Ahrefs vs Majestic: backlink index compared

Majestic’s wire-transfer threshold sits on a page its own help center never mentions

Majestic’s pricing page opens non-card billing, by bank transfer, from the Pro annual tier upward, with no purchase order, net-30, ACH or W-9 named at any level; below that threshold, payment runs through card or PayPal only. Its help center never mentions wire transfer at all, and its own terms describe tiers — Free, Silver, Gold, Platinum — that are not the LITE, PRO and API tiers actually sold today. Scope compared, criterion by criterion. Checked 7 September 2026.

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Majestic

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Ahrefs

Majestic vs Ahrefs: scope compared, criterion by criterion — checked September 7, 2026
Majestic	Ahrefs
What each one covers
Its core job
Selling link intelligence: mapping a domain's backlink profile and scoring its quality through Trust Flow	Analyzing backlinks, keywords and estimated organic traffic for any site, yours as readily as a competitor's
What it also does, more lightly
A thin keyword layer — Keyword Generator, Keyword Checker, N-grams — plus performance tracking wired to Search Console	It edits content, measures your own site and builds reports, all capped: one document a month, Ahrefs-only widgets
What it does not do at all
No technical crawl of your site, no content production, no advertising data and no audience data, at any tier	White labelling: no tier, Enterprise included, lets you add your logo. The vendor states it in plain words
If you only take this one
What you give up
After three months: no rankings beyond verified sites, no technical audit, no usable search volume figures	The real number. Ahrefs shows only estimated search traffic, with a median deviation its own study puts at 49.52%
The workaround, and what it costs
The Google Sheets add-on and the browser extensions are free; beyond that you need the API plan at $399.99 monthly	The Looker Studio connectors require the Advanced tier at $449 per month, and each Site Explorer chart burns one credit
The point where it stops being enough
The Site Explorer row ceiling: five thousand on Lite, thirty thousand on Pro. A large domain clears it on the first analysis	Lite caps at three users, 750 tracked keywords and 2,500 rows per report. Past that you move up a tier
If you take both
What it exposes to connect
An API metered on three separate counters — analysis, retrieval, index items — plus OpenApps to connect a third-party account	An API v3, three Looker Studio connectors and a sixteen-month Search Console import that only flows one way
Which one becomes the source of truth
It does, on links: it presents itself as the supplier the large suites resell under a partnership licence	On traffic it is Search Console: the Ahrefs help centre writes that its own figures are an estimate, not actual data
What the tool answers
What it measures or produces
Two proprietary scores from zero to one hundred, Trust Flow and Citation Flow, plus Topical Trust Flow across 800 categories	A link and page index: 35 trillion backlinks kept in history, 493.9 billion pages
The job it equips
The link builder: prospecting referring domains, qualifying their authority and defending a backlink profile over time	The SEO consultant and the link builder: auditing a site, tracking rankings, prospecting for links
What it cannot tell you
Your ranking on a site you do not own: the vendor refuses on principle to go and scrape Google	Your actual traffic: volumes and clicks are estimated, never measured, and no conversion is tied to them
Day-to-day SEO work
Rank tracking
Daily average positions replayed from Search Console, on your verified domains only, by country and device. Pro tier	Weekly by default, from country to ZIP code across 190+ locations, mobile and desktop tracked separately; no search engine is named
How far the history goes
A fresh index over four rolling months, refreshed within the hour. The historic index reaches 2006 but stops on 26 March 2024	Two contradictory figures from the vendor: 16 years on the Big Data page, 10 years or more on Site Explorer
Keyword research
Keywords come out of its own link database, carrying a zero-to-one-hundred volume score rather than a search engine figure	Three contradictory index sizes depending on the page: 28.7, 20.4 or 12 billion. Google alone documented; difficulty, clicks, CPC and traffic potential
Backlink analysis
562 billion fresh URLs and 21.7 trillion historic ones on 31 August 2026; the disavow export was announced for removal	35 trillion live links, with the index refreshed every 15 to 30 minutes, but no built-in disavow tool
Technical audit
No module at all: no site crawl, no Core Web Vitals and no log analysis in the official list of fifteen tools	Over 170 checks, Core Web Vitals through CrUX and Lighthouse using your own Google key, JavaScript rendering; log analysis undocumented
Content production
No feature at all: no brief, no assisted writing, no optimization score and no plagiarism check, at any tier	An editor that scores the article out of 100 against top-ranking pages, inline AI rewriting; no structured brief, no built-in plagiarism check
SERP analysis
No SERP feature tracked and no AI engine. Its Search Explorer ranks pages by its own link graph instead	19 SERP features including AI Overviews. AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot and Gemini tracked, with AI traffic measured separately
Competitors' advertising
No advertising module: no ad networks, no creative history and no estimated spend anywhere in the product	Google search ads only, with history and estimated spend; no display, no social, and ad networks are not identified
Audience data
None: Author Explorer and Social Explorer cover the link graph and social handles, not a site's audience	No demographics and no audience overlap: Web Analytics stays first-party, cookieless, with no tracking across sites
Mobile apps
No native app. Access runs through the browser, the Chrome and Firefox extensions, or the API	No module at all: neither App Store nor Google Play appears in the official list of fourteen Ahrefs tools
Local SEO
No local module: tracking granularity stops at country level, with no business listings and no review management	GBP Monitor in beta on every paid plan, rankings down to ZIP code and Local Pack tracked; review management undocumented
What comes out of it
Export formats
CSV from reports, PDF through an experimental Pro-only tool, a Google Sheets add-on. The cap sits on analysed rows	CSV and Google Sheets; PDF goes through the browser's print function. Exportable rows are capped per export and per month
Shareable reports
Public or private campaign sharing and scheduled email reports, from the Pro tier. White labelling is not documented	Report Builder printable to PDF, sharing limited to invited members; white labeling is explicitly refused and no public link exists
API access
Reserved to the API plan at $399.99 per month. The Lite and Pro tiers are marked as having no API access at all	Included from the Lite tier up, 100,000 units per month, 50 units minimum per request; overages are billed at no published rate
What it connects to
Native integrations
The vendor publishes no total. Three pieces matter: the Google Sheets add-on, the browser extension and OpenApps	Thirty-five integrations listed, with no stated total; the three useful for SEO are Google Sheets, Screaming Frog and Supermetrics
Google tools it connects to
Search Console and Google Sheets connect natively. Analytics, Ads and Looker Studio appear nowhere in its documentation	Search Console natively over sixteen months, a Looker Studio connector from Advanced up, Sheets export; Analytics and Ads are missing
Getting started, and the fine print
Support
Email and a web form that accepts no attachments. No phone, no chat, no published hours or response times	Multilingual chat 24 hours a day on every tier; a dedicated account manager and tailored onboarding are reserved for Enterprise
Where the data is hosted
No country named. A British company registered in Birmingham under English law, transfers under standard contractual clauses	United States according to the privacy policy, United States and Singapore according to the list of subprocessors
What happens if you leave
Seven days of refund on a first Lite or Pro subscription. Reports are then locked, and later purged from the servers	No refund as a matter of policy; the account drops to the free tier and the vendor has no obligation to return your data
Minimum seats billed
None: one user on Lite and on Pro, five included on the API plan. An extra seat carries no published price	None: one user is included on every tier outside Enterprise, and further users are added one at a time
Interface languages shipped
Majestic ships ten interface languages (English default), including German, Spanish and Japanese among others; product and tier names (LITE, PRO, Trust Flow) stay in English everywhere.	Ahrefs ships the interface in 15 languages (English, German, Spanish, French, and others), English as a single entry with no US/UK distinction. Partial translation and excluded screens are not mentioned (page tested 2026-09-07).
What it costs
The entry price and what it includes
$49.99 per month excluding tax on Lite: one user, one million analysis units, five thousand Site Explorer rows	$29 per month on Starter: 200 credits, 250 rows per report, no export and no additional users
What pushes the bill up
The jump to the API: from $99.99 on Pro to $399.99 a month, with three unit counters draining separately	Any user going past five credits triggers an automatic $20, after which credits are bought back in batches of five hundred
Sales tax and nexus
Majestic lists prices tax-exclusive, tax borne by the customer, without addressing the US case: no state, basis or nexus is mentioned, and no tax-policy page exists; Majestic-12 Limited invoices under its own name.	Ahrefs charges sales tax on top of the US price, in a list of states that includes Texas, New York and Washington DC; the table was not legible enough to count them. No local rates published, and nexus is left to the buyer.
Procurement and invoicing
Named threshold: bank transfer from Pro annual and above, self-service card/PayPal below it, with no PO, net-30, ACH or W-9. Contradiction: the vendor also names Free/Silver/Gold/Platinum, against LITE/PRO/API actually sold.	Non-card billing exists only at Enterprise (USD 1,499/month, annual commitment): help center names invoice or wire, pricing page only wire — both versions reported. Below that, card only; PO, net-30, ACH, W-9 absent.

Key takeaways

A named threshold, on a page that stands alone

Majestic’s pricing page names a specific point where non-card billing opens: bank transfer, from the Pro annual subscription upward, with self-service card or PayPal covering everything below it. No purchase order, net-30 term, ACH or W-9 appears at any tier, named or not.

The help center never uses the word

Majestic’s own help center, the page a customer would actually consult to arrange a wire transfer, does not mention wire transfer at all. The threshold exists on the pricing page alone, with no procedure published anywhere for a buyer trying to act on it.

The tiers named in the contract are not the tiers on sale

Majestic’s terms describe a Free, Silver, Gold and Platinum structure. What the pricing page actually sells today is LITE, PRO and an API plan — three names that do not map onto the four written into the vendor’s own conditions.

Ahrefs names its own threshold without the same gap

Ahrefs opens non-card billing only at Enterprise, one thousand four hundred ninety-nine dollars a month on an annual commitment; its help center names invoice or wire, while its pricing page names wire alone — both versions reported here, without resolving which is current. Below Enterprise, Ahrefs accepts card only, with no purchase order, net-30, ACH or W-9 published.

What each backlink index actually measures

Majestic scores every domain on two proprietary axes running from zero to one hundred, Trust Flow and Citation Flow, plus a Topical Trust Flow spread across eight hundred categories. Ahrefs instead counts links directly: thirty-five trillion backlinks kept in history, across four hundred ninety-three point nine billion pages.

One index refreshes by the hour, the other stopped mid-decade

Majestic’s fresh index rolls over four months and refreshes within the hour, while its historic index reaches back to 2006 but stops on 26 March 2024. Ahrefs gives two different figures for the same question: sixteen years on its Big Data page, ten years or more on its Site Explorer page — again, both reported, neither adjudicated.

Neither publishes a minimum seat count

Majestic includes one user on both Lite and Pro, five on the API plan, with no published price for an extra seat. Ahrefs includes one user on every tier outside Enterprise, adding further users one at a time, also with no seat minimum stated.

Frequently asked questions

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Which country does Ahrefs name as hosting its data?

Ahrefs names the United States in its privacy policy, but its list of subprocessors instead names both the United States and Singapore — the 2 pages disagree. Majestic names no country at all: it is a British company registered in Birmingham under English law, transferring data under standard contractual clauses. For a buyer needing a single named hosting country, neither vendor’s documentation gives one cleanly.

Does Majestic address US sales tax on its pricing pages?

No: Majestic lists prices tax-exclusive and puts the tax burden on the customer, without addressing the US case at all — no state, basis or nexus is mentioned, and no dedicated tax-policy page exists; Majestic-12 Limited invoices under its own name. Ahrefs, by contrast, charges sales tax on top of the US price in a list of states that includes Texas, New York and Washington DC, though nexus is still left to the buyer.

At what commitment does Ahrefs allow non-card billing?

Non-card billing on Ahrefs exists only at Enterprise, 1,499 US dollars per month on an annual commitment, and even there the help center names invoice or wire while the pricing page names only wire — both versions are reported. Below that tier, only card is accepted, with no purchase order, net-30, ACH or W-9. Majestic sets its own threshold instead: bank transfer from Pro annual and above, self-service card or PayPal below it.