Frase vs Surfer SEO Pricing 2026: AI Content Optimization Compared

These aren’t keyword research tools

Before we compare pricing, let’s be clear about what these tools actually do, because they’re frequently lumped in with traditional SEO suites like Semrush or Ahrefs, and that comparison misses the point.

Frase and Surfer SEO are AI-powered content optimization tools. Their primary job isn’t tracking keyword rankings or building backlink profiles. Their job is helping you write content that ranks by analyzing what currently ranks, identifying content gaps, and scoring your writing against top-performing pages in real time.

If you need keyword research, rank tracking, site audits, and backlink analysis, you want a traditional SEO suite like Semrush ($117/mo annual). If you need help writing content that outranks what’s already on page one, you’re in the right comparison.

Pricing side by side

	Frase Starter	Surfer Essential	Frase Scale	Surfer Scale
Monthly	$49/mo	$99/mo	$149/mo	$219/mo
Annual	$45/mo	$79/mo	$115/mo	$175/mo
Users	1	1	3	3
Articles/mo	10	10-20	40	Higher limits
AI writing	Included	Uses separate credits	Included	Uses separate credits
SERP research	Included	Included	Included	Included
Content scoring	Yes	Yes (more granular)	Yes	Yes
API access	No	No	Yes	Yes
Enterprise	Custom	Custom	Custom	Custom

The pricing gap at entry level is stark: Frase Starter costs $49/month vs Surfer Essential at $99/month. Even on annual billing ($45 vs $79), Frase is 43% cheaper. At the Scale tier, the gap narrows slightly in percentage terms but stays meaningful: $115/month vs $175/month.

Both tools offer Enterprise tiers with custom pricing for teams that need unlimited articles and dedicated support.

The article limit wall

The number to watch isn’t the monthly price. It’s the article limit.

Frase Starter caps you at 10 articles per month. That’s 10 pieces of content you can research, outline, and optimize. For a solo blogger or small content team publishing weekly, 10 articles is adequate. For an agency producing content for multiple clients, you’ll hit the wall by week two.

Surfer Essential gives you 10-20 articles per month, depending on your specific plan configuration. The higher ceiling gives you slightly more room, but you’ll still feel the constraint at agency volume.

The real decision point: if you regularly produce more than 10 articles per month, you’re looking at the Scale tier regardless of which tool you choose. At that point, Frase Scale ($115/mo annual, 40 articles) vs Surfer Scale ($175/mo annual), and Frase saves you $60/month, or $720/year.

Where Frase wins: research and content briefs

Frase’s strength is the top of the content workflow: the research, analysis, and outlining phase that happens before you write a word.

SERP analysis is Frase’s standout feature. Enter a target keyword and Frase pulls the top-ranking pages, extracts their headings, identifies common topics and questions, and surfaces content gaps. The analysis is fast and thorough. If you’ve ever manually opened 10 Google results, reading each one to understand what to cover in your article, Frase automates that process.

AI-generated content briefs save real time. Frase builds outlines based on SERP analysis: suggested headings, key topics to cover, questions to answer, and word count targets. You get a structured starting point instead of a blank page. The briefs aren’t perfect (they need editing), but they cut brief-creation time from hours to minutes.

The GEO score is forward-looking. GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization. It scores how likely your content is to be cited by AI search engines like Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, and ChatGPT. This is a Frase-specific feature that Surfer doesn’t offer. Whether GEO scores will matter as much as traditional SEO scores is an open question, but as AI-generated search results grow, optimizing for them is a defensible strategy.

AI writing doesn’t burn separate credits. Frase includes AI writing in the base plan. Surfer’s AI article generation uses separate credits that aren’t included in the standard subscription. If AI-assisted drafting is part of your workflow, Frase’s approach is more predictable cost-wise.

Brand voice settings on all Frase plans let you configure the AI to match your writing style. Useful for maintaining consistency when producing content at volume.

Where Surfer wins: on-page optimization scoring

Surfer’s core product is the Content Editor, and it’s genuinely the best real-time content optimization interface available.

The Content Editor’s NLP scoring is more granular than Frase’s. As you write (or paste existing content), Surfer analyzes your text against the top-ranking pages for your target keyword. It scores you on term frequency, content structure, heading usage, image count, word count, and dozens of NLP-derived signals. The scoring updates in real time as you type, showing exactly which terms to add or remove and how your overall score shifts.

The optimization score is an agency currency. Agencies use Surfer’s content score as a deliverable: “we optimized this article from 42 to 87” is a concrete metric clients understand. This standardized scoring framework is why Surfer dominates in agency workflows. Frase has content scoring, but it’s less established as an industry benchmark.

Content audits surface optimization opportunities across your site. Surfer can analyze existing published content and identify pages that could rank higher with optimization. This audit-then-optimize workflow is Surfer’s bread and butter for teams managing large content libraries.

Keyword research is more developed in Surfer. While neither tool matches a dedicated SEO suite, Surfer’s keyword research features, including keyword clustering, search intent analysis, and SERP similarity scoring, are more mature than Frase’s. If you want one tool that handles both keyword research and content optimization, Surfer covers more ground.

The SERP analyzer provides deep data on what’s ranking: word counts, heading structures, term usage, page speed, and domain authority, with more data points than Frase’s equivalent feature.

Hidden costs to watch

Frase

• 10 articles/mo on Starter is the real wall. If you’re producing content regularly, you’ll either need to carefully budget your article slots or upgrade to Scale at $115/mo.
• 7-day trial requires a credit card. Make sure to cancel before it charges if you decide it’s not for you.
• Site audits are limited by plan. The number of pages you can audit scales with your plan tier.

Surfer SEO

• AI article generation uses separate credits. The standard plan includes the Content Editor for manual writing, but AI-generated articles consume credits that aren’t part of the base subscription. This can make AI-heavy workflows more expensive than the plan price suggests.
• No free trial. Surfer offers a 7-day money-back guarantee instead. You pay upfront and request a refund if it’s not for you. This means committing $79-99 before you’ve fully evaluated the product.
• Team collaboration costs scale quickly. Moving from 1 user to 3 users means jumping from Essential to Scale, from $79/mo to $175/mo on annual billing. There’s no in-between.

The content workflow question

The right tool depends on where you spend your time:

If your workflow is: research > outline > write from scratch Choose Frase. The SERP analysis and brief-generation tools are built for this workflow. You start with a keyword, Frase builds the research foundation, and you write from there. The AI writing assistant helps with first drafts, and the GEO score gives you a forward-looking optimization target.

If your workflow is: write (or receive) content > optimize for SEO Choose Surfer. The Content Editor is built for taking existing text and making it rank better. Paste in a draft, see what’s missing, add the right terms, hit a target score. This is the agency workflow: clients submit drafts, you optimize them, and the content score proves the value.

If your workflow is: both of the above Either tool works, but you’ll use different features. Frase gives you more on the research side; Surfer gives you more on the optimization side. Pick the side of the workflow where you spend the most time.

Frase vs Surfer vs a traditional SEO suite

A common question: should you get one of these tools, or a broader SEO platform?

These tools are complements to, not replacements for traditional SEO suites. Frase and Surfer don’t track your keyword rankings over time, don’t analyze your backlink profile, don’t monitor your competitors’ domain authority, and don’t provide the kind of technical site audits that tools like Semrush specialize in.

If you can only afford one tool, a traditional SEO suite gives you broader capabilities. If you already have keyword research and rank tracking covered, adding Frase or Surfer levels up your content game specifically.

For a more traditional SEO suite comparison, see our SE Ranking vs Semrush breakdown.

The verdict

For solo content writers and small teams: start with Frase ($45-49/mo). It’s the cheaper entry point, the research and brief tools are best-in-class, AI writing is included without extra credits, and the GEO score positions you for the AI search future. The 10-article monthly limit is the main constraint; if you’re producing more than that, budget for the Scale plan.

For agencies and optimization-focused teams: choose Surfer SEO ($79-99/mo). The Content Editor’s scoring framework is the industry standard, clients understand Surfer scores as a deliverable, and the content audit feature makes it easy to find optimization opportunities across large content libraries. Pay the premium for the scoring credibility.

Either way: these tools pay for themselves if they help a single article reach page one that otherwise wouldn’t have. One ranking article can generate more value in organic traffic than a year’s subscription to either tool.

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Pricing sourced from Frase and Surfer SEO. Last checked February 2026.