Moz

SEO platform built around Domain Authority, local listings management and a weekly campaign workflow

As of 1 September 2026, Moz has a free plan and paid plans start at $49/month. The SEO toolset that owns the industry metric everyone quotes. Softwr lists it under Marketing. Moz is made by Moz Inc, launched in 2004, available on Web.

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Overview

What Moz does

Moz Pro covers the standard SEO toolkit: keyword research over a keyword index Moz describes as more than 1.25 billion keywords, backlink analysis over a link index Moz states at over 40 trillion links, weekly rank tracking, weekly site crawls with issue alerting, on-page grading and, since the shift to generative search, AI visibility dashboards that track prompts across GPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode. Alongside Moz Pro, Moz Local is a separate product for listings distribution and review management, and Moz API sells index access by query volume. The thing that keeps Moz on shortlists is Domain Authority. It is a Moz-invented score, not a Google signal, but it became the currency in which link buyers, PR agencies and clients talk about site strength, so an agency that reports DA to clients needs a Moz subscription to produce the number credibly. Moz Local is the second reason: multi-location businesses that need listings pushed to 90-plus directories with review monitoring buy it from 20 USD per location per month, which is a different budget line from a full SEO suite. Buyers are small and mid-sized in-house teams, local and franchise businesses, and agencies serving them. The trade-off is honest and well known: Moz trails Ahrefs on crawl frequency, link discovery and raw data depth, and it prices its entry tier low precisely because that is where it competes best.

What people use it for

SEO audits
Keyword research
Link building
Local SEO
Competitive analysis

Where it falls short

Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Moz.

Moz refreshes its link index less often and discovers fewer links than Ahrefs, so a new backlink frequently appears in Ahrefs days before it shows up in Link Explorer, which matters if link acquisition reporting is your job.
Rank tracking is weekly on every tier, so a site watching a volatile SERP or validating a same-week change cannot see daily movement without buying a separate rank tracker.
The Standard plan allows only 150 keyword queries a month, which a single afternoon of research exhausts, and the jump to a workable 5,000 queries means paying 179 USD a month rather than 99.
Almost every limit is separately metered and separately billable: extra seats are 49 USD each, campaigns 10 USD, tracked keywords 20 USD per 200, crawl capacity 15 USD per 50,000 pages, so the real bill drifts well above the plan price.
Domain Authority is a Moz score, not a Google ranking factor, and teams that optimise for it directly are optimising for a proxy that its own vendor sells.
Moz Local is a separate subscription per location, so a business with twenty sites is buying a second product at twenty times the per-location price on top of Moz Pro.

Cross-shopped

What people choose instead of Moz

Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.

Mozvs
Ahrefs
Ahrefs: Direct SEO competitor offering keyword research, competitor analysis, backlink data, and rank tracking with a larger keyword dataset than Moz.
Mozvs
SEMrush
SEMrush: Major SEO platform with 25 billion keywords, superior site audit capabilities through On-Page SEO Checker, and daily rank tracking across all plans.
Mozvs
SimilarWeb
SimilarWeb: Competitor providing traffic analytics and competitive intelligence for websites and digital marketing strategy analysis.

Pricing

What Moz costs

Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.

Free tools

Free

Domain Analysis and Domain Authority lookups
Limited Keyword Explorer and Link Explorer queries
Competitive Research and Brand Authority checks
MozCast algorithm volatility tracking
No campaigns, crawls or rank tracking

Starter

$49 /mo

Entry plan for an individual managing a single website
Sits below Standard on the published pricing page
Upgrade path into the campaign-based tiers

Standard

$99 /mo

79 USD per month billed annually, 950 USD for the first year
1 user seat
3 campaigns and 300 tracked keyword rankings
100,000 pages crawled per week
150 keyword queries and 5,000 backlink queries per month
1 AI visibility dashboard and 50 tracked prompts

Medium

$179 /mo

143 USD per month billed annually, 1,719 USD for the first year
2 user seats
10 campaigns and 1,500 tracked keyword rankings
500,000 pages crawled per week
5,000 keyword queries and 20,000 backlink queries per month
2 AI visibility dashboards and 100 tracked prompts

Large

$299 /mo

239 USD per month billed annually, 2,868 USD for the first year
3 user seats
25 campaigns and 3,000 tracked keyword rankings
1,250,000 pages crawled per week
15,000 keyword queries and 70,000 backlink queries per month
4 AI visibility dashboards and 200 tracked prompts

Moz Local

$20 /mo

Lite 20 USD per month, or 16 USD monthly at 199 USD billed yearly
Preferred 30 USD per month, or 24 USD monthly at 299 USD billed yearly
Elite 40 USD per month, or 33 USD monthly at 399 USD billed yearly
Listings distribution to 90-plus directories and review monitoring
Listings AI add-on 14 USD per month, Reviews AI add-on 10 USD per month

Capabilities

Features

Keyword Explorer
Link Explorer
Site Crawl
Rank Tracking
Page Optimization
Competitive research
Local SEO tools
Fresh Web Explorer
Google Analytics
Integration with Google Analytics
Google My Business
Integration with Google My Business
Facebook
Integration with Facebook
Twitter
Integration with Twitter

Answered, with sources

Questions people ask

Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.

How much does Moz Pro cost?

Starter is 49 USD a month for a single site. Standard is 99 USD a month or 79 USD billed annually, Medium 179 or 143, and Large 299 or 239. Moz lists first-year annual totals of 950, 1,719 and 2,868 USD respectively.

Is Moz or Ahrefs better?

Ahrefs is the stronger choice for backlink depth, index freshness and competitive research, and its Lite plan is 129 USD against Moz Standard at 99. Moz is the better buy if you need Domain Authority as a reportable metric, if local listings management matters, or if 49 USD a month for a single site is the budget.

What do the Moz free tools give you?

Free Domain Analysis with Domain Authority, limited Keyword Explorer and Link Explorer queries, Competitive Research, a Brand Authority check and MozCast volatility tracking. Campaigns, site crawls and rank tracking all require a paid plan.

Is Domain Authority a Google ranking factor?

No. It is a Moz model that predicts ranking strength on a 1 to 100 scale. Google does not use it. It is useful as a comparative shorthand, not as a target.

How often does Moz update rankings?

Weekly on every Moz Pro tier. Competitors such as SE Ranking update daily as standard.

Behind it

Who makes Moz

Company: Moz Inc
Based in: Seattle, WA
Founders: Rand Fishkin, Gillian Muessig

Timeline

Moz over time

Acquisition2021-06-04$67m
Acquired by iContact for $67 million
Source
Renamed2013-01-01
Company rebranded from SEOmoz to Moz
Source
Funding2012-05-01$18m
Series B funding of $18 million from Foundry Group and Ignition Partners
Source
Funding2007-09-01$1.1m
Series A funding of $1.1 million from Ignition Partners and Curious Office
Source
Founded2004-01-01
SEOmoz founded by Rand Fishkin and Gillian Muessig as an SEO blog and community
Source

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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Moz, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.

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