Mangools vs Ahrefs for rank tracking: which plan tracks more keywords for the money

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The two lineups, plan by plan

Ahrefs figures below were read off ahrefs.com/pricing on September 9, 2026. Mangools figures come from its rendered pricing table, SERPWatcher page and FAQ, read on September 6. The Mangools page we read showed euros; it localizes the currency by region, so your checkout may show the same numbers with a dollar sign.

Two rows deserve a second look. The $29 Ahrefs Starter plan is sold alongside the others but does not include Rank Tracker at all, so $129 is the real entry price for tracking. And the Ahrefs update column does not change as you pay more. The help center states that the default frequency on any subscription is weekly and describes daily tracking as a separately purchased add-on; the pricing page publishes no price for it, so we quote none. Full detail is on our Ahrefs pricing and Mangools pricing pages.

What EUR 81 buys against $129

The natural head to head is Mangools Premium against Ahrefs Lite, because they track almost the same number of keywords: 700 against 750, both weekly. Premium costs EUR 81 and Lite costs $129. So on the tracking allowance alone you are paying roughly half again as much for Ahrefs, and getting the same freshness.

The difference shows up in the limits around the keyword count. Ahrefs Lite allows five projects for sites you have not verified ownership of, and unlimited projects for sites you have. That is fine for your own properties and tight for a freelancer tracking prospects or clients who have not handed over Search Console access. Mangools lists unlimited domains on every plan, verified or not. Counting works the same way on both: Ahrefs says each tracked keyword is one keyword, for one location, in one project, and Mangools counts desktop and mobile as two separate tracked keywords. Plan on halving either allowance if you watch both devices.

Cost per 1,000 ranking checks

A keyword count means little until you multiply it by how often it is checked. Taking daily as 30.4 checks a month and weekly as 4.3, here is what a thousand ranking checks cost on each plan that tracks at all:

Mangools Basic is the most expensive way to read a ranking in this table, because 200 weekly keywords is a small allowance. Everything changes at Agency. Its daily checks cost about a seventh of what Ahrefs Advanced charges per check, even though Advanced is the pricier plan by $308 a month. If daily data is the thing you are buying, Ahrefs has no published plan that competes, and Mangools only competes at the top of its ladder.

Seats, refunds and trials

Small print that changes the purchase. Mangools Basic is a one person plan with no extra seats available; Premium allows up to three extra and Agency up to five. Ahrefs includes one user on Lite, Standard and Advanced and sells more at $40, $60 and $80 a month each, capped at 2, 5 and 10. A three person team on Ahrefs Lite pays $209 a month before anything else.

On the way in, Mangools offers a permanent free account with no card and a 48-hour money back guarantee, which its FAQ says does not apply to two consecutive subscriptions. The Ahrefs pricing FAQ says the company never runs discounts, offers no free trial of paid plans, and does not issue refunds in general. That makes the Mangools purchase the easier one to test with real keywords before you commit.

Where Ahrefs is the right answer anyway

None of that makes Ahrefs a bad product. Its backlink index is one of the two best in the industry, its keyword database is far larger than what Mangools draws on, and Site Explorer is the tool a lot of agencies open first every morning. If you work link building or competitive research daily, Lite at $129 is a research subscription with a weekly tracker attached, and that is a perfectly sensible thing to pay for. We covered that case in is Ahrefs worth it for rank tracking.

The trap is buying it for the tracker. Ranking data is the thing you want to be fresh, and it is the one thing Ahrefs does not refresh daily on any plan it prices publicly. Once the tracker has shown you which pages sit stuck on page two, the fix is usually more and better content, and plenty of small teams now hand that work to an AI writer that drafts and publishes the articles for them rather than stretching a research budget further.

So which one should you buy?

A blogger or freelancer with several small sites, reading rankings weekly: Mangools Premium. It tracks nearly as many keywords as Ahrefs Lite for less, and never asks you to verify a domain.

Anyone who needs daily positions: Mangools Agency at EUR 141, or a dedicated tracker. Ahrefs is out of the running here unless you buy its separately priced daily add-on.

A team whose main job is links and competitive research: Ahrefs, with the tracker treated as a bonus. Many of those teams run a separate daily tracker next to it rather than upgrading a tier for the keyword count. Our Ahrefs Rank Tracker alternative page shows that setup line by line.

If Semrush is also on your shortlist, the three-way picture is on Mangools vs Semrush, where Semrush turns out to be the only one of the three that checks daily on its cheapest plan. And if tracking is the only job, Serpstracker checks every keyword daily on every plan: 250 keywords for $39, or 1,500 for $99, which is fewer dollars than Mangools Agency asks in euros for the same daily allowance.

Ahrefs figures read from ahrefs.com/pricing and the Ahrefs help center on September 9, 2026. Mangools figures read from mangools.com on September 6, 2026. Vendors reprice and move features between tiers, so confirm on the source page before you buy.