SEO API Pricing: Ahrefs API Pricing, Semrush API Cost and Rankable Compared
There is no single price for an SEO API, because the vendors are not selling the same thing. Ahrefs lists API and MCP access from Lite at $129 a month, with Enterprise at $1,499 described as uncapped. Semrush puts API data integration on Advanced, $549 a month. Rankable's API is a different kind of product: it is included on Scale at $149 a month with no per-call units, and it returns your own sites and finished articles rather than rows of index data.
Updated September 2026. Every price below was read from the vendor's own pricing page on 3 September 2026. Where a vendor publishes no figure, this page says so instead of repeating a number from somewhere else.
Last updated September 2026
Start with the content side
Add a site and see what Rankable publishes for it.
See pricing starting at $19/mo
$129
Lowest Ahrefs plan that lists API and MCP access
$549
Semrush Advanced, the tier that lists API data integration
$149
Rankable Scale, API included with no per-call units
None
Per-unit dollar rates published by Ahrefs or Semrush
What you are actually pricing when you price an SEO API
Most people who search for SEO API pricing are trying to answer a budgeting question: if I build this integration, what is the monthly line item? The reason that question is hard to answer is that the three products below are priced on three different units. Ahrefs and Semrush sell access to an index, so you are buying rows of data about the web. Rankable sells generated content, so the API returns the articles your own account produced. Comparing the dollar figures without splitting those apart will give you a number that means nothing.
The second complication is newer, and it is specific to Ahrefs. As of the pricing page read on 3 September 2026, "API and MCP access" appears on Lite, Standard and Advanced, metered by each plan's own credits per user: 1,000 on Lite, unlimited on Standard and Advanced. Enterprise, at $1,499 a month, is separately described as "uncapped API access", and the Ahrefs developer documentation still offers free test queries so you can try endpoints without an Enterprise plan. So two things now share the name. Someone pricing "the Ahrefs API" may be pricing a $129 subscription or a $1,499 one. Our detailed breakdown of that sits on the Ahrefs API pricing page.
The third thing to know before you budget: neither Ahrefs nor Semrush publishes a dollar rate per API unit or per 1,000 rows anywhere on its pricing page. Third-party roundups do publish unit allowances, and they contradict each other, which is a good sign that none of them is reading a primary source. If your project depends on a specific monthly volume, that allowance belongs in your order form before you write the first line of code. The same applies on the Semrush side, which we cover in Semrush API pricing.
SEO API pricing by plan, September 2026
Every figure below is the vendor's own published price for the plan that carries API access. The last column is the one that decides your real cost, and it is empty for both data vendors.
Swipe to see all columns →
| Tool and plan | How the API is described | Plan price | What it returns | Per-unit rate? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ahrefs Lite | API and MCP access, 1,000 credits/user | $129/mo | Ahrefs index: backlinks, keywords, SERP | No |
| Ahrefs Standard, Advanced | API and MCP access, unlimited credits/user | $249 and $449/mo | Ahrefs index: backlinks, keywords, SERP | No |
| Ahrefs Enterprise | Uncapped API access | $1,499/mo, annual | Ahrefs index: backlinks, keywords, SERP | No |
| Semrush Advanced | API data integration | $549/mo, $455.67 annual | Semrush index: backlinks, keywords, SERP, Trends | No |
| Rankable Scale | API access carried by the plan | $149/mo | Your own sites and articles, with full HTML | Not metered |
Ahrefs and Semrush prices read from ahrefs.com/pricing and semrush.com/pricing on 3 September 2026. Semrush annual figures are the per-month rate when billed for a year. Rankable pricing is our own published ladder. Blank cells are not omissions: neither data vendor publishes a per-unit dollar rate.
Four things that change the number you budget
Read these before you put a number in a budget.
The Ahrefs API is now two products sharing one name
On the pricing page read 3 September 2026, API and MCP access is listed from Lite up and metered by the plan's credits per user: 1,000 on Lite, unlimited on Standard and Advanced. Enterprise at $1,499 a month is separately described as uncapped API access, and the developer docs still frame Enterprise as the API plan by offering free test queries to people without one. Before you quote a budget, establish in writing which of the two your use case falls under. The gap between them is $129 a month and $1,499 a month.
No vendor publishes what a unit costs
Ahrefs publishes credits per user. Semrush publishes that Advanced includes API data integration. Neither publishes a dollar rate per unit or per 1,000 rows on its pricing page. Third-party articles fill the gap with allowance figures that disagree with each other by an order of magnitude, so treat all of them as unverified. If your integration has a known monthly query volume, the allowance for that volume is a contract term, not a blog post.
A data API and a content API are not substitutes
This is the distinction that makes most SEO API comparisons useless. Ahrefs and Semrush sell rows from an index of the web: backlinks, keyword metrics, SERP positions. Rankable sells the content pipeline, so its API hands back the articles your account generated. If you need backlink rows, no amount of money buys them from Rankable. If you need finished articles pushed into your CMS, a data API will never produce one. Decide which you are buying first, then compare prices inside that group only.
The plan floor usually costs more than the API line
Nobody sells an SEO API standalone. You buy a subscription that happens to carry API access, so the real question is the cheapest plan that carries it. For Ahrefs that is currently Lite at $129 a month, for Semrush it is Advanced at $549, and for Rankable it is Scale at $149. Ahrefs Starter at $29 and Rankable's $19 and $59 tiers do not carry it at all. Budget the plan, then the usage on top.
How to price an SEO API project before you commit
Four steps that stop an SEO integration being repriced mid build.
Decide whether you need index rows or your own content
Write one sentence describing what the API has to return. If the sentence contains backlinks, referring domains, keyword volume or SERP positions, you need a data API and your shortlist is Ahrefs and Semrush. If it contains articles, drafts or published pages, you need a content API and the data vendors are irrelevant to you. Teams routinely shop the wrong half of this market for weeks.
Put a real monthly query volume on paper
Estimate calls per day, rows per call, and how often you re-pull the same data. A dashboard that refreshes 500 keywords hourly is a completely different contract from a nightly export of the same 500. Without this number you cannot evaluate any allowance, and you will be quoted on the vendor's assumptions instead of your own.
Get the allowance in writing before you build
Because no per-unit rate is published, the allowance is the single term that decides whether your integration is affordable at month six. Ask what happens when you exceed it: does the API stop, throttle, or bill. Get the answer from the vendor rather than from a comparison article, including this one.
Price the plan floor, not the API feature
Add the cheapest qualifying subscription to your budget first, then usage on top, then seats. On more than one of these ladders the subscription is the larger number, and a team that budgeted only for API usage discovers the plan requirement after the build is already scheduled.
Who buys which of these
An agency building a client reporting dashboard
You need index rows: rankings, backlinks, visibility over time, pulled on a schedule for many domains. That is a data API purchase, and your shortlist is Ahrefs from Lite up or Semrush Advanced. Rankable is not a candidate here and we would rather say so than sell you a mismatch. Worth checking the plan seat limits at the same time, because reporting dashboards tend to be built by one person and read by ten.
A SaaS team pulling finished articles into its own CMS
You already generate content and the bottleneck is getting it out of one system and into another. This is what the Rankable API is for: list your sites, list the articles on a site, then fetch a single article with its full HTML and post it wherever you like. It is included on Scale at $149 a month, it is read only, and there is no per-call meter to model.
An in-house team that wants both
Plenty of teams genuinely need index data for research and a content pipeline for production, and they are two line items rather than one. Buying a single platform to cover both usually means paying an enterprise price for the half you use lightly. Price them separately and compare against the bundle before you assume the bundle wins.
A developer evaluating before there is a budget
Ahrefs publishes free test queries in its developer documentation, which lets you try endpoints and see response shapes before anyone signs anything. Use that to confirm the data actually contains the fields your feature needs. Response shape mismatches are the most common reason an SEO integration gets abandoned after purchase.
Rankable's API next to a data API
Set side by side so the difference in kind is obvious. This is not a claim that one is better. They answer different questions.
Swipe to see all columns →
| Rankable API | Ahrefs or Semrush API | |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest plan that carries API access | Scale, $149 a month | Ahrefs Lite $129 a month, Semrush Advanced $549 a month |
| What a call returns | Your sites, your articles, and full article HTML | Rows from an index of the web: backlinks, keywords, SERP positions |
| Metering | Not metered per call. The plan carries access | Credits or units. No per-unit dollar rate published by either vendor |
| Reads or writes | Read only by design, so an integration cannot run up a bill or change your data | Read only for data retrieval |
| Can it give you backlink data | No. We do not operate a backlink index and cannot sell that at any price | Yes. That is the core of the product |
| Sold standalone | No. It comes with the Scale plan | No. It comes with a qualifying subscription |
SEO API pricing questions
How much does the Ahrefs API cost?
There is no standalone price. Ahrefs sells API access with a subscription, and on the pricing page read 3 September 2026 API and MCP access is listed on Lite at $129 a month, Standard at $249 and Advanced at $449, with Enterprise at $1,499 described as uncapped API access. Ahrefs does not publish a dollar rate per unit or per 1,000 rows, so the plan price is the only figure you can budget from with confidence. Full detail on Ahrefs API pricing.
Which Ahrefs plan includes API access?
As of 3 September 2026, the Ahrefs pricing page lists API and MCP access on Lite, Standard and Advanced, metered by each plan's credits per user: 1,000 on Lite and unlimited on Standard and Advanced. Enterprise is described separately as uncapped API access. Starter at $29 a month is not listed as carrying it. This is a change worth checking against the live page, because API access on Ahrefs was previously discussed as something arranged with sales rather than something on the ladder.
How much does the Semrush API cost?
The Semrush API is tied to the Advanced plan, which is $549 a month on monthly billing or $455.67 a month billed annually. The pricing page lists API data integration as an Advanced feature and does not publish a per-unit price, so the subscription is the figure you can plan around. Lower tiers, including the $139 SEO plan, are not sold with API access. See Semrush API pricing for the unit model.
What is the cheapest SEO API?
Among these three, the lowest published entry point for an index data API is Ahrefs Lite at $129 a month. Rankable Scale is $149 a month but returns your own generated content rather than index data, so it is not cheaper for the same job. The honest answer is that cheapest depends entirely on which of the two jobs you need, because no price in one group buys you the other group's output.
Does Rankable have an SEO API?
Yes, on the Scale plan at $149 a month. It is a read-only REST API authenticated with a personal access token and scoped to your own account: list your sites, list the articles on a site, and fetch a single article including its full HTML. There are no per-call units to buy. The Starter plan at $19 a month and the Growth plan at $59 a month do not include API access. If publishing volume rather than data access is the goal, content automation software is the closer starting point.
Can I get backlink or keyword data from the Rankable API?
No. Rankable does not operate a backlink index or a keyword database, so there is no plan and no price that returns that data from our API. If backlinks and keyword metrics are what you need programmatically, buy Ahrefs or Semrush for that job. We would rather lose the sale than have you build against an endpoint that does not exist.
Do I need an API at all, or just a scheduled export?
Many teams that start shopping for an SEO API actually need a recurring export into a spreadsheet or a warehouse, which most platforms already do without any code. An API earns its keep when something in your own product has to react to the data, or when volume makes manual pulls impractical. If a weekly CSV would solve it, that is cheaper on every ladder here and it ships this week.
Buying data, or buying published pages?
If you need backlink rows and keyword metrics, buy a data API and budget the plan that carries it. If what you actually need is articles researched, written and published on a schedule, with an API to pull them into your own stack, that is what Rankable does, and API access comes with the Scale plan at $149 a month.
See Rankable pricingNo credit card required · 14-day free trial · Cancel anytime