking reports.

Price: from $49 to $129/month.
It is a web-based rank tracking and reporting tool, that is capable of delivering daily, weekly, monthly, and on-demand updates. It automatically shows your top competitors so you can see how they match in the search engine results for your targeted keywords.

Price: from $49 to $199/month.
3
Rank tracking with Serpstat, Semrush, Ahrefs
To use Serpstat for these purposes, it is enough to pay $69/month (including many other features). By the way, Serpstat provides tracking of not only organic but also paid results. Semrush prices is $99/month, and Ahrefs is $399/month. Such a high price for Ahrefs is because real-time position monitoring is available only from the Advanced plan. With a cheaper subscription, checking is available once a week/5 days.

The analysis showed that Ahrefs is slightly inferior in Serpstat and Semrush functionality since Ahrefs focuses on analyzing backlinks. At the same time, Serpstat and Semrush provide a wide range of operations in addition to backlinks.

Working with content

Service for SEO-analysis of text and creation of technical assignments for copywriters.

Price: from $18/month to $67/month

Main features:
uniqueness, spam and grammar checks;
rewriting tips;
online editing;
analysis of competitors' content;
search for keywords and LSI words;
automatic generation of technical assignments;
customization of technical assignments.
A tool that performs the same functions of checking content for uniqueness. Here you can also configure automatic uniqueness checking.

Price: free, but there is a premium account with a more complex verification algorithm.

Main features:
checking the text and site for uniqueness;
regular site check with automatic notifications.

Extra tools

1
Notepad++ (for Windows), SublimeText (for MacOS)
There are many routine tasks in an SEO specialist's work, such as URL shortening, removing a domain from URL upload, removing duplicates in the list, and finding exact words/symbols.

The list is endless. To not do it all manually and not waste all your time on a routine, you need regular expressions. The easiest way to do this is to use text editors such as Notepad ++ (for Windows), SublimeText (for macOS).

Price: free.
An irreplaceable tool not only for SEOs but also for digital marketers and analysts. Unloading and analyzing traffic, keywords, finding patterns and combining several reports into one, collecting a semantic core, compiling a report for a client or Team Lead - all this and much more can be done with Google Spreadsheets.

I highly recommend learning the right formulas and using Google Sheets consistently.

Price: free.

Advanced toolkit

Earlier, I described desktop applications that allow you to conduct an SEO audit. These applications have one drawback. If you want to use the audit results on another laptop, you need to have the audit file with you and, accordingly, the installed application. In such cases, Sitechecker helps a lot. With it, you can audit the site online and use the results on any other device simply by logging into your account.

Also, using this service, you can monitor changes on the site. Every day the robot goes through the site's pages and compares them with those that have already been saved in its database. Thus, if the developer has closed the necessary pages from indexing or your Title tag is no longer displayed, you will always know about it thanks to this tool.

Price: from $9 to $69 per month.

Main features:
website audit;
tracking changes on the site;
checking and monitoring backlinks to the site;
analysis of positions;
checking site traffic.
An example of a report on the current state of the site:
Sitechecker
An example of a changelog report:
Sitechecker report
When you click on the drop-down list, you can see a detailed report of each change.
A tool for analyzing competitors and donor sites. Here you can track the dynamics, channels and geography of traffic, compare domains with each other, analyze each traffic channel in more detail. Besides, the service has a very convenient browser extension, with which you can quickly get the initial data for further analysis.

Price: from $200 per month, you can get a lot of data in the free version.

Main features:
analysis of keywords, dynamics, geography, traffic channels and outgoing traffic from the site;
advertising opportunities.
Similarweb is the most common service for analyzing the monthly traffic level and its sources. Note that one of the main disadvantages of this tool is the inability to get analytics for small sites. Over the past few months, there have been few updates, both in functionality and in pricing.
A service that allows you to analyze page loading speed and identify problem areas.

Price: from $10 to $40 per month, there is a free version.

Main features:
checking page loading speed;
the ability to configure download monitoring and identify patterns (only in the paid version).
Example of a page load speed report:
GTmetrix
When switching tabs, you can find detailed information on all issues slowing down page load speed.
A service that allows you to see how the site or a page looked at a certain time in the past, for example, a year, two, five years ago.

Price: free.
A handy tool for optimizing website content following competitor analysis. The service unloads the top 50 by the required request and analyzes each site according to specific parameters. Further, the tool generates reports that help compare our site's performance with competitors' sites and draw appropriate conclusions.

Price: from $60 to $200 per month.

Main features:
SERP analysis;
automatic reports on a huge number of parameters;
search for LSI keyword, missing semantics and missing donor domains.
An example of a page audit based on automatic competitor analysis:
SurferSEO
A crawler copes with a huge number of tasks - from unloading all SERPs to setting links in blog comments. It will take hours to learn everything you can do with Scrapebox, but it's worth it.

Price: $197.

Main features:
parsing search results, keywords, e-mail addresses and any other necessary data;
automatic and manual link placement;
checking domain availability.
A web service for analyzing extensive data. It can come in handy if you have to work with large sites.

Price: the starting period is free, but after reaching the limits, the cost will depend on the data amount.

Main features:
creating and deleting tables based on JSON schema;
access to database data through standard SQL dialect;
simple data visualization when integrated with Data Studio;
integration of BigQuery with Google Apps Script, Google Sheets.

Bonus

As promised, as a bonus, I'll add a list of tools for solving non-standard SEO tasks and just mini-assistants in our challenging job:
Nightwatch Search Simulator is a Chrome extension that simulates search results by country.
XPath Helper is a Chrome extension that checks if XPath works on a page.
Yougetsignal — ІР check.
WHOis.net - tool for checking the availability of domain registration data.
Linkclump is an extension for copying, opening links or anchors on a page.
Thispersondoesnotexist.com is a service for generating unique photographs of people who do not exist.
Wordhtml.com is a text to HTML converter.
Hunter is a tool for collecting e-mails from a page.
Technical SEO is a tool that helps to create micro-markup.
Grammarly - an extension that helps with grammar checking.
NoFollow is an extension that shows nofollow links on a page.
Web Developer - the extension allows you to disable styles, JS, plugins on the page.

Conclusion

How much will you have to spend? The question is multilevel.

A beginner SEO specialist can easily get by with free packages of a basic set of services. Everything will depend on the tasks of the SEO itself, the goals of the campaign, the market for which it works, and even the stage of product development. Therefore, the need for new services will depend on the awareness of what functionality and indicators you are missing. And even if you are a confident Senior, this does not mean that you need all these services.

If you question how much an SEO specialist's profession can potentially result in, the estimated maximum is $2856/month. But I would like to draw your attention to that this amount is calculated only for those services that have fixed prices.

In any case, it's up to you. The above list is not a constant. It contains both interchangeable and unnecessary services for specific niches. And this article was created only to save your time and help you determine your needs.

Speed up your search marketing growth with Serpstat!

Keyword and backlink opportunities, competitors' online strategy, daily rankings and SEO-related issues.

A pack of tools for reducing your time on SEO tasks.

Get free 7-day trial

Rate the article on a five-point scale

The article has already been rated by 10 people on average 4.4 out of 5
Found an error? Select it and press Ctrl + Enter to tell us

Discover More SEO Tools

Backlink Cheсker

Backlinks checking for any site. Increase the power of your backlink profile

API for SEO

Search big data and get results using SEO API

Competitor Website Analytics

Complete analysis of competitors' websites for SEO and PPC

Keyword Rank Checker

Google Keyword Rankings Checker - gain valuable insights into your website's search engine rankings

Share this article with your friends

Are you sure?

Introducing Serpstat

Find out about the main features of the service in a convenient way for you!

Please send a request, and our specialist will offer you education options: a personal demonstration, a trial period, or materials for self-study and increasing expertise — everything for a comfortable start to work with Serpstat.

Name

Email

Phone

We are glad of your comment
I agree to Serpstat`s Privacy Policy.

Thank you, we have saved your new mailing settings.

Open support chat
mail pocket flipboard Messenger telegramm