NOXEL SEO vs Ahrefs
Last checked: . Prices and features change; the sources are listed at the bottom.
The short answer. Pick Ahrefs if backlink data, keyword research and competitor analysis are your daily work. Pick NOXEL SEO if you want one scan that tells you whether Google and AI engines can reach, read and cite your site, with each fix explained in plain language, starting free.
Side by side
| NOXEL SEO | Ahrefs | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price (monthly billing) | Free (Bronze). Paid from $19 CAD a month | Lite at $129 USD a month |
| Free option | Bronze plan: 3 full scans a day, no card | Ahrefs Webmaster Tools: limited Site Explorer and Site Audit for sites you own |
| AI search features | AEO and GEO readiness scores, live checks of about 20 AI crawlers, schema and content checks for AI answers | Brand Radar: a few tracked AI prompts in paid plans (5 on Lite); Brand Radar AI add-on from $199 USD a month per AI index |
| What the AI side measures | Whether your own pages are ready to be found and cited | Whether and how brands are mentioned in AI answers |
| Site audit | Yes: technical SEO, Core Web Vitals, schema, accessibility | Yes: Site Audit |
| Backlink and keyword data | No | Yes, one of the largest backlink indexes |
| Refunds | Full refund within 14 days on any paid plan | Generally no refunds, per its pricing FAQ |
Ahrefs details come from its own pricing and help pages, checked on the date above. NOXEL SEO prices are in Canadian dollars; Ahrefs prices are in US dollars.
How is NOXEL SEO different from Ahrefs?
Ahrefs is a full SEO suite. Its AI search tools tell you whether your brand shows up in AI answers for the prompts you choose to track. That is useful once you know your site can be read by those engines.
NOXEL SEO looks at the step before that: your site itself. One scan checks the technical SEO basics, Core Web Vitals and schema, then checks whether AI crawlers such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot can actually reach your pages and whether the content is structured so an answer engine can quote it. You get six scores (SEO, AEO, GEO, SXO, E-E-A-T and Trust) and a list of fixes in priority order, each explained in plain language by the NOXEL Copilot.
Many site owners use both: a suite for keywords, backlinks and tracking, and NOXEL SEO to find what to fix on the site.
Where NOXEL SEO falls short
- No backlink index and no keyword database: for link building or keyword research you still need a suite.
- It does not track brand mentions in AI answers over time; it checks whether your pages are ready to be cited.
- It is a young product built and supported by one person. You get direct answers from the founder, and a smaller team than Ahrefs's.
Who each one is for
- Ahrefs: SEO professionals and agencies who need keyword research, competitor data and tracking across many sites.
- NOXEL SEO: small business owners, founders and freelancers who want to know what to fix on their own site for Google and AI search, without learning a full SEO suite.
How NOXEL calculates its scores
Every check and its weight is published on the scoring methodology page.