The essentials
An SEO tool is used to measure, crawl or analyse what a search engine sees of your website. The free tools from Google and Bing already cover most of the monitoring. Paid suites (Semrush, Ahrefs, SE Ranking, Haloscan) add keyword research, links and competition. Their entry plans range from €27 to €134 per month among the vendors reviewed here.
- Start with Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools and PageSpeed Insights: free and based on search engine data.
- A crawler (Screaming Frog, Sitebulb) becomes necessary as soon as you audit a website with more than a few hundred pages.
- All the prices below were collected from the official pages on September 24, 2026, with no affiliate links.
This page lists the SEO and marketing tools cited in the Elev8 Lab guides, plus the market references. They are sorted by use: SEO, GEO, SEA, analytics and content. For each one: what it is for, and what it costs according to the vendor’s pricing page. Prices change often; check them before you commit.
How to choose an SEO tool?
A tool is only worth something if it answers a question you are really asking. Four criteria help you decide:
- The data source: search engine tools (Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools) measure your real website. Third-party suites estimate the market from their own databases.
- The main need: monitoring, technical audit, keyword research, link analysis, writing. No suite is the best at everything.
- The volume: number of websites, tracked keywords, pages to crawl. This is what drives the bill up.
- The target market: for SEO in France, check how deep the tool’s French database is.
The tool comes after the method. To know what to look at and in what order, see our guide to SEO.
What are the free SEO tools?
These tools are enough to manage a small or medium-sized website:
| Tool | Use | Cost as of September 24, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Google Search Console | Clicks, impressions, indexing, errors seen by Google | Free |
| Bing Webmaster Tools | Same role for Bing, with a report on visibility in its AI answers | Free |
| PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse | Performance and Core Web Vitals, field data (CrUX) and lab data | Free |
| Rich Results Test, Schema Markup Validator | Structured data validation | Free |
| Google Trends | Search trends and seasonality | Free |
| Google Ads Keyword Planner | Keyword ideas, indicative volumes | No charge, Google Ads account required |
| Screaming Frog SEO Spider | Crawls a website like a search engine | Free version limited to 500 URLs |
| Haloscan | Keywords and rankings in France | Free plan: 50 keyword searches and 25 site analyses per month |
| Ahrefs Free | Ahrefs data on your own website | Free |
| Yoast SEO | Title, meta, sitemap and canonical in WordPress | Free (Premium: €118.80 excl. VAT per year) |
| GoAccess | Reading server logs | Open source |
Search Console remains the priority source: it is the only one that shows Google’s real queries on your website. Speed metrics are explained in our page on Core Web Vitals.
Which paid SEO tools should you choose?
All-in-one SEO suites
| Tool | Strengths | Entry price (as of September 24, 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Semrush | Keywords, competition, audit, rank tracking, AI modules | €134 per month (€112.52 per month billed annually); SEO + AI search plans from €190 per month |
| Ahrefs | Link database, Site Explorer, Keywords Explorer | Starter €27 per month; Lite €119, Standard €229, Advanced €419 per month |
| SE Ranking | Rank tracking, audit, modular plans | Core: €109 per month (€87.20 per month billed annually), 14-day trial |
| Moz Pro | Tracking, keywords, domain authority | Standard: $99 per month ($79 per month billed annually) |
| Haloscan | French data, keyword and website exploration | Starter: €59 excl. VAT per month; Agency €179 excl. VAT |
| DataForSEO | SERP and keyword data API, to automate analyses | Pay as you go, minimum deposit of $50 |
For keyword research itself, the method matters more than the tool: see our guide to keyword research.
Crawlers and technical audit
| Tool | Use | Price as of September 24, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Screaming Frog SEO Spider | Desktop crawler for technical audits | License: €245 (£199, $279) per year per user |
| Sitebulb | Crawler with prioritised reports | 14-day trial; Cloud version from £95 per month |
| Oncrawl, Botify | Large-scale crawling and log analysis | No publicly displayed pricing |
Full guide to the crawler cited most often in our pages: Screaming Frog in detail. For large websites, combining crawl and log data is explained in our page on log file analysis.
Link analysis (link building)
| Tool | Use | Price as of September 24, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Majestic | Link history, Trust Flow and Citation Flow | Lite: €46.99 per month (€39.16 billed annually); Pro: €94.99 |
| Babbar | Links and semantic proximity between websites | SEO plan: €139 excl. VAT per month (€1,529 excl. VAT per year) |
| Ahrefs | Link database and referring domains | See SEO suites |
These metrics are estimates specific to each vendor. How to read them is explained in our guide to the backlink audit.
Which tools track your visibility in AI search engines (GEO)?
A new family of tools queries ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini or Google’s AI answers with a list of prompts. It then measures whether your brand is mentioned or cited. Their sampling methods are not published: the results cannot be compared from one tool to another.
| Tool | Price as of September 24, 2026 |
|---|---|
| Otterly.AI | Lite: $29 per month (15 prompts); Standard: $189 per month (100 prompts) |
| Qwairy | Starter: €79 per month (€65 per month billed annually) |
| Profound | 7-day free trial (50 prompts); Enterprise plan on quote |
| Peec AI, Meteoria | Pricing not readable on the public page on September 24, 2026 |
| Semrush (SEO + AI search plans) | From €190 per month |
| Ahrefs Brand Radar AI | From €179 per month |
| Bing Webmaster Tools, “AI Performance” report | Free |
To build a prompt panel and read mentions and citations without drawing false conclusions, see our page on measuring AI visibility.
Which tools for SEA?
| Tool | Use | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Keyword Planner | Keyword ideas, bid estimates | No charge |
| Google Ads Editor | Edit campaigns in bulk, offline | Free download |
| Google Merchant Center | Product feeds for Shopping and Performance Max | Not collected (tool linked to campaigns) |
| Microsoft Advertising | Campaigns on Bing and Microsoft partners | Not collected (campaign budget) |
Most of the work is done in the ad platforms’ own interfaces. Method in our SEA pillar.
Which tools for analytics and CRO?
| Tool | Use | Cost as of September 24, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Google Analytics 4 | Audience measurement and key events | Free; paid 360 version |
| Looker Studio | Dashboards built from GA4, Search Console, spreadsheets | Free |
| Matomo | Audience measurement, can be self-hosted | On-Premise: free download; Cloud: paid, based on traffic |
| Microsoft Clarity | Click maps and session recordings | Free, with no traffic limit according to the vendor |
Setup and choosing a GDPR-compliant tool in our web analytics pillar.
Which tools for content and writing?
| Tool | Use | Price as of September 24, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| YourTextGuru | Semantic guides for SEO writing | Lite: €99 excl. VAT per month (€90 excl. VAT billed annually) |
| 1.fr | Semantic optimisation of a text | No readable price list on the website on September 24, 2026 |
| AnswerThePublic | Questions asked around a keyword | Starter: $20 per month (prices localised by country) |
| Claude | AI assistant for outlines, summaries, rewording | Free; Pro: $20 per month ($17 billed annually) |
An AI assistant helps prepare a text, never to publish it without review. Every figure and every source is checked at its origin.
How are the prices on this page checked?
- Single source: each vendor’s official pricing page, linked in the table.
- Date: prices collected on September 24, 2026. Prices excluding or including taxes as displayed by the vendor, specified when stated.
- No affiliation: no link on this page earns a commission.
- Missing price: when the vendor does not display a price, we say so instead of estimating it.
Other services appear in our guides without being analysis tools in the strict sense. Google Business Profile manages the business listing. Cloudflare controls crawler access at the CDN level. The IndexNow protocol notifies Bing of a changed page. Chrome’s developer tools are used to inspect a page.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best SEO tool?
No tool is the best at everything. Google Search Console is essential because it shows Google’s real data. For the rest, the choice depends on the need. Screaming Frog is used for technical audits, Semrush or Ahrefs for competition and links, Haloscan for French data.
What are the free SEO tools?
The main free SEO tools are Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, PageSpeed Insights, the Rich Results Test and Google Trends. Keyword Planner is also free of charge, with a Google Ads account. Screaming Frog, Haloscan and Ahrefs also offer limited free versions.
Do you need a paid tool to do SEO?
Not to get started. Free tools cover monitoring, indexing and performance. A paid tool becomes useful to analyse the competition or find keywords at scale. It also helps to audit a website with several thousand pages.
How much does an SEO tool cost?
As of September 24, 2026, the paid entry plans reviewed here start at €27 per month (Ahrefs Starter, limited features). Haloscan Starter costs €59 excl. VAT per month and Semrush SEO €134 per month. A crawler like Screaming Frog costs €245 per year. Prices go up with the number of projects, tracked keywords and users.
Sources
- Screaming Frog, SEO Spider Pricing. Accessed on September 24, 2026.
- Semrush, Plans and Pricing. Accessed on September 24, 2026.
- Ahrefs, Tarifs (in French). Accessed on September 24, 2026.
- SE Ranking, Subscription plans. Accessed on September 24, 2026.
- Moz, Moz Pro Pricing. Accessed on September 24, 2026.
- Haloscan, Tarifs (in French). Accessed on September 24, 2026.
- Majestic, Plans & Pricing. Accessed on September 24, 2026.
- Babbar, homepage, plans section. Accessed on September 24, 2026.
- Sitebulb, Pricing. Accessed on September 24, 2026.
- Yoast, Yoast SEO for WordPress. Accessed on September 24, 2026.
- OtterlyAI, Pricing. Accessed on September 24, 2026.
- Qwairy, Pricing. Accessed on September 24, 2026.
- Profound, Pricing. Accessed on September 24, 2026.
- Google Ads, Outil de planification des mots clés (in French). Accessed on September 24, 2026.
- Google Ads, Google Ads Editor (in French). Accessed on September 24, 2026.
- Google Marketing Platform, Google Analytics (in French). Accessed on September 24, 2026.
- Matomo, Pricing. Accessed on September 24, 2026.
- Microsoft, Microsoft Clarity. Accessed on September 24, 2026.
- YourText.Guru, Tarifs (in French). Accessed on September 24, 2026.
- AnswerThePublic, Pricing (in French). Accessed on September 24, 2026.
- Anthropic, Claude pricing. Accessed on September 24, 2026.
- DataForSEO, Pricing. Accessed on September 24, 2026.