Comparison · 6 min read

SE Ranking alternatives: what an agency actually pays once the add-ons stack

SE Ranking is good value at the price it advertises. The problem agencies hit is that the price they advertise is not the price an agency pays, because the two things an agency cannot work without are both add-ons.

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Disclosure

We make Limecube, which competes with SE Ranking. Every figure below came from seranking.com and visible.seranking.com on 28 July 2026, with the plan prices and limits re-checked on 17 August 2026. They are SE Ranking’s own published numbers rather than figures taken from other comparison articles. For the whole category rather than this one comparison, see the nine-tool roundup.

What SE Ranking does well

It is genuinely capable at the price. The rank tracking is solid, and for a single site or a small handful, the Core plan at $129 is good value. None of what follows disputes that.

SE Visible, its AI search product, also covers more ground than it usually gets credit for: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, AI Overviews and AI Mode. That is five engines, not the two it is still sometimes listed as tracking.

One number to get straight before the arithmetic below. Growth is $279 a month, not the $223.20 quoted in a lot of comparisons, because that lower figure is the annual rate divided out rather than the month-to-month price. We have used $279 throughout, since it is what you pay unless you commit for a year.

The real monthly bill

Here is the arithmetic for a three-person agency running fifteen clients, with every component priced from SE Ranking’s own page.

Line itemMonthlyWhy an agency needs it
Growth plan$279Core covers ten projects; fifteen clients needs Growth
Agency Pack$69White-label reporting and client seats
AI Search add-on$89To report on AI visibility at all
API access$45Only if you build custom client dashboards
Total$437$482 with API access

That is against an advertised entry price of $129. Annual billing takes roughly 20% off the total, and the Agency Pack and API are annual-billing only.

Every price above is published on their pricing page. This is what happens when white-label reporting and AI visibility, the two things an agency cannot deliver client work without, are both sold as modules. Nearly every suite does it, which is why we did the same arithmetic for the whole category.

For comparison, and this is the reason the page exists: Limecube Professional is $99 a month, includes fifteen clients, white-label client access and AI visibility across six surfaces, with no add-on for any of them.

Engine coverage

Five engines, as above, and no Claude. That last point is not specific to SE Ranking: neither Semrush nor Ahrefs Brand Radar lists Claude either. Among the big SEO suites it is simply not covered, and Otterly sells it as a $29 to $439 add-on.

Limecube tracks Claude as standard. Whether that matters depends on your clients: it is a real gap for technical and B2B audiences and close to irrelevant for a local trades business. Worth checking before it becomes a deciding factor.

The stitching problem

The cost is the visible half. The other half is what a modular tool asks of you.

When rank tracking, AI visibility, content and reporting are separate modules, they give you separate answers, and joining them up is your job. Your keyword lost three positions, an AI Overview appeared for it, your page is not cited, and the article that would fix it has not been written. Four facts, four screens, and the work is holding them in your head at the same time.

That is the difference worth weighing, more than any feature checklist. A tool that hands you data is not the same as a tool that hands you a decision, and no amount of add-on purchasing changes which one you bought.

Limecube is built the other way round. Those four facts live in one client workspace: the keyword and its position, whether an AI engine cited the page, the topic queue that fixes the gap, and the report that shows the client what changed. Joining them up is the product rather than a job you do across four screens.

Which to choose

Stay with SE Ranking if you run one site or a few, do not need white-label reporting, and ten projects on a single manager seat covers you. At $129 with no add-ons it is good value and this page is not for you.

Consider SE Visible on its own if AI visibility is the only gap. Standalone plans are $99, $189 and $355, and you keep whatever SEO tooling you have.

Consider Limecube if the add-ons have taken you past $400 a month, or if what you wanted was one workspace per client rather than four dashboards you join up yourself. Professional is $99, fifteen clients, white-label client access and AI visibility across six surfaces with no add-on for any of them, seven-day trial, no card at signup.

Fix the free things first whichever you choose. If your robots.txt blocks AI crawlers, no tool here can help, because the engines cannot read you. Controlling AI crawler access takes ten minutes and costs nothing.

Frequently asked questions

  • How much does SE Ranking really cost for an agency?

    The advertised entry is $129 a month for the Core plan. A three-person agency running fifteen clients needs Growth at $279, because Core covers ten projects and one manager seat, plus the Agency Pack at $69 for white-label reporting, plus the AI Search add-on at $89 to report on AI visibility. That is $437 a month, or $482 with API access. Annual billing takes roughly 20% off.

  • Which AI engines does SE Ranking track?

    SE Visible tracks five: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode. Claude is not among them. Several published roundups say it tracks only ChatGPT and AI Mode with the rest coming soon, which its own site contradicts.

  • What is the difference between SE Ranking AI Search and SE Visible?

    They are two separate products. AI Search is an add-on to an SE Ranking subscription at $89 a month. SE Visible is a standalone AI visibility platform with its own plans at $99, $189 and $355 a month. Both track the same five engines.

  • Is SE Ranking Growth plan $279 or $223.20?

    Both, depending on billing. $279 is the monthly rate and $223.20 is the effective monthly rate when paying annually, a saving of about 20%. Several comparison articles quote the annual figure as though it were the monthly price.

  • What is a good SE Ranking alternative for agencies?

    It depends what is driving the switch. If it is cost after the add-ons, an all-in-one that includes white-label reporting and AI visibility avoids the stacking. If it is engine coverage, note that no major SEO suite tracks Claude. If it is the standalone AI visibility need alone, Otterly starts at $29 and Peec at $95.

  • Does SE Ranking include white-label reporting?

    Not in the base plans. The Agency Pack is $69 a month and adds client seats, white-label reporting via a DNS CNAME setup, scheduled reports and a lead generator widget.

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