On a Sunday in February, while I was eating toast over the sink, the renewal email from Ahrefs landed. The amount was $129. For a while I just looked at the number, and then at my two sites’ earnings for January: $412.
That ratio bothered me.
I run a pair of small review sites about camping stoves and trail shoes, by myself, from a spare bedroom in Tacoma. Every month since 2018 I’ve paid for a backlink tool, and not once did I ask myself if I had to. This spring I finally tested it on my own wallet, with two months on a cheaper tool, a month on nothing at all, and an honest look afterwards at what I missed.
What I Need One Of These For
I need three things. Who links to me, who links to the sites beating me, and which of my links quietly died last week.
The list ends there, though it took me years to admit that. My friend Dee sold a much bigger site than mine in 2023, and she put it better than I can. “You’re not buying data,” she said. “You’re buying back the hour you’d spend guessing.”
Remember that line. I ended up judging every tool by it.
March And April On Majestic
In March I went to Majestic Lite, which is $49.99 a month and less than half what I’d been paying.
What I liked: Trust Flow and Citation Flow. Within a week, those two side-by-side numbers let me glance at a site and tell worthwhile links from merely plentiful ones. I haven’t used anything quicker for sizing up a prospect.
The part I didn’t like: Lite only gives you the Fresh Index. For the Historic Index, the one going back years, you need the Pro plan at $99.99. At that price the savings start to shrink. I found the reports harder to read as well. Maybe that’s habit. Six years of staring at one layout will do that, and I exported to a spreadsheet more than I’d have liked.
Links are all it does. Some people like it for exactly that.
One Month Without Paying
In May I paid for nothing. Google Search Console gives you a Links report for your own site. Ahrefs also keeps a free tier for sites you’ve verified, capped at roughly a thousand backlinks on screen.
Honestly, for my own two sites that was enough. New links arriving, old ones dropping: I could see both.
Then I got passed by a competitor for a stove roundup I’d held for two years, with no way to see why. Free tools show you your own house. They don’t let you look over the fence.
In June I Went Back To Ahrefs
I paid the $129 again. (I looked hard at the $29 Starter plan. Its limits were too tight for the digging I had in mind.)
Within an evening I had a list of 23 sites that linked to two of my competitors and not to me. I emailed nine of them, and three added a link. As far as I can tell, one of those was why I’d been passed in May, though with rankings I’ll never be sure about cause and effect.
I could probably have built that list in Majestic, with more patience than I’ve got.
Where Semrush Fits
I didn’t test it this year, so I won’t pretend. Plans start at $139 a month now, and you’re paying for a lot besides links: keyword research, site audits, rank tracking. Through most of 2021 I used it, and I liked it for everything except deep link work. It might be the smarter buy if links are a small part of your week. I can’t fairly rank it on memory alone.
So Which Is Best?
Ahrefs, still. If you need to study other people’s links on a regular basis, it’s the best backlink analytics tool I’ve used, and my cheaper spring didn’t change my mind.
Something else did change. I’d assumed I needed it twelve months a year. I don’t. My link building happens in bursts, maybe three months out of twelve. If I pay only for those months it’s $387 a year. All year, it’s $1,548.
So I cancelled again in July. Search Console covers the quiet months, and I’ve got a reminder set for September.
The toast, you can skip.