Ahrefs vs SpyFu: competitive intelligence compared

SpyFu promises thirty days back, and its own terms say never

SpyFu’s pricing page advertises an unconditional 30-day money-back guarantee, while its own Terms and Conditions state that all fees are nonrefundable; both statements are published by the same vendor, and this comparison reports both without deciding which one governs. SpyFu also accepts card payment only, with no purchase order, net-30, ACH or W-9 at any tier, including Team and Agency. Scope compared, criterion by criterion. Checked 7 September 2026.

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SpyFu

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Ahrefs

SpyFu vs Ahrefs: scope compared, criterion by criterion — checked September 7, 2026
SpyFu	Ahrefs
What the tool answers
What it measures or produces
An archive of Google SERPs: a domain's organic and paid keywords, estimated budget, clicks and past ad copy	A link and page index: 35 trillion backlinks kept in history, 493.9 billion pages
The job it equips
The paid search and SEO manager who builds keyword lists by reverse-engineering what competitors already bid on	The SEO consultant and the link builder: auditing a site, tracking rankings, prospecting for links
What it cannot tell you
Nothing about your unranked pages: the index is built only from what Google places in its top 100	Your actual traffic: volumes and clicks are estimated, never measured, and no conversion is tied to them
Day-to-day SEO work
Rank tracking
Weekly, refreshed on Sundays, on Google. No city-level granularity and no mobile split documented in the help centre	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
The vendor claims eighteen years on its homepage and ten on its pricing grid, month by month since 2007	Two contradictory figures from the vendor: 16 years on the Big Data page, 10 years or more on Site Explorer
Keyword research
13.1 billion keywords claimed, Google only, with a 0-100 difficulty score, estimated clicks and a mobile-desktop split	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
Links come from pages ranking in Google's top 100. The vendor itself advises against using this index on your own site	35 trillion live links, with the index refreshed every 15 to 30 minutes, but no built-in disavow tool
Technical audit
A Site Audit section appears in the help centre index, but no article describes its checks, Core Web Vitals or logs	Over 170 checks, Core Web Vitals through CrUX and Lighthouse using your own Google key, JavaScript rendering; log analysis undocumented
Content production
RivalFlow compares your page with the one outranking it and writes the missing sections. One site on Pro, five on Agency	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
URLs, positions, domain strength, estimated clicks and live ads. No SERP feature and no AI engine is documented	19 SERP features including AI Overviews. AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot and Gemini tracked, with AI traffic measured separately
Competitors' advertising
Google Ads only, but archived since 2007: headlines, body copy, extensions and cached SERP screenshots, month by month	Google search ads only, with history and estimated spend; no display, no social, and ad networks are not identified
Audience data
No demographics and no journeys: the Leads page returns industry, location, website technology and which contact types exist	No demographics and no audience overlap: Web Analytics stays first-party, cookieless, with no tracking across sites
Mobile apps
No iOS or Android app appears in the vendor's help centre, pricing grid or product pages	No module at all: neither App Store nor Google Play appears in the official list of fourteen Ahrefs tools
Local SEO
No local module, and the vendor says so: its data cannot analyse the business down the street	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 and PDF only. The entry tier caps at ten thousand rows; the higher tiers advertise unlimited exports	CSV and Google Sheets; PDF goes through the browser's print function. Exportable rows are capped per export and per month
Shareable reports
Ten automated reports at entry, one hundred on Pro, unlimited on Agency. The SpyFu logo can be removed, tier unstated	Report Builder printable to PDF, sharing limited to invited members; white labeling is explicitly refused and no public link exists
API access
Included on Pro and Agency with a $40 or $100 monthly credit, then billed per thousand rows returned	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
No catalogue is published. A GSC Integration line sits on the pricing grid, with no help article describing it	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 shows up as a pricing line on Pro and Agency. No Analytics, Ads, Sheets or Looker Studio documented	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
Live chat Monday to Friday, 6am to 5pm, plus an email address. The time zone is never specified	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
The United States, named in the privacy policy, which states that data from the EU is transferred there	United States according to the privacy policy, United States and Singapore according to the list of subprocessors
What happens if you leave
A vendor contradiction: the terms declare all fees nonrefundable while the pricing grid promises thirty unconditional days	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
One seat at entry and on Pro, five enforced on Agency. Each additional seat costs $30 per month	None: one user is included on every tier outside Enterprise, and further users are added one at a time
Data residency and regulated cloud
SpyFu names only the country (“located in the United States”), with no state or host. No FedRAMP, StateRAMP, GovCloud, HIPAA BAA, SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certification appears on its three legal and security pages.	Ahrefs places data in the US, no region named, hosted on AWS (sub-processor in USA/Singapore). No certification of its own; SOC 2 only planned. FedRAMP, StateRAMP, GovCloud, HIPAA/BAA absent from all 4 pages tested 2026-09-07.
What it costs
The entry price and what it includes
$39 per month billed monthly, $29 per month billed annually: ten thousand rows, one tracked site, and no historical data	$29 per month on Starter: 200 credits, 250 rows per report, no export and no additional users
What pushes the bill up
$30 per extra seat, API usage billed past the included credit, and Pro doubling after a promotional first month	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
SpyFu passes tax to the customer (“including any applicable taxes”) without naming a state, basis or nexus, and with no tax-policy page; SpyFu bills directly, with no reseller in between.	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
SpyFu accepts card only, with no PO, net-30, ACH or W-9, even at the Team/Agency tier. Contradiction: a 30-day money-back guarantee on the pricing page, but the Terms & Conditions state fees are nonrefundable.	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 guarantee and a denial, on two pages of the same site

SpyFu’s pricing page promises a thirty-day money-back guarantee, stated as unconditional. Its Terms and Conditions state the opposite: fees are nonrefundable. Both are published by SpyFu itself, and this comparison reports both versions without adjudicating which one a buyer can actually rely on.

Ahrefs settles the same question with no ambiguity, just no refund

Ahrefs states its refund policy in one place only: no refund, as a matter of policy, on any tier. Cancelling drops the account to the free tier, and the vendor states it carries no obligation to return the data that account held.

Card is the only door in, on both products

SpyFu accepts card payment only, even at its Team or Agency tier: no purchase order, no net-30 term, no ACH, no W-9. Ahrefs opens a second door, but only at Enterprise, one thousand four hundred ninety-nine dollars a month on an annual commitment; below that tier, it is card only as well.

Neither vendor names where the servers sit, beyond a country

SpyFu names only the country, “located in the United States,” with no state and no host named across its three legal and security pages; no FedRAMP, StateRAMP, GovCloud, HIPAA BAA, SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certification appears anywhere on them. Ahrefs also names only the United States, hosted on Amazon Web Services, with a subprocessor additionally listed in Singapore.

A tax clause that names no state, on either side

SpyFu passes sales tax to the customer, through the phrase “including any applicable taxes,” without naming a state, a basis or a nexus, and with no dedicated tax-policy page; SpyFu bills directly, with no reseller between the vendor and the customer. Ahrefs charges its own sales tax on top of the US price, across a list of states that includes Texas, New York and the District of Columbia, again with no local rates published.

What eighteen years of ad history still cannot tell you

SpyFu’s own archive reaches back to 2007 by its pricing grid, or eighteen years by its homepage claim — a gap this comparison does not resolve either. What that archive cannot answer is anything about a page that never ranked in Google’s own top one hundred results, the boundary the whole index is built from.

Frequently asked questions

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Does SpyFu name a US state or any regulated-cloud certification?

No: SpyFu names only the country, with no state or host specified, and none of FedRAMP, StateRAMP, a HIPAA BAA, SOC 2, or ISO 27001 appears on its legal pages. Ahrefs also says it hosts in the US, with no region named, and has only a planned SOC 2. For FedRAMP or a BAA, neither vendor delivers one.

Does SpyFu name a US state or nexus for its sales tax?

No: SpyFu passes tax to the customer, naming no state, basis, or nexus, with no tax-policy page; SpyFu bills directly, with no reseller. Ahrefs, by comparison, charges tax in states that include Texas, New York, and Washington DC. For a buyer, Ahrefs gives more visibility than SpyFu.

Can a SpyFu buyer pay by PO or net-30, even at its top tier?

No: SpyFu accepts card only, with no PO, net-30, ACH, or W-9, even at Agency, and contradicts itself: a 30-day refund on the pricing page, nonrefundable fees in the Terms. Ahrefs opens non-card billing only at Enterprise. Below Enterprise, both vendors require a card.