SEO Software for Consultancies

Overview

A consultancy buys access, and access is priced separately on every platform in this set. That is the difference between buying for one consultant and buying for a firm. The plan price buys capacity in projects or tracked sites. The people who log in, the clients who may need visibility of the work, and the reports that carry your brand on them are priced as seats and add-ons, and those figures rarely appear in a headline comparison.

This guide covers that layer. It does not repeat the plan-by-plan pricing on our best SEO software for consultants page, which is written for one consultant choosing a platform, and it does not repeat the one-seat arithmetic in the freelancer guide. It answers the questions a firm with two or more people asks after the platform has been shortlisted: who can sign in, who can be given a view, what white label costs, and what happens when a client leaves.

Five platforms publish enough to compare. SE Ranking, Semrush, Moz Pro, Ahrefs and Surfer all publish seat rules and add-on prices on their own pricing pages, and all five were read on 29 October 2026. Where a platform does not publish white label pricing, this page says so. Where capacity is stated in different units, such as projects against tracked sites, the units are kept apart rather than converted.

Three access models exist, and they are not interchangeable. Manager seats are full working logins for your own team. Client seats are logins for clients, usually read-only or limited. Guest links are shared views that need no account at all. The right model depends on whether clients expect to log in themselves.

How we priced this

Every figure comes from the vendor's own pricing page on 29 October 2026, in the US dollar amounts displayed there. Add-on prices are stated per month and labelled with the billing terms the vendor publishes, because several add-ons are available on annual billing only.

Seats are compared as published. Where a vendor sells seats individually, the per-seat price is quoted with the cap that plan applies. Where a vendor includes seats, the included number is quoted. Where a vendor lists white label only on a custom-priced tier, that is said rather than estimated.

No capacity claims are converted. A project on one platform is not treated as equivalent to a tracked site on another, and AI prompt allowances are kept separate from keyword allowances.

No demand or difficulty claims are made. This page states no search volumes, difficulty scores, ranking chances or revenue figures.

The three ways a client can see the work

Manager seats are the cost most consultancies underestimate. Every Ahrefs plan from Lite to Advanced includes exactly one user, so a two-person firm pays $40 per month more on Lite, $60 on Standard or $80 on Advanced, and each tier caps how many seats may be added at 2, 5 and 10 respectively. Moz applies a flat $49 per month per seat on any plan level, so the price of a colleague does not fall as the plan grows. Semrush prices additional users from $45 per month. SE Ranking starts extra manager seats at $16 per month on both Core and Growth, which is the lowest published seat price in this set by a wide margin.

Client seats are a different purchase from manager seats. They are usually bundled rather than sold singly. SE Ranking's Agency Pack add-on lists 30 client seats alongside white label for the platform and reporting, unlimited scheduled reporting and AI summaries, Agency Catalog placement and a Lead Generator. On the other platforms in this set, no separately priced client seat product is published.

Guest links solve the client who wants to look but not work. SE Ranking lists guest links for easy collaboration as a Growth feature, which means a client can be given a view of the data without consuming a paid seat. That is the cheapest route to client visibility here, and it requires the higher of the two SE Ranking plans.

Client seats and white label reporting: what each costs

White label is the single most requested consultancy feature and the hardest to price from a plan table, because three of the five platforms do not sell it as a line item at all.

The cheapest white label route is Semrush at $20 per month, and the cheapest one that includes client seats is SE Ranking at $69 per month on annual terms. The two are not alternatives for the same buyer. Semrush's Pro Report puts your brand on a report and adds 20 or more external integrations with scheduled delivery. SE Ranking's Agency Pack adds 30 client seats and unlimited scheduled reporting on top of white label, which is what a firm needs when clients expect their own login rather than a PDF.

Two of the three cheapest-looking routes carry conditions. SE Ranking's Agency Pack is available on annual billing only, so a monthly customer cannot buy it without moving the account to annual terms. Surfer's white label sits inside an Enterprise tier whose price is not published, so no figure can be compared.

Ahrefs does not list white label on its pricing page. It lists an agency directory listing as an Advanced feature, and sells Report Builder separately at $99 per month with 50 reports, 500 widgets and scheduling. A consultancy needing branded client reporting on Ahrefs has to confirm the position with the vendor rather than read it from a price list.

Manager seats, plan by plan

Moz is the only platform here that sells a seat at a flat price regardless of tier, which makes it predictable for a growing firm and expensive at the entry level: a second user on Moz Pro Standard costs $49 per month on a $79 per month plan.

Ahrefs makes the seat a reason to upgrade. The cap, not the price, decides. A four-person firm cannot add three seats to Lite, because Lite permits two additional users. It has to move to Standard at $249 per month and then pay $60 per month for each extra user.

Surfer prices seats into the plan rather than beside it. Discovery includes one team seat, Standard three, Pro five and Peace of Mind ten. A firm that needs five people in the tool looks at Pro at $182 per month billed yearly rather than at Standard plus two seat purchases.

SE Ranking is the only platform here where a second manager costs less than $20 per month. On Core at $103.20 per month annually, adding one manager seat takes the plan to roughly $119.20 per month on the same billing basis, which is still below the entry price of every other all-in-one platform in this set.

Getting a client into the tool, and out of it again

Onboarding starts with project ownership. Ahrefs separates non-verified projects, which are capped, from verified projects, which are unlimited on every full plan. A consultancy that verifies the domains it works on is not capped in the way an agency tracking competitor domains is. That distinction is worth understanding before choosing a tier.

Client visibility should be decided before you buy, not after. If clients log in, the cost is a client seat or a shared login. SE Ranking states that only one active session is allowed at a time and that a second sign-in prompts a session handoff, and it recommends adding seats or using guest links instead of sharing credentials. Semrush publishes additional users from $45 per month. Buying the client seat route up front is cheaper than discovering it three months in.

Reports are the visible output of the whole arrangement. White label is what stops a client seeing another vendor's branding on your work. Semrush's Base Report at $10 per month carries data from 20 or more tools with Google Analytics and Search Console integrations, scheduled delivery and PDF export, while the Pro Report at $20 per month adds branding, white-labeling, 20 or more external integrations and AI-generated summaries. If the report is client-facing, the $20 tier is the one that matters.

Offboarding is where capacity returns. A project or tracked site is released when a client leaves, and every platform here prices by project or site, so a client book that turns over is limited by its peak rather than its average. Verifying ownership, as Ahrefs allows without cap, is the structure that handles turnover best on the lower tiers.

SEO software for consultancies compared

Free plans and trials for a consultancy

SE Ranking has the trial that fits a firm. Fourteen days with no credit card, up to 10 projects, 750 tracked keywords per day, 20 AI prompts per day and AI competitive research for up to 3 domains with unlimited reports. Ten projects is enough to load a real client book and test the reporting workflow, which is the point of a trial for a consultancy.

Semrush has the only permanent free plan. The Free tier costs $0 with no credit card and lists one demo project and 10 reports per day across all vital tools, plus Help Center and Basic Onboarding and AI Visibility features. Its paid tiers carry a seven day trial. A firm evaluating Semrush can keep the free tier indefinitely and use it to sample the data before committing.

Ahrefs has a permanent free tier and no trial. Ahrefs Free is listed at $0 as limited access to Site Explorer and Site Audit, and the vendor states that it never runs discounts, recommending the free tier to website owners instead. There is no free trial on the paid plans.

Moz has the broadest free tooling. Domain Analysis, Keyword Explorer, Link Explorer, Competitive Research and MozBar are all free, and a free Moz Community account adds limited MozBar, Keyword Explorer and Link Explorer access. The free trial is on Medium rather than on the cheaper tiers.

Surfer publishes no free plan. Its pricing page lists none, and its "Start for Free" buttons lead to a billing checkout.

The billing traps for a consultancy

Annual-only add-ons change the billing basis of the whole account. SE Ranking's Agency Pack and API add-ons are priced on annual billing only, and the standalone API plan starts at $179 per month on annual terms. A firm that needs white label or API access on a monthly plan cannot buy just the add-on.

Annual plans are paid upfront. SE Ranking states that annual plans are billed upfront to provide the discounted rate, and that a quarterly schedule is possible only by arrangement with sales against an annual commitment. Surfer states that annual plans are charged for the entire year.

Seat charges can be automatic. Ahrefs states that additional users are automatically charged on a pay-as-you-go basis if they are not prepaid, and that pay-as-you-go credits are charged when consumption exceeds the plan limits. Moz prices seats at $49 per month per seat on any plan level.

Cancellation terms differ sharply. Moz states that you may cancel or change plans at any time, with no questions asked. SE Ranking states that payments are non-refundable except where the service was not delivered as promised. Ahrefs states that it does not issue refunds in general and that a monthly subscriber may request one only if the account is unused. Surfer automatically renews and requires auto-renewal to be switched off in the billing page. Semrush's refund FAQ sits in a collapsed section of its pricing page and did not render when we read it on 29 October 2026, so no refund policy is quoted for Semrush here.

Add-on renewals need the same attention as the plan. SE Ranking's Growth tier ties historical data to the project lifetime, and Surfer states that credits reset yearly or after a plan change, so an upgrade or downgrade mid-year restarts the allowance.

Who should not buy this

A single consultant with one seat. The access layer in this guide is mostly irrelevant to a one-person practice, and the best SEO software for consultants page prices that decision instead.

A freelancer whose clients never log in. Guest links and white label are wasted on a client who receives a spreadsheet. The freelancer guide covers the cheaper shape of that buying decision.

A firm buying white label before it has a client-facing reporting habit. The add-on is $20 to $69 per month depending on the route, and it buys branding rather than capability.

A firm that needs capacity more than access. If the constraint is tracked keywords, crawl volume or history depth rather than seats, the affordable SEO tools comparison and the SEO software cost guide set the plan decision first.

Anyone whose real problem is the add-on bill. Our SEO tool hidden fees guide covers credits, seats, projects and annual billing in the detail those line items deserve.

Our verdict

SE Ranking Growth with the Agency Pack is the most complete consultancy bundle here, and the least expensive on seats. Growth costs $223.20 per month billed annually for 30 projects and 3 manager seats, extra manager seats start at $16 per month, and the Agency Pack adds 30 client seats with white label for the platform and reporting on annual terms. For a firm whose clients expect their own login, no other platform in this set publishes an equivalent combination.

Semrush is the cheaper route when the client only wants a report. The Pro Report add-on costs $20 per month and includes branding, white-labeling, 20 or more external integrations and AI summaries. Additional users start at $45 per month, which is more than double SE Ranking's seat price, so the saving on white label is easily lost on seats.

Moz Pro is the most predictable place to add a colleague. A flat $49 per month per seat on any plan level, with two users included on Medium at $143 per month yearly and three on Large at $239 per month yearly. It is also the most expensive seat in this set as a proportion of the plan price.

Ahrefs is the platform to buy for research depth, not for client-facing output. It is the only platform here whose lower tiers leave the seat cap as the reason to upgrade, and its pricing page does not list white label. Its verified-project structure is the most generous for a firm with turnover.

Surfer is the content-production option. Team seats scale from one to ten inside the plan price and external collaboration links support client review, but white label is an Enterprise feature and no price is published for it.

One line summarises the buying decision. If clients log in, the seat and client-seat prices decide the platform. If clients only receive a report, the white label add-on price decides it, and the cheaper seat price becomes a secondary advantage.

Frequently asked questions