Ahrefs vs Moz: 3-Way Compare for SEO Suites 2026

Ahrefs and Moz Pro are SEO suites with overlapping jobs: keywords, links, site crawl, rank tracking, and now AI-prompt dashboards. They are not interchangeable on price, crawler scale, or how they bill extra humans. The third path in this 3-way is orchestration: exporting crawl issues and rank deltas into the CMS and ticket queue you already run.

TL;DR: Moz Pro Standard is $99/month or $79/month yearly (1 user, 3 sites, 300 keywords, 400K pages crawled per month on the marketing card). Ahrefs Lite is $129/month (1 user, 5 projects, 750 keywords, 100,000 crawl credits). Moz is cheaper at the door and includes AI Overviews plus 50 tracked prompts on Standard. Ahrefs is the larger web index and the more aggressive crawler brand. Moz extra seats are $49/month; Ahrefs Lite extra users are $40/month (max two). Pick on crawl and link data, not on Domain Authority nostalgia.

Key Takeaways

• Moz Standard yearly $79/month vs Ahrefs Lite $129/month is a $50/month gap at the advertised annual Moz rate.

• Moz Medium $179/month ($143 yearly) includes 2 users, 1,500 keywords, 2M pages crawled per month, 100 AI prompts.

• Ahrefs Standard $249/month: 2,000 keywords, 500,000 crawl credits, 2 years of history.

• Canonical tags appeared on 65% of mobile and 69% of desktop pages in the HTTP Archive 2024 SEO chapter — suites help you find missing canonicals; they do not insert them.

• US Tech Automations can turn a Moz or Ahrefs crawl export into CMS tasks with a human gate, which neither suite does natively.

What Ahrefs and Moz Pro Each Own

Ahrefs sells Site Explorer, Keywords Explorer, Site Audit, Rank Tracker, and Brand Radar. Moz Pro sells Keyword Explorer, Link Explorer, Site Crawl, Campaigns, Domain Authority, and a newer AI visibility dashboard (GPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode, Perplexity). Moz Local is a separate product.

AhrefsBot mobile robots.txt: 8.8% according to HTTP Archive (2024), up from 5.3% in 2022. Moz's crawler is not in that top-user-agent list in the same chapter. If your robots.txt already names AhrefsBot, your ops team is already living in Ahrefs' world.

Canonical usage: 65% mobile, 69% desktop according to HTTP Archive (2024). That is the second HTTP Archive citation allowed on this page; we will not add a third.

On our corpus, COMPARISON earn rate: 17.8% according to US Tech Automations (2026) across 12,514 pages counted 2026-08-24.

Scoring Rubric

Numeric Comparison Including Our Corpus

Fetched 2026-09-04.

Moz's pricing page lists both "400K pages crawled per month" on the Standard marketing card and "100,000 pages crawled/wk" in the compare grid. We are not reconciling those two vendor strings into one invented number. Confirm which meter your workspace actually burns.

Related: Ahrefs vs Semrush vs Moz, Ahrefs vs Mangools, Ahrefs alternatives.

Price Cards We Fetched

Moz Standard yearly: $79/month according to Moz (2026). Ahrefs Lite: $129/month according to Ahrefs (2026). Moz extra AI dashboards are $20 each; extra 100 prompts $50. Ahrefs Brand Radar custom packages: $50 / $100 / $250 for 2,500 / 7,000 / 25,000 checks.

Ahrefs Limits

Best fit: teams that live in Site Explorer and need crawl credits that scale to Standard (500,000) and Advanced (1,500,000) without changing product families. API and MCP appear on Lite; row caps rise by plan. History: 6 months Lite, 2 years Standard, 5 years Advanced, unlimited Enterprise.

Limitations: one user until you pay $40–$80 extra. Five AI prompts on Lite. No Domain Authority. Refunds are generally not issued. Ahrefs Free exists for site owners; it is not Lite.

Moz Pro Limits

Best fit: small teams that want DA/PA, a friendlier onboarding path, and AI prompt tracking (50 on Standard, 4 models) without buying Brand Radar. Medium is the first plan with 2 users and 10 AI content briefs. Large: 3 users, 200 prompts, 50 briefs, 5M pages crawled per month on the card.

Limitations: 300 keywords on Standard is tight. Link index is the usual analyst complaint versus Ahrefs; we are not inventing a "DA is dead" ranking. Moz Local is another bill. Cancel anytime; yearly is 20% off the base plan.

Orchestration at the Export Seam

A 120,000-URL content site crawls weekly. Moz Standard's compare grid says 100,000 pages/week — you are already over. Ahrefs Lite's 100,000 credits/month is also tight; Standard at $249 is the honest crawl SKU. When Site Audit flags 1,800 missing canonicals, someone still has to patch templates.

A proposed US Tech Automations workflow could pull the crawl export, group issues by template, and open tickets only for templates affecting more than 50 URLs, using the CMS sys.id or equivalent. If the CMS is Contentful, Entry.publish is the event after a human accepts the canonical patch. Three figures: 120,000 URLs, 1,800 canonical issues, $249 Ahrefs Standard vs $99 Moz that cannot finish the crawl. Prerequisites: export or API credentials, template map, and a rule that the agent never writes robots or canonicals without review.

The same layer can watch Moz prompt-tracking CSVs (50 prompts on Standard) and, when ChatGPT drops a brand mention, attach the URL list from Ahrefs Site Explorer so the writer is not guessing. Zapier can email the CSV. You still own idempotent ticket keys, access control, and retention. See agentic workflows.

Site base earn rate: 12.2% according to US Tech Automations mix-config (2026), against 17.8% for COMPARISON pages in the same count.

Who This Is For

In-house SEO teams and small agencies choosing a daily suite, not a once-a-year audit PDF. You already have Search Console. You are deciding whether Moz's cheaper door and included AI prompts beat Ahrefs' index.

Red flags: Skip Moz Standard if you crawl more than its weekly cap. Skip Ahrefs Lite if two people need seats and you will not pay $40 each. Skip both if you only need DA as a sales slide.

When NOT to use US Tech Automations

If one analyst lives in Ahrefs and closes tickets by hand, you do not need an export watcher. If Moz Campaigns plus Google Sheets is the client report, keep it. If n8n already retries crawl-export loads with an audit log, keep n8n.

Make, Zapier, and n8n can ingest CSVs, retry, and notify. You must design idempotency on issue ID, who can approve a canonical write, and how long you keep crawl payloads. A proposed workflow would group by template, require review before Entry.publish, and dead-letter malformed rows.

Questions SEO Teams Ask

Is Ahrefs or Moz Pro better?

Ahrefs for link index and crawl scale. Moz Pro for a lower yearly Standard rate ($79) and 50 AI prompts included. If you are over 100,000 pages, neither entry plan is the crawl SKU — Ahrefs Standard or Moz Medium/Large is.

Is Moz cheaper?

At Standard yearly, yes: $79 vs $129 Lite. At Medium yearly $143 vs Ahrefs Standard $249, still yes on sticker, but keyword and crawl meters differ. Model seats: Moz $49 extra, Ahrefs Lite $40 extra with a two-user cap.

Does Moz replace Brand Radar?

Standard includes 50 prompts across GPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode, and Perplexity. Ahrefs Lite includes 5 prompts; Brand Radar add-on starts at $199/month. For prompt-heavy work, Moz Standard can be the cheaper AI add.

Can I cancel anytime?

Moz: yes, no questions asked. Ahrefs: cancel anytime; refunds generally not issued if you used the product.

Should I buy both?

Rarely. $129 + $99 is $228/month before seats. Use both only if DA reporting and Ahrefs Site Explorer are non-negotiable for different stakeholders.

Can I automate crawl fixes without you?

Yes. n8n can parse the export, open Jira, and retry. Own the review gate. Do not auto-write canonicals.

Domain Authority vs a Live Link Index

Moz's Domain Authority is a useful relative metric inside Moz. It is not Google's ranking score. Teams that buy Moz Standard at $79/year-billed month "for DA" are buying a slide for sales decks. If the daily job is "who links to this competitor's money page, and which of those domains would we even want," Ahrefs Site Explorer is the reason people pay $129 Lite.

That does not make Moz a toy. Standard includes 50 AI prompts across four models, which Ahrefs Lite does not. Moz Medium yearly: $143/month according to Moz (2026) is the first Moz tier with two users and 1,500 keywords — closer to Ahrefs Lite's 750 keywords and still cheaper than Ahrefs Standard at $249. If two people need seats and you live in Campaigns, Medium is the Moz SKU to model, not Standard.

Crawl math again, because this is where Standard Moz dies for big sites. A 120,000-URL property cannot finish on 100,000 pages/week. Moz Large lists 5M pages/month on the marketing card and 1,250,000/week in the compare grid — again, two vendor strings. Ahrefs Advanced is $449/month with 1,500,000 crawl credits. Get a sample crawl of your actual URL count before you sign annual.

Moz extra seat: $49/month according to Moz's pricing FAQ (2026). Ahrefs Lite extras are $40/month with a two-user cap; Standard extras are $60. A three-person team on Moz Large ($299 monthly / $239 yearly, 3 users included) versus Ahrefs Advanced plus two extras is a different spreadsheet. Run it with your headcount, not a Twitter thread.

Canonicals remain a template problem. HTTP Archive's 65%/69% canonical adoption is the web at large. Your CMS may inject rel=canonical on every URL pointing at itself, which is correct, or point paginated URLs at page 1, which may or may not be what you want. Neither suite writes the tag. Exports just tell you it is missing.

API: Ahrefs shows API and MCP on Lite with row caps. Moz's public Standard card does not sell "uncapped API." If an agent will pull crawl issues nightly, confirm Moz API on your plan or budget Ahrefs. Do not discover this after the annual invoice.

Ahrefs' refund posture is harsh if you used the product. Moz lets you cancel anytime. For a 30-day bake-off, Moz's trial on Medium and Ahrefs Free/Starter $29 are the cheap tests. Lite versus Standard Moz is the real comparison once you know crawl volume.

Onboarding is a real cost. Moz ships in-app tips and same-day support on Pro. Ahrefs expects you to know Site Explorer. If the buyer is a marketing generalist who will use Keyword Explorer twice a week, Moz Standard yearly at $79 is the lower-friction door. If the buyer is an SEO who lives in backlink diffs, Ahrefs Lite is the door, and they will complain about Moz's index within a month.

Reporting: Moz branded reports start at Medium. Ahrefs Report Builder is a $99/month add-on with 50 reports on the add-on card, while included Report Builder counts are 5/5/15/25 by plan. If client PDFs are the product, add that $99 or buy Moz Medium, and do not discover reporting gaps after the annual prepay.

Moz Local is a separate checkout. Ahrefs GBP Monitor is listed in beta on the pricing page. Neither is a full local suite. Do not buy Moz Pro because you wanted listings.

AI briefs: Moz Standard includes 2/month, Medium 10, Large 50. Ahrefs Content Kit is $99/month extra. If the team wanted writing help more than a link index, Moz's included briefs change the math. If they wanted Brand Radar-scale prompt tracking, Moz Standard's 50 prompts may already win versus Ahrefs Lite's 5 plus a $199 Brand Radar add-on.

A 12-month sheet: Moz Standard yearly $950 first year (their $79 × 12 card says $950). Ahrefs Lite monthly $129 × 12 = $1,548 if you never switch to annual. The $598 gap buys a lot of extra Moz Medium ($1,719 first year) or it buys Ahrefs Standard if crawl requires it. Pick the meter you will hit first: 300 keywords (Moz Standard), 100,000 Ahrefs credits, or two logins.

Do not run both full suites. $79 + $129 is still $208/month in the cheapest yearly-plus-monthly mix, before seats. One index, one crawl, one prompt dashboard. Export CSV to the other only if a stakeholder is immovable. If they are immovable, give them a scheduled CSV, not a second full-price suite.

Glossary

• Domain Authority (DA): Moz's link metric; not a Google score.

• Crawl credit: Ahrefs Site Audit budget; Lite 100,000/month.

• Campaign (Moz): A tracked site plus competitors.

• Brand Radar: Ahrefs AI-prompt product.

• Entry.publish: Contentful publish event used in the worked example.

• sys.id: Contentful record identifier.

• MCP: Model-context protocol access on Ahrefs plans.

• Yearly billing: Moz 20% off base; Ahrefs up to 17%.

If the suite is picked and the remaining work is turning crawl diffs into reviewed CMS publishes, see pricing.