Ahrefs alternative cheap

A cheaper Ahrefs alternative
that also writes the article

Ahrefs starts at €99/month and requires an SEO background to use well. WriteGap is €14.99/month, needs no background, and delivers a brief + draft every Monday.

Start for €14.99/mo See comparison ↓

7-day money-back guarantee · Cancel anytime

Quick verdict

These tools solve different problems.

Choose Ahrefs if...
Choose WriteGap if...
Primary use
Backlink analysis, domain research, deep keyword data
Find what to write this week + get it written
Budget
€99–€399/month is in your budget
You want effective SEO at €14.99–€29.99/mo
SEO experience
You know how to interpret keyword difficulty, SERP features, and backlink metrics
You want results without learning SEO
Output
Data — you turn it into action yourself
A ready-to-edit article draft, every week
Site type
Any — enterprise, agencies, large e-commerce
SaaS and software tools
The real problem with Ahrefs for founders

Ahrefs is a professional tool. You need a tool that works for you.

01

It's priced for agencies with clients

Ahrefs Lite is €99/mo. Standard is €179/mo. For an agency billing clients €3,000/mo, this is nothing. For a bootstrapped founder growing a SaaS on the side, it's €1,188/year for a tool you'll use to run one keyword report per month. WriteGap is €179/year for the Growth plan — and it does the research AND writes the article.

02

Deep data you won't use

Ahrefs is genuinely excellent for backlink analysis, SERP history, content gap reports, and rank tracking at scale. But a solo SaaS founder needs exactly two things: "what should I write this week?" and "can you write it?" Ahrefs answers the first question with a dashboard full of data. WriteGap answers both questions with a brief and a draft.

03

A workflow that requires an SEO person

To use Ahrefs effectively, you need to understand keyword difficulty in context, know how to spot commercial intent, and judge whether a SERP is winnable. That's a skill. WriteGap applies those judgments automatically — you get a filtered list of the 4–12 keywords most worth targeting, not a raw export of 5,000 that needs sorting.

Feature comparison

Ahrefs vs WriteGap: side by side.

Ahrefs Lite (€99/mo)
WriteGap Growth (€29.99/mo)
Keyword gap analysis
Content Gap tool — you run it manually, interpret results yourself
Automated every Monday, filtered and ranked
Article writing
No
Full draft, one click, 900–1,100 words
Backlink analysis
Industry-leading backlink index
Not included
Page 2 → Page 1 fixes
Rank tracker shows position data — no content suggestions
Writes H1 + content + schema for stuck pages
Time per week
3–6 hours to get one article researched and briefed
20 minutes to edit and publish
Setup time
Multiple learning sessions to use effectively
2 minutes — paste URL, done
Multilingual
Data per country/language — manual brief process per language
Full automated pipeline in 6 languages
How WriteGap works

Paste your URL. We do the rest.

01

Add your site

Paste your domain. WriteGap finds your real competitors automatically — tools that rank for the same searches your product should rank for. No manual setup.

~2 min · one time
02

Get your brief every Monday

The highest-value keyword gaps land in your dashboard — filtered by volume, difficulty, and intent. Not a raw keyword dump. A curated list ready to act on.

automated weekly
03

One click → full article

WriteGap writes the draft — H1, sections, schema, semantic keywords. You edit for ~20 minutes, adding your perspective. Then publish.

ready to paste
Pricing

From €14.99/month.

7-day money-back guarantee. Cancel anytime.

Basic
€14.99 /mo
1 site · 1 language
Launching June 2026
  • 4 keyword gaps every Monday
  • One-click article draft per keyword
  • 1 quick win, 1 snippet, 1 fix/week
Get started
Cancel anytime
Most popular
Growth
€29.99 /mo
1 site · up to 3 languages
Launching June 2026
  • 12 keyword gaps / week
  • One-click article draft per keyword
  • 3 quick wins, 3 snippets, 3 fixes
  • Topic cluster planning
Get started
✦ 7-day money-back guarantee
Premium
€59.99 /mo
1 site · up to 6 languages
Coming July 2026
  • Unlimited keyword gaps per language
  • All quick wins, snippets & fixes
  • One-click article draft per keyword
  • Topic cluster planning
Get started
Cancel anytime
Questions

Honest answers.

Is WriteGap as powerful as Ahrefs for keyword research?

For different jobs. Ahrefs is deeper — its keyword data covers more queries, its backlink index is industry-leading, and it has tools for site audits and PPC research. WriteGap is narrower: it finds the keyword gaps between you and your competitors, decides which ones are worth targeting, and writes the article. If you need deep backlink analysis or rank tracking across 10,000 keywords, Ahrefs is the better choice. If you need to publish one well-targeted article per week without an SEO background, WriteGap is faster and 7x cheaper.

Ahrefs has a free tier — does WriteGap?

Ahrefs Webmaster Tools is free for site owners who verify their domain — but it's limited to your own site's data, not competitor analysis. WriteGap doesn't have a free tier, but every plan includes a 7-day money-back guarantee. If the first brief isn't worth €14.99 to you, you get a refund.

Does WriteGap replace the content angle Ahrefs provides?

Largely yes. The key insight Ahrefs gives for content creation — "here are keywords your competitors rank for that you don't" — is exactly what WriteGap delivers automatically every Monday. The difference is WriteGap doesn't stop at the data. It decides which keywords matter most, explains why in plain English, and writes the article.

I use Ahrefs for backlink monitoring. Does WriteGap cover that?

No. WriteGap doesn't track backlinks, domain authority, or link-building opportunities. If backlink monitoring is important to your SEO strategy, you'll need a different tool for that. WriteGap focuses entirely on content: finding the gaps and filling them with articles.

What types of sites benefit most from WriteGap?

SaaS products and software tools — invoice generators, time trackers, form builders, developer tools, productivity apps. The keyword economics for these products (transactional intent, clear competitors, content moats) are where WriteGap's pipeline works best. E-commerce, local businesses, and pure content blogs aren't the target.

A tool that works for founders

Ahrefs costs €99 to show you data.
WriteGap costs €14.99 and writes the article.

From €14.99/month. 2-minute setup. First brief the Monday after you sign up.

7-day money-back guarantee · Cancel anytime