Ahrefs is a software company that develops online SEO tools and free educational materials for marketing professionals.Ahrefs all-in-one SEO toolset can help you with competitor, keyword, and content research, link building, website audit, rank tracking and mentions monitoring.Ahrefs provides maximum data and accuracy thanks to its database of 8 billion keywords and 421 billion indexed pages.
I've worked with several SEO tools, and this is by far the worst. The UX is like something from 20 years ago. It's incredibly confusing, and the fact that they use non-standard language for core services doesn't help. The documentation and their AI bot are worthless. I had the AI bot try to tell me I needed to upgrade my credits to use a tool I was having trouble with, in spite of having 350 credits in my account. This company is VERY shady. SEMRush a superior alternative.
I am a customer since February 2018 (invoice
AHR180216-4025-38586).
I used to love the product, but in the last 2 years or so they have changed so much that I am forced to look for an alternative.
It looks like their only goal is to extract as much LTV from customers as possible. From a flat fee model they changed the approach to basically pay add-ons for everything.
Taking into consideration how their model works nowadays, I wouldn't be surprised if you would have to buy an add-on just to be able to login into your account.
PS: The only reason I leave a 2 star review instead of 1 is because support team at least do a great job, taking into consideration that they can't do much to solve Ahrefs's greed (Kudos to Quinn, Helen and Lucy).
It is a good product. They implement a lot of updates, also in the area of AI search results, etc.
What I find to be a major downside is that they have a lot of outages. Sometimes the keyword explorer is unavailable, and other times a different tool of theirs doesn’t work. That’s a shame.
Also, the keyword difficulty isn’t completely accurate.
Their credit system is a total scam, the worst subscription type i ever saw anywhere. Every single action/click costs you a credit on an already expensive plan, you can't do anything without draining your account in a couple of days. Absolute and straightforward rip off, total joke. How can you possibly humiliate your clients more?
Worst service; UberSuggest is much, much cheaper and better than it, really.
I used both, Ubersuggest in the beginning, then tried Ahrefs, and then I regretted stopping the subscription for Ubersuggest.
I've been using Ahrefs since the first week they introduced their demo on BlackhatWorld over a decade ago, but I finally decided to check out what the competition is doing, especially now that they have this credits system with an already expensive plan. And this decision didn't come lightly, but rather after several ping pongs with support and getting tired of their elitist attitude.
To my surprise, the competition out there doesn't only compete with the tool set, but also with pricing. There are tools that have daily keyword tracking for a fraction of the price, and technical SEO tools that can do the job much faster, much better, for the same price.
Now after almost 6 months of testing I will slowly plan my way out, and I'm writing this review to make Ahrefs aware of the ongoing issues. Listen to your pro users, we've been with you from the start.
Their Site Audit tool doesn't work half the time, gives inconsistent reports and results. Their team is absolutely unhelpful with a highly elitist attitude as if they are doing me a favor my letting me use their platform. For the price they charge you would think that they would provide a more robust solution as well as support. Site Audit isn't made well enough to even scan a shopify site properly, who would have that in 2025 AHREFs doesn't give two hoots about the largest ecommerce solution provider out there.
Their Site Audit tool doesn't work half the time, gives inconsistent reports and results. Their team is absolutely unhelpful with a highly elitist attitude as if they are doing me a favor my letting me use their platform. For the price they charge you would think that they would provide a more robust solution as well as support. Site Audit isn't made well enough to even scan a shopify site properly, who would have that in 2025 AHREFs doesn't give two hoots about the largest ecommerce solution provider out there.
Ahrefs 回复2025-05-28
Hi Ankush,
Thanks for your feedback. We’re sorry to hear that your experience with Site Audit and our support team didn’t meet your expectations.
To clarify, the issues you experienced with scanning your Shopify site were related to JavaScript rendering not being enabled in your project settings, as mentioned by my colleague in support. Once our support team identified this, they activated JavaScript rendering and re-ran the audit, which resolved the problem.
We also followed up with an offer of either two weeks of free access or a reset of your Site Audit credits as a gesture of goodwill. We haven’t yet heard back, but we’re still happy to apply either option if you’d like to move forward.
Our support team is here to help, and we always aim to provide solutions with professionalism and respect. If you’d like to continue the conversation or need assistance with anything else, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
—The Ahrefs Team
We are paying more than $2,000 for this service, recently we contacted the customer support to ask about a recent crawl which results seems to be a bug from them. The answer from their support are amazingly wrong, they seem to have 0 knowledge about SEO or any technical knowledge, just repeating the message they see in the ahref report without doing any proper thinking or research, and making obvious mistakes and wrong recommandations. If this is what we get for what we pay, then we will not renew.
Ahrefs 回复2025-05-28
Hi Aurele,
Thanks for your feedback, and we’re sorry to hear you were disappointed with the support experience.
We’ve reviewed your recent interactions and can confirm our team provided accurate guidance based on your crawl configuration and how our Site Audit tool checks hreflang implementation. That said, we understand that technical limitations, especially around crawl depth and language page coverage, can be frustrating, and we always aim to explain those clearly and constructively.
If there’s anything still unresolved or unclear, we’d be happy to continue the conversation and make sure everything is addressed properly. Please feel free to follow up through your existing support thread, and we’ll be glad to assist further.
—The Ahrefs Team
Good tool but please lower the prices, its very expensive.
Ahrefs 回复2025-05-28
Hi Shabir,
Thanks for the honest feedback! We’re glad to hear you find the tool useful.
We understand that Ahrefs may feel expensive compared to some alternatives, but our pricing reflects the scale of the data we provide, the infrastructure behind it, and the ongoing improvements we make across the platform. That said, we’re always listening, and feedback like yours plays a role in how we shape future plans and offerings.
Thanks again for taking the time to share your thoughts.
—The Ahrefs Team
I have been using Ahrefs for years because it is a useful tool for researching keywords.
However, I think Ahrefs is pressured to add more functionality that only complicates the app and potentially frustrates users.
Ahrefs traffic reporting is notoriously inaccurate, and I appreciate that Ahrefs is 100% transparent about the fact that the traffic results presented are estimated (based on ranking keywords).
Too many users continue using Ahrefs traffic reports as a benchmark, which is wrong.
Ahrefs should consider removing traffic statistics because the traffic "estimates" are entirely different (wrong) from Google Analytics.
I recommend that Ahrefs focus on providing data that they know is accurate.
Ahrefs 回复2025-05-28
Hi there,
Thanks so much for being a long-time user and for sharing such thoughtful feedback!
You’re absolutely right: our traffic estimates are based on keyword rankings and CTR models, and we’re always transparent about their limitations. They’re intended to provide directional insights for competitor research and SEO strategy when first-party data isn’t available.
We also hear your concerns about product complexity. Striking the right balance between adding new features and keeping the experience focused is something we take seriously, and feedback like yours plays a big role in shaping how we evolve.
Thanks again for taking the time to share your thoughts. We really appreciate it!
—The Ahrefs Team
Account Got Blocked Without Warning – No Real Answers
I’d been using my Ahrefs account for about two months, then it got blocked. They did refund me, which I appreciate, since it happened just two days after I renewed my subscription. But still, there was no warning, no heads-up, nothing. And just like that, I lost all my tracking data.
So I reached out to support to figure out what happened, but all I got was a vague explanation about their abuse policy. No real answers.
Then I tried again. I created a brand-new account on April 8th, hoping to start fresh. This time, I added two extra user seats, just in case the issue was related to multiple users on one account. That’s my best guess as to why the first one got blocked—and honestly, that’s fair. But guess what? That account got blocked too, on April 10th. Same story, same runaround.
I really think there might be a misunderstanding here—I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on. But their response was basically:
"We will not be providing this detail to you as we reserve the right to withhold additional details..." followed by a link to their Terms.
Honestly, that’s super frustrating. If something’s wrong, just tell me what it is so I can fix it.
Ahrefs 回复2025-04-14
Hi Judy,
Thank you for taking the time to share your experience. I’m genuinely sorry to hear how frustrating this situation has been for you.
We understand how disruptive it is to lose access to your account and data without prior warning, especially when you’re trying to understand what went wrong and how to avoid it in the future.
Whenever accounts are blocked, it’s never done lightly. These actions are only taken after a thorough review in accordance with our Terms of Service and internal abuse prevention policies. While I understand the desire for more detailed information, we’re not always able to disclose specifics, especially when our internal systems flag potentially risky patterns.
We truly regret that this has caused inconvenience, especially after your efforts to start fresh. I do appreciate your professionalism throughout, and I’m sorry we couldn’t find a better resolution here.
If you have further questions, we’re still here to help as much as possible within our guidelines.
I subscribed to their starter plan, worse thing is they won't tell you what credit I've consumed i.e. you have no idea when it will run out. Very scummy behavior.
Edit: The icon is still hidden. It takes no effort to make it visible. Very scummy.
Ahrefs 回复2025-03-25
Hi Sid,
We're very sorry to hear that the Starter plan did not meet your expectations.
While you're correct that we do not provide in-depth credit logs for each action, we do make it easy for users on credit-based plans to monitor their usage. You can always check your credit usage in the upper right-hand corner of the interface or in your account settings. This should allow you to see both credits consumed and credits remanining. Neither of these are hidden from users.
In addition, we have created several comprehensive help guides to assist users in understanding how credit-based plans work and which actions consume credits.
If you need further clarficiation on any of these points, please reach out to customer support.
Ahrefs is great for niche research and for domain rating, but when it comes to traffic and keyword research, the estimates can be quite off, making the process frustrating and confusing. Plus, their pricing is pretty high for what they offer, and I’m not sure it’s really worth it.
Ahrefs 回复2025-03-25
Hi Abdul,
Thanks for taking the time to leave a review. When you notice estimates are off, please don't hesitate to contact customer support. They'll let our team know so it can be investigated.
Traffic estimates are insanely wrong for website research. By insanely wrong I mean it's estimating 8k traffic a month for sites getting 150k. That's almost 20 times off lol.
Don't waste your money on this.
Ahrefs 回复2025-03-25
Hi Scott,
Please note that we only provide estimates for organic traffic. We do regularly see complaints from websites that have significant paid, social, or direct traffic who misunderstand that we only report organic traffic.
If you are speaking of organic traffic and feel our estimates are off, please contact customer support with specific examples so that we can take a look.
Ahrefs is my favorite SEO tool. But its price is so high. Not possible to renew every month. You guys add a free version with limited features. So everyone benefits from that.
Ahrefs 回复2025-03-25
Hi Aninda,
Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a review. We completely understand that sometimes you have to take a break, and we're thrilled to hear that our free tier helps out when that happens.
Thanks for being one of our valued customers!
The best SEO tool out there .. no matter, most accurate data .. yet, they keep growing the prices and limit the available features based on the subscription plans .. I'd say not fair enough, as anyways they have a huge user list, so this simply reduces it.
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