Ahrefs backlinks dashboards or API credits: cost per seat
Should every customer get a login to a big SEO suite, or should your app show the link data itself? A spreadsheet-style comparison with labelled example numbers.
AlfaLinks editorial team ·
Where we land
Embed link data yourself when users only need link context
If a screen needs referring domains, anchors or a DR-style score, per-call credits cost far less than seat licences. If users need keyword research, rank tracking or a daily-fresh crawl, send them to Ahrefs or Semrush and do not pretend otherwise.
Ahrefs API units come inside subscriptions, from $129/month for 200,000 units
Each Ahrefs request uses at least 50 units, so that plan covers at most 4,000 requests
Our credits cost $0.0001 each, with no monthly minimum
The example, with every assumption on the table
This is a hypothetical SaaS, not a customer. Call it a project tool with 500 paying workspaces and a domain page that loads link data once per view.
Assume each workspace opens 30 domain pages a month. That makes 15,000 views. Assume each view calls overview (free) plus refdomains at 2 credits. That is 30,000 credits, or $3.00 for the month.
The same 15,000 views through an Ahrefs plan hit the ceiling fast. At 50 units per request, 200,000 units allow 4,000 requests, which is a quarter of the views before a second subscription or an upgrade enters the conversation.
Change the inputs and the answer moves. The point is the shape: per-call billing scales with use, a subscription scales with how much headroom you buy in advance.
Same 15,000 views, three ways
Example arithmetic only. Ahrefs figures are list prices as we know them; check their current page before you plan.
Route
Monthly cost in the example
Fresh data
Keywords and rank tracking
Embed via this API
About $3.00 (30,000 credits)
Monthly
No
Ahrefs API plan
$129 for 4,000 requests, more plans needed beyond that
Daily-fresh crawl
Yes, in the suite
Seats in a suite for users
Per-seat licence, resold or bundled
Daily
Yes
Sanity checks before you put numbers in a business case
Count views per workspace from analytics, not from hope.
Add 20 percent headroom for retries and cache misses.
Include the cost of the first month, when every domain is cold.
Remember the free actions: domain, overview, stats and suggest cost nothing.
Decide who pays for lookups of domains nobody owns, such as competitors.
Where the big suites still win
Semrush and Ahrefs sell breadth. Keywords, SERP history, site audits, daily crawls.
A product whose users run SEO full time should not try to replace that with an embedded counter. Your users will compare, and they will be right to.
The sensible pattern is a layered one: show our link numbers in the product, link out to the suite for the deep dive, and keep your support docs clear about which data comes from where. The setup guide shows the wiring and the cache recipe keeps the bill small.
Seat and metering questions
Can I resell this data to my customers?
Embedding results in your own product is the normal use. We state no resale terms beyond what the terms page says, so read it and reach us through the account page if your plan involves bulk redistribution or a white-label API.
How do I charge users for lookups?
Count calls per workspace on your side and map them to plan limits. Our balance is a single prepaid pool, so per-user billing is your job, and the call counter in your proxy route is the natural place to do it.
Is there a monthly minimum?
No. Credit is prepaid at $0.0001 each and never expires into a subscription. New accounts receive $100 of free credit, which is 1,000,000 credits, enough for a long prototype without a card.