Slide 33 of 39
What Tools Does an SEO Company Typically Use for SEO Analysis?
An SEO company’s analysis stack starts with two free Google tools: Search Console for what Google recorded about your site, and Google Analytics 4 for what visitors did after they arrived. For a small or mid-size client, one paid suite, Semrush or Ahrefs, then covers keywords, competitors and backlinks. Crawlers, rank trackers, behavior tools and content scorers should be added only when the scope needs them.
The Stack and What Each Tool Costs
Prices below are as the vendors’ pricing pages listed them on October 21, 2026. Vendors revise them, so treat them as a reference point for reading a proposal.
| Tool | Job in the stack | Price (as listed October 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Google Search Console | Clicks, impressions and average position on Google Search; crawl, index and manual action information | Free |
| Google Analytics 4 | What visitors do after landing: pages viewed, engagement, key events such as form fills or purchases | Free |
| Screaming Frog SEO Spider | Desktop crawler for broken links, redirects, duplicate titles and other on-site issues | Free up to 500 URLs; $279 per year for a license |
| Sitebulb | Desktop crawler with prioritized audit hints | Lite and Pro plans priced per user |
| Ahrefs | Backlink index, keyword research, site audit, rank tracking | Free plan; Starter $29 a month; Lite $129, Standard $249, Advanced $449 a month; Enterprise $1,499 a month with an annual commitment |
| Semrush SEO Toolkit | Keyword research, competitor research, backlink and site audit modules | Pro $139.95, Guru $249.95, Business $499.95 a month |
| Majestic | Link-only index (Trust Flow, Topical Trust Flow) | $49.99, $99.99 or $399.99 a month |
| SE Ranking | Rank tracking plus research and audit tools | Core $129 a month ($103.20 billed annually); Growth $279 ($223.20) |
| Microsoft Clarity | Session recordings and heatmaps | Free |
| Hotjar (now sold through Contentsquare) | Session recordings, heatmaps, surveys | Free plan listed at 200,000 monthly sessions; Growth from $49 a month ($39 billed yearly) |
| Surfer | Content planning and optimization | Standard $99 and Pro $182 a month, billed yearly |
| Clearscope | Content optimization reports | $129 or $399 a month |
| MarketMuse | Content planning | No price listed; the pricing page offers a demo |
| Rich Results Test and Schema Markup Validator | Structured data checks | Free |
Sources: Screaming Frog pricing, Sitebulb plans, Ahrefs pricing, Semrush SEO Toolkit plans, Majestic plans, SE Ranking pricing, Microsoft Clarity FAQ, Contentsquare pricing, Surfer pricing, Clearscope pricing, MarketMuse pricing.
What Does Search Console Show That Paid Tools Cannot?
Search Console is Google’s own report on your site: the queries that produced impressions and clicks, the average position for each, and, through the URL Inspection tool, crawl, index and serving information taken directly from the Google index. It is also where a manual action would appear. Semrush and Ahrefs build their keyword and backlink numbers from their own databases and crawlers, so their traffic and volume figures come from the vendor’s model of the web.
That is why a credible agency treats Search Console as the baseline and uses third-party numbers for what Google does not show you, such as competitors’ rankings and backlinks. A useful request before signing: owner or full-user access to your Search Console property stays in your name, with the agency added as a user.
Which Paid Suite Does a Small Client Need?
For a small or mid-size engagement, one all-in-one suite can be enough. Ahrefs and Semrush both cover keyword research, competitor research, backlink data, site audits and rank tracking, so paying for both duplicates the core modules. Between tiers of the same tool, the table’s price steps buy higher limits (projects, tracked keywords, crawl credits) and extra features, so the right tier depends on how many sites and keywords the agency will track for you.
If budget is tight, the realistic floor is Search Console, GA4, Clarity and one suite at its entry tier. An agency that insists every small client needs a crawler, a separate rank tracker, a content scorer and a link index on top of that is selling tool count.
When Does a Dedicated Crawler or Rank Tracker Pay Off?
A crawler earns its cost once a site is too large to check by hand. Screaming Frog’s free version stops at 500 URLs; a paid license removes that cap and adds advanced features. Sitebulb covers the same ground with audit hints that rank issues by priority. Either one is a normal part of a technical SEO audit, where the crawl becomes the list of fixes.
A dedicated rank tracker such as SE Ranking makes sense when you need a fixed keyword list checked daily, by device and location, or across many client sites. If the suite you already pay for includes rank tracking with enough keywords, a second tracker is optional.
Does an Agency Need Both Ahrefs and Majestic?
Only for heavy link work. Majestic sells link data alone and publishes its own Trust Flow and Topical Trust Flow scores; Ahrefs runs a separate backlink index as part of a full suite. Because the two crawlers index the web independently, an agency doing a large backlink audit or cleanup project may check both. For a client with modest link building, one index can be enough, and the agency should be able to say which links it built rather than which tool scored them highest. For the link-sourcing side of that work, turn to what link building strategies an SEO company uses.
What Behavior and Content Tools Add
Clarity and Hotjar answer a question rankings cannot: what people do once they land. Microsoft says Clarity is free with no traffic limits and records up to 100,000 sessions per project per day. Hotjar’s pricing page now redirects to Contentsquare, whose free plan lists 200,000 monthly sessions but records replays for only 5% of sessions, up to 10,000, so busy sites on the free plan see a sample.
Content tools such as Surfer, Clearscope and MarketMuse are used to plan topics and check a draft’s coverage for a target keyword before it goes live. A high content score tells you the draft covers the terms the tool expects; it cannot tell you whether the facts are right or whether anyone with experience wrote it. Ask who checks the facts, not just what score the page reached.
In seoClarity’s survey of 722 enterprise SEO professionals (August 15 to September 28, 2023), 66.85% of SEO leads and managers said generative AI’s greatest enhancement to their strategies lies in automating repetitive SEO tasks. That is a 2023 snapshot of enterprise SEO teams.
Schema Checks After FAQ Rich Results Ended
An agency validates structured data with Google’s Rich Results Test and the Schema Markup Validator. Two changes matter when you read an older proposal. By September 2023 Google had stopped showing How-to rich results and removed their documentation, and its Search Central changelog records that FAQ rich results stopped appearing in Google Search on May 7, 2026, with the documentation removed on June 15, 2026. Work billed to “win FAQ dropdowns” no longer has a visible payoff.
Broken markup may cost less than a proposal implies. Under Google’s structured data policies, a structured data manual action removes a page’s eligibility for rich results and does not affect how the page ranks in web search. The cost of bad schema is a lost enhanced listing, such as review stars or product details, not a ranking penalty.
What to Ask an Agency About Its Tools
How agencies turn this data into a keyword plan and a competitor gap list is set out in how an SEO company performs keyword research for clients and how an SEO company performs competitor analysis. Before you sign, ask three things in writing:
- Which of these tools will be used on your account, and what decision each one informs (a crawl that becomes a fix list, a tracker that shows whether priority keywords moved, a heatmap that explains why a page does not convert).
- Whether license costs sit inside the retainer or are billed separately. The table above shows how quickly a full stack adds up.
- Whether you get read-only access to the rank tracker and owner access to Search Console and GA4, so the data stays with you if the engagement ends.
If the agency cannot answer the first question for a tool, ask for that tool’s cost to come out of the price.