SE Ranking vs Screaming Frog
SE Ranking vs Screaming Frog: choose SE Ranking if you need rank tracking and keyword research alongside a site audit. Choose Screaming Frog if you need a desktop crawler and want to work with the crawl data yourself. SE Ranking's cloud audit is metered by pages per month. Screaming Frog's paid licence has no page meter; its free tier has a URL cap.
- SE Ranking suits a marketer who wants rank tracking, keyword research and an audit in one place, and is happy to pay monthly for it.
- Screaming Frog suits an SEO who wants raw crawl data from a desktop tool, on very large sites, with no page meter.
- Check Engine suits someone on a Mac or Windows PC who wants a ranked list of what to fix, bought once, with no meter.
SE Ranking vs Screaming Frog: prices and audit limits
Vendor figures were read from each vendor's own pages; the evidence list below gives the pages and the dates read.
| SE Ranking | Screaming Frog | Check Engine | |
|---|---|---|---|
| How you pay | Monthly subscription | Annual licence | Once |
| Published price | $129–$279/mo ($103.20–$223.20/mo billed annually) | $279/yr USD | $59 once |
| Plans | Core and Growth, then an Enterprise tier that says “Talk to sales” | One tier. Licences are per user | One licence, up to 3 computers at a time, Mac or Windows |
| Audit volume | Metered: Core states “250k pages per month in audit”, Growth “2M pages per month in audit” | Unmetered; the free tier stops at 500 URLs | Unmetered |
| Where the crawl runs | Their cloud | Your machine | Your Mac or PC |
| Try before buying | “Start free 14-day trial”, “No credit card required” | Free tier, 500 URLs | Free: your score, how many problems each area has and the top problem in full. Then a 30-day refund |
$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?’.
Screaming Frog is $279 a year. Ahrefs plans with Site Audit run $129–$449 a month. Check Engine is $59 once. Screaming Frog’s price read 4 November 2026, Ahrefs’ 9 November 2026.
30 days, no conditions, no questions asked. Refund policy
Intel Mac? Get the Intel version
Checked against the vendor's own pricing page: Ahrefs Site Audit checked 2026-11-09 (source); CrawlRaven checked 2026-10-19 (source); Google Lighthouse checked 2026-10-19 (source); JetOctopus checked 2026-10-19 (source); Otterly.AI checked 2026-10-19 (source); Profound checked 2026-10-19 (source); SE Ranking checked 2026-10-08 (source); SEOptimer checked 2026-10-08 (source); Screaming Frog checked 2026-11-04 (source); Scrutiny checked 2026-10-19 (source); Semrush Site Audit checked 2026-10-19 (source); Sitebulb checked 2026-10-19 (source); Sitechecker checked 2026-10-19 (source); Ubersuggest checked 2026-10-19 (source); crawler.sh checked 2026-10-19 (source). Prices change; check before you buy, and tell us if one here is wrong.
When should you choose SE Ranking?
Not a crawler. The audit is one module inside a rank-tracking and keyword platform, and the Core plan states “250k pages per month in audit” and “25K API credits & MCP access”. The Growth plan states “2M pages per month in audit”. If you want daily rank tracking across major search engines, that is the product, and neither of the other two here does it at all.
The page meter is the thing to check before you buy. 250k pages a month is generous for one site and starts to matter when you are auditing many, or re-auditing the same large site often.
When should you choose Screaming Frog?
The opposite trade. It audits “over 300 SEO issues”, it runs on your machine, and nothing counts your pages. Their page says you can “Download & crawl 500 URLs for free”, and that “For just £199 per year you can purchase a licence, which removes the 500 URL crawl limit”. In US dollars the pricing page lists $279/yr USD per licence, and says licences are per user, so two people need two. The free tier is genuinely useful and genuinely limited: their Free vs Paid table puts Scheduling, Crawl Configuration, Save & Open Crawls, JavaScript Rendering, Crawl Comparison and Near Duplicate Content on the paid side only, so the free version cannot save a crawl or render JavaScript.
If you only need a free audit, the free SEO audit tools list puts the page checkers and site crawler beside their limits.
What you get back is data. Screaming Frog is the better tool if you know what you are looking for: very large crawls, a specific hypothesis to test. It does not rank what to fix first, and it does not try to.
Where Check Engine sits, and where it does not
Check Engine is the third shape: bought once, run locally, unmetered, and the output is a ranked plan rather than a table. Every finding carries how bad it is, how long the fix takes and the change to make. That is the whole pitch, and it is worth being clear about what it costs you.
Check Engine does not track rankings. No keyword positions, no daily rank checks, no competitor position history. If that is why you were looking at SE Ranking, Check Engine does not replace it and this page is not trying to talk you out of it.
Screaming Frog's Free vs Paid table lists “JavaScript Rendering” on the paid side. Check Engine renders a sample by default.
SE Ranking is a cloud platform used in a browser. Screaming Frog runs on Windows, macOS and Ubuntu. Check Engine runs on Macs with Apple silicon or Intel and on 64-bit Windows.
Check Engine on a real site: ours
Most of this page is about what the other two do. This is what Check Engine does: a real audit of our own site, with the figures the engine reported.
That audit found 11 things to fix: 3 medium, 3 low and 5 notice. Below are the ones that do not name other companies or sites, in the order Check Engine ranked them. 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.
| Severity | Finding | Effort | Pages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Medium | 1 page is blocked from indexing | Small | 1 |
| Notice | No advertising pixels installed | Small | 1 |
| Medium | 2 pages across 1 group target the same search as each other | Medium | 2 |
| Medium | 1 orphan page has no internal links pointing to it | Medium | 1 |
| Low | 3 groups of near-identical colours in your CSS | Medium | 3 |
| Low | Only 1 recognised profile in sameAs | Trivial | 1 |
| Low | 1 page promises one thing in search and another on the page | Small | 1 |
| Notice | Missing 1 baseline security header | Trivial | 1 |
| Notice | 1 marketing and analytics tool detected | Trivial | 1 |
| Notice | One AI visibility control cannot be checked from outside, including by this audit | Trivial | 1 |
Can you use both?
Yes, because they do different jobs. SE Ranking tracks rankings and keywords and meters its audit by pages per month. Screaming Frog crawls on your own machine and returns raw data, with no page meter. Nothing about one stops you running the other. The price table above lists their published prices, with sources and dates below. If you add a third tool for the part neither does, a ranked list of what to fix first, that is where Check Engine sits.
If the platform you already pay for is Ahrefs rather than SE Ranking, Ahrefs Site Audit is set out the same way, with what it checks and how a crawl is paid for.
When to pick SE Ranking or Screaming Frog instead of Check Engine
- You need daily rank tracking and keyword research. Pick SE Ranking, and the audit comes along with it. Check Engine does not track rankings.
- You crawl very large sites, or you want raw data to interrogate yourself. Pick Screaming Frog. It handles far larger crawls than Check Engine.
- You are on Linux, or want it in a browser. Check Engine's desktop app runs on Macs and 64-bit Windows only.
- You want to know what is wrong with your site and what to do about it, on a Mac or Windows PC, with no subscription or page meter. That is what Check Engine is for.
Checked 9 November 2026. The factual claims about this product were read from its own pages on that date: SE Ranking's Core plan states "250k pages per month in audit" (source); the same plan lists "25K API credits & MCP access" (source); its two priced plans are $129.00/mo and $279.00/mo, or $103.20 and $223.20 billed annually, above an Enterprise tier that says “Talk to sales” (source); it offers a "Start free 14-day trial" with "No credit card required" (source); Screaming Frog audits "over 300 SEO issues" (source); you can "Download & crawl 500 URLs for free", and its page says "For just £199 per year you can purchase a licence, which removes the 500 URL crawl limit" (source); its pricing page lists $279 per licence per year for 1 to 4 licences, and says "Licences are per user. 2 users will require 2 individual licences." (source); SE Ranking's Growth plan states "2M pages per month in audit" (source); its Free vs Paid table puts Scheduling, Crawl Configuration, Save & Open Crawls, JavaScript Rendering, Crawl Comparison and Near Duplicate Content on the paid side only (source). If a figure here has gone stale, tell us.
Check Engine is a one-time purchase for Mac and Windows: no account, no crawl credits, and the crawl runs
on your machine. Five optional checks fetch data it cannot produce alone; --offline
turns all five off.
$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?’.
Screaming Frog is $279 a year. Ahrefs plans with Site Audit run $129–$449 a month. Check Engine is $59 once. Screaming Frog’s price read 4 November 2026, Ahrefs’ 9 November 2026.
30 days, no conditions, no questions asked. Refund policy
Intel Mac? Get the Intel version
Common questions
Which is better for a site audit, SE Ranking or Screaming Frog?
It depends on the job. Screaming Frog is a desktop crawler with no page meter and a free tier of 500 URLs, for people who want raw crawl data. SE Ranking's audit is one module of a subscription platform, metered by pages per month and sold beside rank tracking and keyword research. Check Engine is a third option for Mac and Windows users: bought once, unmetered, with a ranked list of fixes.
How much does SE Ranking cost compared with Screaming Frog?
SE Ranking is $129–$279/mo ($103.20–$223.20/mo billed annually). Screaming Frog is $279/yr USD, with a free tier up to 500 URLs. The evidence list gives the sources and dates read. Check Engine is $59 once.
Is SE Ranking's site audit unlimited?
No. Its Core plan states “250k pages per month in audit”, so the audit is metered by pages per month. Screaming Frog's paid licence has no page meter.
Can I use Screaming Frog for free?
Yes, up to 500 URLs. Their Free vs Paid table puts Scheduling, Crawl Configuration, Save & Open Crawls, JavaScript Rendering, Crawl Comparison and Near Duplicate Content on the paid side, so the free version cannot save a crawl or render JavaScript.
Can I use SE Ranking and Screaming Frog together?
Yes. They do different jobs: SE Ranking tracks rankings and keywords and meters its audit by pages per month, while Screaming Frog crawls on your own machine and returns raw data with no page meter. Neither ranks what to fix first, which is the gap Check Engine fills for Mac and Windows users.
Which one tracks keyword rankings?
SE Ranking. Screaming Frog does not, and neither does Check Engine. If daily rank tracking is what you need, that is the one of the three that does it.