The short answer
Most agencies need one research suite, a crawler and a way to send clients a report. From the published terms, here's where we'd start:
- SE Ranking, if you want a full suite and branded client access at the lowest cost. Its Agency Pack is the cheapest route to that in the comparison below.
- Semrush, if you also do content, local or AI search work for clients and want it under one login. Branded reports are paid per report, so cost rises with your client list.
- Ahrefs, if link work is what clients hire you for. We didn't find white-label reports on its pricing or report pages, so you may want a reporting tool next to it.
- BrightLocal, if your clients are mostly local businesses.
A note on method: this compares vendors' published prices and features, checked in November 2026. It isn't a hands-on test, and we can't tell you whose data is most accurate. Run your own client's domain through a trial before you commit. For more on the main suites, see our pages on SEO tool alternatives.
What 12 clients actually costs
Prices are quoted in units that don't compare, so here's a made-up agency: 12 clients, 100 tracked keywords each (1,200 in total, checked daily where the tool lets you choose), three people using the tools. Rank tracking means recording where a client appears in search results for a phrase. These are the lowest plans we could fit that into, before tax.
| Setup | A month | Per client | What you get, and what's missing |
|---|---|---|---|
| SE Ranking Growth with Agency Pack, billed yearly | $292.20 | $24.35 | Full suite, 30 projects, 3 manager seats, 30 client seats, white label for the platform and reports |
| Semrush Pro+ with 12 Pro Reports, billed yearly | $488.17 | $40.68 | Full suite, 15 websites, white-label reports at $20 each. Extra users start at $45 a month and aren't included in this figure |
| Ahrefs Standard, 2 extra users, Report Builder add-on, billed monthly | $468 | $39 | Deep research, 20 unverified projects, 2,000 keywords tracked weekly, 50 reports. No white label that we could find |
| Nightwatch Professional, billed yearly | €159 | €13.25 | Rank tracking, audits and AI prompts for 25 sites, unlimited seats, white-label reports. Its pricing page doesn't list backlink research |
| Advanced Web Ranking Agency, billed monthly | $279 | $23.25 | Rank tracking only, unlimited users and projects, white-label reports |
| AgencyAnalytics with rank tracker add-on, billed yearly | $365.01 | $30.42 | Client reporting and portal, unlimited staff, 90+ integrations. You'd still need a research tool |
These aren't like for like, and that's the point. The last three cover part of the job, and they'd sit next to a suite or replace part of one. Run the same sum with your real client count, because the order changes: per-report and per-client pricing feel small at 5 clients and don't at 40.
Watch for the limits behind the plan names too. SE Ranking's Core plan has only 10 projects, and its Agency Pack is annual billing only, from $69 a month. Semrush's Pro+ lists 15 websites and 1,500 keywords, and the next plan up is custom-priced, so client number 16 is worth planning for.
Research suites
SE Ranking has the most agency-minded packaging of the three. Agency Pack lets you put the platform on your own domain with your logo and colors, give clients read-only seats and send scheduled branded reports. The Growth plan is $279 a month, or $223.20 billed yearly, and there's a 14-day trial with no card. It suits small and mid-size shops that want clients to log in and see something that looks like yours.
Semrush covers the most ground if you sell more than SEO. Pro+ is $299 a month, or $248.17 billed yearly, and it's pitched at growing teams and agencies. White-label reporting comes through My Reports at $20 per report a month, which includes third-party integrations and a custom domain. It's a good fit if clients already ask for it by name. It's less of a bargain for a shop with many small retainers, since seats and reports add up.
Ahrefs is the one to look at if links are central to your work. Standard is $249 a month with unlimited credits per user, and it adds Portfolios for watching groups of URLs. Its pricing table lists weekly rank updates, so clients who want daily numbers would need a separate tracker. Each extra user is $60 a month on that plan, so it's priced for small teams of specialists. Ahrefs says it never runs discounts or free trials, though paying yearly saves up to 17%, and there's a free account for sites you verify.
Rank trackers, when a suite isn't enough
You might want a separate tracker when clients care about many locations or devices, or when you've outgrown a suite's keyword limit. They charge differently, so read the unit:
- Advanced Web Ranking counts a keyword as one weekly check on one engine and device. Daily tracking uses seven times as many units, and adding mobile doubles it. Pro is $139 a month for 7,000 units, and Agency is $279 for 14,500. White label comes with Agency and up, or with any yearly plan. All plans have unlimited users and projects.
- Nightwatch includes daily tracking in its keyword count and has no per-seat fees. Professional is €159 a month billed yearly for 2,500 keywords across 25 sites, with white-label reports and a 14-day trial with no card. The €79 Starter plan doesn't include white label.
- AccuRanker lists its Professional plan, for freelancers and small agencies, at €224 a month for 2,000 keywords updated daily. It's built around daily rank tracking, with little else to pay for. Its pricing page doesn't mention white label or a trial, so ask first.
Client reporting
Reporting takes hours you'd rather spend on client work, so it's often the first thing worth paying to speed up. If your suite's reports are good enough for your clients, you may not need anything else.
AgencyAnalytics charges $20 per client a month billed yearly, with a white-labeled client portal, unlimited staff accounts and 90+ integrations, including Search Console, Semrush and Ahrefs. Rank tracking is extra at $41.67 per 500 keywords. It makes the most sense if you also report on ads and social, and the per-client price makes it easy to build into a retainer.
DashThis charges by dashboard and data source instead: $44 a month billed yearly for 3 dashboards, or $139 for 10, with white label on every plan. For a handful of clients, that's cheaper than paying per client.
Data Studio, formerly Looker Studio, has a self-service tier at no cost. It's free if someone on your team will build and maintain the templates. Our list of free SEO tools covers the other free pieces.
Audits, local and content
Crawlers. Screaming Frog is £199 per user per year, with discounts from five licenses. Sitebulb Pro adds customized PDF reports and scheduled audits, runs on your desktop up to 500,000 URLs by default, and has a 14-day trial with no card. Its Cloud version starts at £95 a month for bigger jobs and shared crawl data. You probably only need one.
Local. BrightLocal prices by band of locations: Track is $83 a month, or $62 billed yearly, for 6 to 10 locations, and it lists white-labelling among its features, so confirm which plan you'll need. A citation is a listing of a business's name, address and phone number on another site, and Whitespark's Citation Finder finds them, with plans from $33 to $149 a month and white-label export from its agency tier. Local Falcon runs map rank grids, starting at $24.99 a month for 7,500 credits. One credit is one point on the grid, so a 5x5 scan uses 25.
Content. If you write for clients, Frase's Scale plan is aimed at agencies, at $299 a month or $239 billed yearly.
AI answers. Clients are starting to ask about ChatGPT. SE Ranking's plans include 25 prompts daily, Semrush's Starter and up include 50 or more, and Nightwatch Professional has 150. Set expectations when you report this, because answers change from run to run. We go through why in how to rank in ChatGPT.
Tools that do some of the work
A newer group of tools drafts or makes the changes as well as reporting on them. If you're looking at these, ask how changes reach the client's site, who approves them and what happens if the client leaves.
Search Atlas is built with agencies in mind. Its Pro plan is $399 a month with white-label dashboards and reporting, for 4 projects and 5 seats. Its Agency plan, from $999, adds client portals. It's the broader option if you want one branded platform to run through.
Sojig is our product, so weigh this accordingly. Each week it drafts technical fixes, an article and outreach emails, and by default someone approves each one before it goes live. Plans are per website, from $99 a month for up to 100 pages, with no credits and no per-seat fees, and you can invite a client as a viewer so they get the weekly email.
It's the wrong tool for a lot of agency work. It has no backlink database, our feature pages list no white-label option, and paying per site gets expensive across many small accounts. Where it can fit is a client who needs steady work between projects and has budget for its own plan.
Some tools can also bring in work
Tool budgets look different if a vendor sends you clients or commissions. We don't have numbers on how many leads any of these produce, so treat them as cheap experiments.
- Semrush's Lead Generation add-on is $90 a month for a branded profile on its Agency Partners platform.
- SE Ranking's Agency Pack includes Agency Catalog placement and a Lead Generator widget for your own site.
- Ahrefs includes an agency directory listing on its Advanced plan, $449 a month.
We'd like to work with agencies ourselves. If you've got clients who'd suit Sojig, our partner program pays 20% of every payment for as long as they stay, with a 90-day referral window and monthly PayPal payouts. It's free to join, and you don't need to be a customer.
A sensible stack at each size
On your own, with a few clients. One suite on a lower plan, Screaming Frog's free version until a client's site passes 500 URLs, and Search Console access for every client. Data Studio or your suite's report will do until someone asks for more.
A small team with 5 to 25 clients. A suite with branded reporting, a paid crawler license per technical person, and possibly a reporting tool if you also run ads. This is where the per-client sum above starts to matter most.
Mostly local clients. Local tools come first here, and a suite second. The cost of a suite spread across small retainers can be hard to carry, and map rankings and reviews are often what those clients ask about. Our guides for roofers and dentists show the kind of work involved.
More than 25 clients. Ask for volume terms. AgencyAnalytics has discounted pricing at 25+ clients, and Semrush moves to a custom Advanced plan for 40 or more websites. Prices stop being public around here, so get quotes from two or three.
Whatever you pick, test it on one real client for the length of the trial. Pull the report you'd actually send, and time how long it took.