Check Engine vs SEOptimer
The short answer: the SEOptimer alternative that fits depends on what you use SEOptimer for. It is a cloud audit tool sold by the month ($29–$59/mo), with white-label PDF reports, a lead generation tool on its top plan, and a fixed number of crawls on every plan. Check Engine is an audit you run on your own computer, bought once for $59, with no crawl meter, a free version, and reports that can carry your name and logo. If you want a lead generation tool or a monthly cloud service built for selling audits, stay with SEOptimer. If you want to hand clients a report under your own name, or re-run audits as often as you like, pick Check Engine.
At a glance
Read from SEOptimer's pricing page on 9 November 2026. Each plan offers a 7 day free trial.
| Plan | Monthly price | Crawls a month | What the plan names |
|---|---|---|---|
| SEOptimer Starter | $29 | 4 crawls, for 1 site | 20 tracked keywords |
| SEOptimer Pro | $39 | 10 crawls | White label PDF reporting, 3 users |
| SEOptimer Max | $59 | 50 crawls | White label PDF reporting and a lead generation tool, 6 users |
| Check Engine | $59 once | Unmetered | Reports with your name and logo. No lead generation tool |
$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
What SEOptimer does that Check Engine does not
- Lead generation. Its top plan, Max, names a lead generation tool. That is a marketing product. Check Engine is a tool you run, and has nothing like it.
That is a real concession. Selling audits is a real business and SEOptimer is built for it; Check Engine is a tool you run on your own computer.
The difference that actually decides it: the meter
Every SEOptimer plan buys a fixed number of crawls per month. Starter is four crawls for one website. Pro is ten. Max is fifty. That is the shape of every subscription audit tool, and it changes how you work: a crawl becomes something you spend rather than something you run.
Check Engine does not meter anything. There is no page allowance, no crawl count and no project
limit, because there is no server keeping score. The audit runs on your computer, and
-n 0 removes the page-count limit. A crawl still stops at its time limit of
15 minutes by default or 24 hours
with Everything, its depth limit of 5 by default, or when it runs out of links.
Re-running after every fix costs you nothing but
the time, which matters more than it sounds: the natural way to use an audit is to fix
something and immediately check whether you fixed it.
The pricing follows from that. SEOptimer bills monthly and keeps billing. Check Engine is $59 once. A year on SEOptimer's entry plan costs $348 at its listed monthly rate, more than Check Engine's one price. A year is a long time in software and a subscription you can cancel is a real advantage if you only need one audit.
What Check Engine adds
Check Engine runs 99 checks across thirteen areas, and four of those areas are not technical SEO at all: conversion, brand consistency, AI search visibility and campaign tracking. The AI area checks robots.txt rules for 22 AI crawlers. A separate check requests your homepage as 9 AI crawlers plus Googlebot to find server refusals the file cannot show. And every finding lands in a ranked plan rather than a categorised list. The formula is written out if you want to check the ordering yourself.
Check Engine on a real site: ours
SEOptimer's Starter plan buys four crawls a month for one site. This is a single Check Engine run, on a real site, with the figures the engine reported.
The twelve areas scored from 86 to 100, and 6 of them scored 100. Of the 11 findings (3 medium, 3 low and 5 notice), the first three Check Engine ranked among those that name nobody else were: 1 page is blocked from indexing; No advertising pixels installed; 2 pages across 1 group target the same search as each other. 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.
When to pick SEOptimer instead of Check Engine
- You want a lead generation tool. SEOptimer's Max plan names one. Check Engine has nothing like it.
- You only need one audit. A subscription you can cancel is better value than a purchase.
- You are on Linux, or want it in a browser. Check Engine's desktop app runs on Macs and 64-bit Windows only.
- You audit your own sites and want unlimited re-runs while you fix things. That is Check Engine, for $59 once.
They are not really the same product. One is a reporting and lead product sold to agencies; the other is an instrument you point at a site. If the metering is what puts you off, crawler.sh is worth a look for the same reason and against the same limit: it caps pages per session rather than crawls per month.
Other SEOptimer alternatives, by what you need
- A free one. Check Engine's free version shows your score, how many problems each area has and the top problem in full, on any site, with no key. The free SEO audit tools we compared are the other place to start.
- A team. That is what a platform subscription bundles. Our Semrush comparison lists seats among what it buys. Check Engine has no team accounts, though its reports can carry your name and logo.
- Visual reports an agency can present. Sitebulb turns crawl data into reports of that kind.
- A desktop crawler for raw data. Screaming Frog gives you the crawl data and leaves the reading to you.
- Another cloud tool that bills by the month. Sitechecker is the one we compare, and that page says its plans advertise unlimited recrawls.
Checked 9 November 2026. The factual claims about this product were read from its own pages on that date: its three plans are priced $29, $39 and $59 a month: Starter, Pro and Max (source); each plan lists a monthly crawl allowance: Starter 4 SEO crawls for 1 site, Pro 10 SEO crawls, Max 50 SEO crawls (source); Pro and Max name white label PDF reporting (source); Max names a lead generation tool (source); each plan offers a 7 day free trial (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 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
What is a good SEOptimer alternative for Mac?
Check Engine, if you audit your own sites and want unlimited re-runs: it runs on your computer, is bought once and has no crawl allowance, and its reports can carry your name and logo. It is not the one to pick if you need a lead generation tool, which SEOptimer's Max plan names and Check Engine does not.
Does SEOptimer have a free trial?
Its pricing page offers a 7 day free trial on each plan. Check Engine's free version shows your score, how many problems each area has and the top problem in full, with no key and no time limit. The full report is a one-time purchase with a 30-day refund.
How much does SEOptimer cost?
Its pricing page lists three plans, Starter, Pro and Max, at $29–$59/mo. Check Engine is $59 once.
Is Check Engine an SEOptimer alternative?
For auditing sites and handing clients a report under your own name and logo, yes. If you want a lead generation tool, no: SEOptimer's Max plan names one and Check Engine has nothing like it.
Is there a free SEOptimer alternative?
Check Engine's free version shows your score, how many problems each area has and the top problem in full, on any site, with no key and no time limit. It is not the full report, which is $59 once. Our guide to free SEO audit tools compares the other free options we looked at.
Can I get white-label reports from a SEOptimer alternative?
Yes. In the paid version, Check Engine's PDF and HTML reports can carry your agency's name and logo in place of Check Engine's (Reports, then Report branding), and its CSV and JSON exports carry no branding at all. SEOptimer also names white-label PDF reporting on its Pro and Max plans.
Which is cheaper, Check Engine or SEOptimer?
SEOptimer's Starter plan, for its first 2 months: $29 a month against Check Engine's $59 once. From month 3 it has cost more. Check Engine has no recurring fee, and every 1.x update is included, but a subscription you can cancel is genuinely better value if you only need one audit.
How many crawls does SEOptimer allow?
Its published plans buy four crawls a month for one website on Starter, ten on Pro and fifty on Max. Check Engine does not meter crawls at all: the audit runs on your own computer and -n 0 removes the page-count limit. A crawl still stops at its time limit of 15 minutes by default or 24 hours with Everything, its depth limit of 5 by default, or when it runs out of links. Re-running after each fix costs nothing.
Does SEOptimer check AI crawler access?
This page does not say, because it was not measured. Only what the vendor publishes was read. Check Engine checks robots.txt rules for 22 AI crawlers. A separate check requests your homepage as 9 AI crawlers plus Googlebot to find server refusals the file cannot show.