Ahrefs Site Audit alternative for a one-time price
Check Engine is an Ahrefs Site Audit alternative for people who want a ranked plan of fixes and a one-time price. Ahrefs' cloud crawler checks for 170+ issues. Site Audit starts at Lite, $129 a month on monthly billing. Ahrefs Free gives 5,000 crawl credits a month per verified project. Check Engine audits any public site on Mac or 64-bit Windows, with no account or crawl credits. Launch price: $29.50 once, through 30 November. From 1 December: $59. We make Check Engine. If you need a backlink index, keyword research or rank tracking, choose Ahrefs.
Ahrefs facts checked 9 November 2026. Each source is listed below.
$59once
For Macs with Apple silicon or Intel, macOS 12 or later, and 64-bit Windows
Priced in US dollars. Checkout shows your currency and any local tax.
On a Mac? Get the Mac version.
On your phone?
Launch price: $29.50 once, through 30 November. From 1 December: $59. Buy applies the code FOUNDINGDOCKET for you; if the checkout shows $59, enter it under ‘Have a discount code?’.
30 days, no conditions, no questions asked. Refund policy
Intel Mac? Get the Intel version
Which audit tool fits your work?
| Your question | Ahrefs Site Audit | Check Engine |
|---|---|---|
| What does it cost? | Lite $129, Standard $249, Advanced $449 a month. Enterprise custom. Starter has no Site Audit allowance. | Launch price: $29.50 once, through 30 November. From 1 December: $59. |
| Can I try it free? | Verified sites only. 5,000 crawl credits a month per project. | Any public site, no account. Score, problem counts by area and the top problem in full. |
| Can I audit client sites? | Paid plans allow 5, 20 or 50 unverified projects on Lite, Standard or Advanced. | Any number of public sites, including client work. |
| What limits a crawl? | Monthly crawl credits and a page cap per project. See the plan table below. | Your page and depth settings, memory and a 15-minute default deadline. |
| Can it run while I am away? | Cloud scheduling and always-on audits on Lite and higher. | Scheduled re-audits run only while the app is open and the computer is awake. |
| Does it render JavaScript? | Yes, with JavaScript rendering enabled in crawl settings. | Renders a sample of pages as a browser would. The default does not render every page. |
| How are fixes sorted? | Errors, warnings and notices across 170+ issues. | 99 checks in 13 areas, ranked by impact against effort, with fix text and markup where useful. |
| Does it test AI crawler access? | Not stated on Ahrefs' Site Audit page on 9 November 2026. | robots.txt rules for 22 AI crawlers, plus a separate homepage server test. |
| Does it have AI features? | Ask AI and AI detection through Project Boost Pro at $20 a month per project. Max is $200. | Checks whether AI crawlers can reach and read the site. |
| Can I brand the report? | Not stated on Ahrefs' pricing or Site Audit page on 9 November 2026. | Your name and logo on the client PDF in the paid version. |
| Can a team use it? | 1 user included. Extra users cost $40 to $80 a month each, depending on plan. | One licence covers up to 3 computers at a time, Mac or Windows. No team accounts or shared workspace. |
| Can it crawl behind a login? | Authentication on Advanced and higher. | No login setup for password-protected crawls. It audits pages it can reach publicly. |
| Backlinks, keyword index and rank tracking? | Included in the wider Ahrefs platform. | No backlink or keyword index. No rank tracking. |
| Search Console or Analytics connection? | The Site Audit page labels GSC/GA as coming soon. | No Search Console or Analytics account connection. |
| Can I use Looker Studio? | Site Audit connector on Advanced and higher. | No Looker Studio connector. Paid CSV and JSON exports. |
Ahrefs sources read 9 November 2026. Plans, Site Audit, crawl settings and Looker Studio.
Is Ahrefs Site Audit free?
Yes, for sites whose ownership you verify. Ahrefs Free includes 5,000 crawl credits a month per project and unlimited verified sites. A paid plan is needed for sites you cannot verify, such as a prospect's or a competitor's. A client's site can use the free allowance if its ownership is verified.
Check Engine's free version works on any public site with no account. It runs the audit and shows the score, the number of problems in each area and the top problem with its fix. The full fix plan and report exports need a licence. The screenshot below is the free version auditing our company site on 9 November 2026.
Ahrefs sources read 9 November 2026. Ahrefs Free and Webmaster Tools.
Crawl credits, page caps and extra charges
A crawl credit pays for one internal HTML page that returns a 200 status. Redirects, pages that return an error, images, CSS and JavaScript files, and links to other sites do not spend credits. Each verified project's first 5,000 credits a month are free on every plan.
| Plan | Monthly price | Credits a month | Max pages per project | Unverified projects | Twelve monthly bills |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ahrefs Lite | $129 | 100,000 | 25,000 | 5 | $1,548 |
| Ahrefs Standard | $249 | 500,000 | 50,000 | 20 | $2,988 |
| Ahrefs Advanced | $449 | 1.5M | 250,000 | 50 | $5,388 |
Monthly billing, read 9 November 2026. The last column is the monthly price multiplied by twelve. Ahrefs pricing.
Two limits to check before a large crawl
Lite's 100,000 monthly credits do not let one project exceed its 25,000 page cap. Standard caps a project at 50,000 pages, and Advanced at 250,000. Re-crawling pages after a fix uses the monthly allowance again.
Extra pay-as-you-go credits are off by default. If you enable them, Ahrefs' pricing FAQ says you are automatically charged when use exceeds the plan's limits. Bought credits last 3 billing months. No price for extra crawl credits was stated on the pricing page or the credit help pages read on 9 November 2026.
Check Engine has no monthly credits or per-audit charge. You choose the page and depth settings. A crawl still stops at its deadline, when it runs out of links, or at the limits of the computer's memory. The default deadline is 15 minutes. Everything mode allows 24 hours.
Credit sources read 9 November 2026. How crawl credits are spent, usage-based pricing and the automatic-charges FAQ on pricing.
What Ahrefs does that Check Engine does not
- Index data and rank tracking. Ahrefs supplies backlink and keyword data, plus rank tracking. Check Engine has no backlink or keyword index and does not track search rankings. It has no Search Console connection.
- Cloud scheduling and always-on crawling. Ahrefs lets you schedule crawls by day, time and timezone. Always-on audits are available on Lite and higher. Check Engine's schedule runs only while the app is open and the computer is awake. It has no cloud or always-on crawler.
- Paid team seats. Lite includes 1 user and lets you add up to 2 at $40 a month each. Standard allows 5 extra at $60 each, and Advanced 10 at $80 each. Check Engine has no team accounts or shared workspace.
- Password-protected crawls. Ahrefs' settings help lists authentication on Advanced and higher. Check Engine has no setup for logging into a protected site. Use public staging pages or a tool with authentication.
- JavaScript across the crawl. Ahrefs lets you enable JavaScript rendering and search raw HTML, rendered HTML and page text. Check Engine renders a sample by default. A bug on an unsampled page may be missed.
- Crawl speed and scale. Ahrefs advertises up to 170k URLs crawled per minute. We have not benchmarked that claim. Check Engine's default is 4 concurrent requests with a 0.25-second delay per worker. Large sites take longer on a laptop.
- Looker Studio. Ahrefs' Site Audit connector needs Advanced or higher and consumes no credits. Check Engine has no connector.
Ahrefs sources read 9 November 2026. Pricing, Site Audit, crawl settings, always-on audits and Looker Studio.
What Check Engine adds to the audit workflow
Check Engine ranks fixes by impact against effort. It checks calls to action, enquiry forms and tracking readiness alongside technical SEO. These checks inspect pages. They do not read your conversion results from an Analytics account.
For AI access, Check Engine checks robots.txt rules for 22 AI crawlers. A separate optional server test requests the homepage as 9 AI crawlers and Googlebot, with Check Engine's identity added to each request. That can find a server refusal even when robots.txt allows the crawler. It does not prove the crawler will index or cite the page.
AI crawler server tests, conversion checks and tracking-readiness checks are not stated on Ahrefs' Site Audit page on 9 November 2026. Report branding is not stated on its pricing or Site Audit page on that date. An omitted feature is not proof that Ahrefs cannot do it. Ask Ahrefs if one decides the purchase.
Check Engine's paid version puts your own name and logo on the client PDF. The audit runs on your computer,
and its saved crawl and reports stay there unless you share them. Five optional checks
fetch outside data. --offline turns those checks off. The crawler still needs to fetch the site.
Ahrefs sources read 9 November 2026. Site Audit and pricing.
AI features in Ahrefs Site Audit
Project Boost Pro costs $20 a month per project. It lists Ask AI in Site Audit, AI detection for 1,000 URLs per crawl, auto-submit to IndexNow, instant recrawl and always-on auditing at 10 pages per minute.
Project Boost Max costs $200 a month per project. It lists Patches, auto-submit to IndexNow, Batch AI, AI detection for unlimited URLs and always-on auditing at 30 pages per minute. These are per-project add-ons. Check Engine's AI-visibility checks test crawler access and page readiness.
Read 9 November 2026. Project Boost pricing.
Exports, client reports and Looker Studio
Ahrefs' Site Audit page now says you can export all issues in bulk as ZIP or CSV, with fixing instructions. Its export help article was also read on 9 November 2026. We use the product page's current bulk-export wording here. Ahrefs' FAQ also lists overview PDFs through Print and most raw data as CSV.
The pricing page lists Report Builder, with a scheduled-report add-on at $99 a month. For Looker Studio, the Site Audit connector needs Advanced or higher and consumes no credits. Check Engine's paid PDF, CSV and JSON exports have no export allowance, and its PDF can carry your name and logo.
Sources read 9 November 2026. Bulk ZIP and CSV export, export help, PDF and CSV formats, Report Builder and Looker Studio.
Check Engine on a real site: ours
This is Check Engine auditing our own site. The findings below show how its impact and effort ranking turns into a fix plan.
Check Engine's findings for that site, 11 in all (3 medium, 3 low and 5 notice), come out as a ranked list. This is the order it gave, with the ones that name nobody else:
- Medium: 1 page is blocked from indexing. Small effort, 1 page.
- Notice: No advertising pixels installed. Small effort, 1 page.
- Medium: 2 pages across 1 group target the same search as each other. Medium effort, 2 pages.
- Medium: 1 orphan page has no internal links pointing to it. Medium effort, 1 page.
- Low: 3 groups of near-identical colours in your CSS. Medium effort, 3 pages.
- Low: Only 1 recognised profile in sameAs. Trivial effort, 1 page.
- Low: 1 page promises one thing in search and another on the page. Small effort, 1 page.
- Notice: Missing 1 baseline security header. Trivial effort, 1 page.
- Notice: 1 marketing and analytics tool detected. Trivial effort, 1 page.
- Notice: One AI visibility control cannot be checked from outside, including by this audit. Trivial effort, 1 page.
1 more name other companies or sites, a cookie-consent finding among them, and are left out here as they are in the public sample report.
Cost over a year, and what happens if you cancel
Using monthly billing for a full year costs $1,548 on Lite, $2,988 on Standard or $5,388 on Advanced, as shown in the plan table. These totals exclude add-ons, extra users and extra credits. Annual billing has separate prices. The subscription also pays for Ahrefs' research tools.
Check Engine has no renewal. Launch price: $29.50 once, through 30 November. From 1 December: $59. One licence covers any number of sites, including client work, on up to 3 computers at a time, Mac or Windows. There is a 30-day refund with no conditions.
Ahrefs says paid features stay active until the end of your billing cycle after cancellation, then the account moves to the free tier.
Read 9 November 2026. Monthly prices and cancellation. Check Engine pricing and refund terms.
Who should use which, and when to use both
- Choose Ahrefs for keyword and backlink research, rank tracking, cloud audits, team access or authenticated crawling. Check the plan for each feature.
- Choose Check Engine for a local audit of public sites, ranked fixes and branded client reports with a one-time licence. Try the free version on the site you need to fix.
- Use both if you need Ahrefs' research data and want Check Engine's local fix plan and client PDF.
For another desktop crawler, see Check Engine vs Screaming Frog. For the next step after an audit, see how to do a content audit.
Checked 9 November 2026. The factual claims about this product were read from its own pages on that date: monthly Site Audit plans start at Lite $129, then Standard $249 and Advanced $449. Enterprise is custom. Starter has no Site Audit allowance. Unverified project limits are 5, 20 and 50 on Lite, Standard and Advanced, with unlimited verified projects (source); monthly crawl credits are Lite 100,000, Standard 500,000 and Advanced 1.5M. Max pages per project are 25,000, 50,000 and 250,000 respectively (source); one user is included. Lite permits 2 extra users at $40 a month each, Standard 5 at $60 and Advanced 10 at $80. The wider platform includes backlink and keyword data and rank tracking (source); Site Audit lists 170+ issues as errors, warnings and notices, cloud crawling, JavaScript execution, raw HTML, rendered HTML and text search, and a speed claim of up to 170k URLs crawled per minute. Its GSC/GA connection is marked coming soon (source); Ahrefs Free includes Site Audit for verified sites, with 5,000 crawl credits per month per project and unlimited verified sites (source); Ahrefs Webmaster Tools is now Ahrefs Free. Unverified sites require a paid plan (source); only internal HTML pages returning 200 spend crawl credits. Redirects, errors, images, CSS, JavaScript files and external links do not. Each verified project's first 5,000 credits a month are free on every plan (source); additional pay-as-you-go credits are disabled by default. Bought crawl credits last three billing months. No extra crawl-credit price is stated in this article or the pricing and crawl-credit pages (source); the pricing FAQ says enabling additional pay-as-you-go credits and data causes automatic charges when consumption exceeds plan limits (source); crawl settings include JavaScript rendering and scheduling by day, time and timezone. Authentication requires Advanced or higher (source); always-on auditing is available on Lite and higher (source); Project Boost Pro is $20 a month per project, with Ask AI, AI detection for 1,000 URLs per crawl, auto-submit to IndexNow, instant recrawl and always-on auditing at 10 pages per minute. Max is $200 a month per project, with Patches, IndexNow, Batch AI, unlimited AI-detection URLs and always-on auditing at 30 pages per minute (source); the Site Audit product page offers bulk ZIP or CSV issue exports with fixing instructions (source); the export help article was also read. This comparison follows the product page's current bulk ZIP or CSV export wording (source); Site Audit overview PDFs use Print and most raw data exports are CSV. Cancellation keeps paid features active to the billing-cycle end, then moves the account to the free tier (source); Report Builder is listed, with a scheduled-report add-on at $99 a month (source); the Site Audit connector for Looker Studio needs Advanced or higher and consumes no credits (source); AI crawler server tests, conversion checks and tracking-readiness checks are not stated on the Site Audit page on 9 November 2026. Report branding is not stated there either (source); report branding is not stated on the pricing page on 9 November 2026 (source). Products change and pricing changes; if something here has gone out of date, tell us and it will be corrected. Everything else on this page is a comparison of approach, not a claim about their roadmap.
Check Engine is a one-time purchase for Mac and 64-bit Windows. It needs no account and has no crawl credits. The crawl runs
on your machine. Five optional checks fetch data it cannot produce alone. --offline
turns all five off. Download Check Engine →
$59once
For Macs with Apple silicon or Intel, macOS 12 or later, and 64-bit Windows
Priced in US dollars. Checkout shows your currency and any local tax.
On a Mac? Get the Mac version.
On your phone?
Launch price: $29.50 once, through 30 November. From 1 December: $59. Buy applies the code FOUNDINGDOCKET for you; if the checkout shows $59, enter it under ‘Have a discount code?’.
30 days, no conditions, no questions asked. Refund policy
Intel Mac? Get the Intel version
Common questions
Is Ahrefs Site Audit free?
Ahrefs Free gives 5,000 crawl credits a month per verified project, with unlimited verified sites. Sites you cannot verify need a paid plan. Read 9 November 2026 on Ahrefs' Free page. Check Engine's free version works on any public site with no account.
Can I audit a client's site with Ahrefs?
Yes. Paid plans allow 5 unverified projects on Lite, 20 on Standard and 50 on Advanced, per Ahrefs' pricing page read 9 November 2026. If the site's ownership is verified, it can use Ahrefs Free.
What happens when I run out of Ahrefs crawl credits?
Pay-as-you-go extras are off by default. Enabling them permits automatic charges above the plan limits. No extra crawl-credit price was stated on Ahrefs' pricing and credit help pages on 9 November 2026. Check Engine has no credits, but its crawl has page and depth settings and a 15-minute default deadline.
Is there a one-time alternative to Ahrefs Site Audit?
Check Engine runs on Mac and 64-bit Windows with no crawl credits. Launch price: $29.50 once, through 30 November. From 1 December: $59. One licence covers any number of sites on up to 3 computers at a time, Mac or Windows.
Does Ahrefs Site Audit render JavaScript?
Yes. Its Site Audit page says it executes JavaScript, with rendering enabled in crawl settings. Read 9 November 2026. Check Engine renders a sample of pages by default.
Does Ahrefs Site Audit have AI features?
Yes. Project Boost Pro lists Ask AI and AI detection at $20 a month per project. Max lists Batch AI and unlimited AI detection at $200 a month per project. Read on Ahrefs' pricing page 9 November 2026.
Can I white-label an Ahrefs site audit?
Report branding was not stated on Ahrefs' pricing or Site Audit page on 9 November 2026. Ask Ahrefs about it before buying. Check Engine's paid version puts your own name and logo on the client PDF.
Can Check Engine replace Ahrefs?
For audits of public sites, if a local fix plan fits your work. Check Engine has no backlink or keyword index, rank tracking or Search Console connection. It has no shared workspace or always-on crawler, and its scheduled audits run only while the app is open and the computer is awake.