Best lists / Best free SEO audit tools

Best free SEO audit tools

Tools ranked

With a free plan

Ahrefs Webmaster Tools

Top pick

Updated October 2026 · Independent, no paid placements

A free site audit is only useful if it can crawl your whole site. Some tools cap at a few hundred URLs, others at a monthly crawl budget, and one reports on the pages Google already knows. This list ranks the free options by how much of a small site they cover, with each limit read off the vendor's own pricing or product page in October 2026. For keyword research and rank tracking as well, see the best free SEO tools.

At a glance

#	Tool	Best for	Free tier
1	Ahrefs Webmaster Tools	Sites you own, ongoing audits	Free for websites with verified ownership — 3 tools
2	Screaming Frog SEO Spider	Technical crawls on your own machine	500 URLs per crawl
3	Seobility	A hosted audit with no install	1 project, 1,000 pages
4	Google Search Console	What Google actually indexes	Unlimited — fully free

Ahrefs Webmaster Tools

Top pickGenerous Free Tier

Best for: Sites you own, ongoing audits

Free Ahrefs for sites you own — now called Ahrefs Free. Web Analytics, Site Audit and Site Explorer.

Ahrefs' free plan (formerly Ahrefs Webmaster Tools) includes Site Audit with 5K crawl credits a month per project, and it only spends credits on pages that return a 200. You have to verify that you own the site, but that is the whole price of admission for a repeating, vendor-grade crawl.

What's good

Genuinely free, not a trial
Site Audit is the same crawler as the paid product
Goes deeper than Google Search Console on issues and backlinks

What's not

Your own verified sites only — no competitor research
Keyword and backlink data is capped versus paid plans

Pricing

Free plan available

Visit Ahrefs Webmaster Tools Read review

Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Generous Free Tier

Best for: Technical crawls on your own machine

Desktop SEO crawler for technical audits. Free for up to 500 URLs.

Screaming Frog's SEO Spider is free up to 500 URLs per crawl, which covers most small business sites in one pass. It runs on your desktop, so there is no account and no monthly budget to watch, and it is the usual tool for finding broken links, redirect chains and duplicate titles.

What's good

Industry standard for technical SEO
Very thorough
Desktop app (fast)

What's not

500 URL limit on free
Desktop only
Not beginner-friendly

Pricing

Free plan available

Visit Screaming Frog SEO Spider Read review

Seobility

Generous Free Tier

Best for: A hosted audit with no install

Free SEO auditing and monitoring tool. 1 project with daily crawls.

Seobility's free plan gives one project with a limited website audit at 100 pages per crawl and 10 tracked keywords. That is enough for a landing site or a small blog, and it runs in the browser with no download. Bigger sites will hit the cap quickly.

What's good

Good free tier
Daily automated crawls
Clear issue reporting

What's not

1 project limit
Less data than top-tier tools

Pricing

Free plan available

Visit Seobility Read review

Google Search Console

Unlimited Free Tier

Best for: What Google actually indexes

Free tool from Google to monitor your site's search performance.

Search Console is not a crawler you point at a site; it reports what Google has already crawled, including indexing problems and page-experience issues, free for any site you verify. Use it alongside a crawler: the crawler finds what could be wrong, Search Console shows what Google saw.

What's good

Completely free
Direct data from Google
Essential for SEO
Reliable and accurate

What's not

Only covers Google search
Data can be delayed
Limited historical data

Pricing

Free plan available

Visit Google Search Console Read review

How I ranked these

How many pages or URLs the free plan crawls
Whether the audit runs repeatedly or only once
What you must prove or install to use it

Rankings are based on research, not paid placement. Some links are affiliate links, which never change where a tool ranks.

FAQ

What is the best free SEO audit tool?

For a repeating audit of a site you own, Ahrefs' free plan gives 5K crawl credits a month per project. For a one-off crawl of up to 500 URLs, Screaming Frog is free on desktop.

Can a free audit crawl a whole website?

Only a small one. Screaming Frog's free crawl stops at 500 URLs and Seobility's free plan at 100 pages per crawl, so larger sites need a paid plan or a crawl budget like Ahrefs' monthly credits.

Do I need to verify my site?

For Ahrefs' free plan, yes: you verify ownership before the tools unlock. Google Search Console also requires verification. Screaming Frog is a desktop crawler and does not ask you to prove ownership.

Need to keep data in the EU? See the best European SEO tools on EuropeanMartech.

Browse all free SEO audit tools