the honest SpyFu alternative for backlinks.
most SpyFu alternatives are the same subscription with a different logo. this page does the boring version instead: what SpyFu's own free tier covers, where it stops, how the real SpyFu competitors price up, and what each one is genuinely best at. then the pitch, which is narrow on purpose. if you want an alternative to SpyFu for one job, finding the domains that link to your competitors and not to you, CrawlGraph runs it on Common Crawl's open hyperlink graph and the gap analysis returns your first 5 gaps for an email, with no account to create.
first 5 gaps for an email, no account · see the open-graph data behind this page
SpyFu's free tier: what you get, where it stops
the phrase people type is usually "free spyfu alternative", so start with the free part that already exists.
SpyFu shows an unusual amount without an account, which is exactly why it ranks for so much: land on a domain page and top keywords, ad history, and a competitor list are sitting there in the open. The generosity stops at depth and at export. Full result sets, downloads, and the outreach features are subscription-only. Worth knowing before you compare on price: backlinks were never SpyFu's centre of gravity. The ten-plus years of PPC and SERP history are, and that is the part the free pages show off.
over three years that is SpyFu at roughly $1,404 vs $99 once. for the job most people open SpyFu for - finding the competitor backlinks you don't have - you get the same gap.
where SpyFu genuinely wins
- PPC and AdWords competitor intelligence, its real specialty
- 10+ years of historical SERP and ad data
- generous data exports on the cheapest plan
if you live in those, SpyFu earns its price. we say so.
where CrawlGraph wins
- $99 once, not a subscription - the same open Common Crawl link data
- free gap analysis: your first 5 gaps for an email, no card
- finds the contact email and drafts the outreach - closes the loop
- open methodology, plus an API and MCP server
who should switch, and who should stay on SpyFu
If you are reverse-engineering somebody's ad spend, nothing on this page replaces SpyFu and we will not pretend otherwise. But people usually arrive at SpyFu for link building because it is the cheapest suite on the shelf, and then find the link data is the thinnest part of it. Buying a PPC specialist for backlinks is the mismatch behind most of these searches.
it is the same backlink data
SpyFu draws its core index from the public web, the same place Common Crawl publishes its open hyperlink graph every quarter. we measured it: SpyFu has 5,220 referring domains and a cg authority of 53 in the open graph (full method in our SEO-tools link study). for finding the domains linking to your competitors but not to you, that open graph is all you need - and it is what the free gap analysis runs on.
SpyFu alternatives and competitors, priced
the shortlist people actually compare against SpyFu, at list price for the entry plan, taken from each vendor's own pricing page. the strength column is where that tool genuinely beats the rest, including where it beats us.
| tool | price | strongest at |
|---|---|---|
| Ahrefs | $129/mo | the largest, freshest live backlink index (continuous re-crawl) |
| Semrush | $140/mo | an all-in-one suite (PPC, social, content, not just SEO) |
| Moz | $99/mo | Domain Authority, the metric the whole industry quotes |
| Majestic | $50/mo | Trust Flow and Citation Flow, its well-known link metrics |
| Serpstat | $69/mo | an all-in-one budget suite (rank tracking, audit, keywords) |
| SE Ranking | $103/mo | accurate daily rank tracking, its core strength |
| Ubersuggest | $29/mo | keyword research at a beginner price, the reason most people keep it |
| CrawlGraph | $99 once | competitor backlink gap analysis on open data, free to try for an email |
cheapest subscription in this table: Majestic at $50/mo. our $99 is paid once, so it costs less than Majestic after about 2 months.
priced closest to SpyFu, and so the most likely swap: alternatives to Ubersuggest, Majestic competitors, and tools like Serpstat. all eight are side by side on the seo tool price comparison.
alternative, competitor, or just similar? the four questions behind this search
people arrive here having typed one of four things, and they do not mean the same thing. answering them separately is more useful than pretending they are synonyms.
- “an alternative to SpyFu”
- you already pay for SpyFu and want the same job done for less. the answer is job by job rather than tool for tool. SpyFu wins at PPC and AdWords competitor intelligence, its real specialty, and if that is the reason you opened it, nothing on this page replaces it. the part that is genuinely replaceable is competitor link discovery, and that runs on open data for $99 once.
- “SpyFu competitors”
- you want the market map before you commit to anything. that is the table above: Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz, Majestic, Serpstat, SE Ranking, Ubersuggest, at entry-plan list price with the one thing each is genuinely strongest at, including where they beat us.
- “tools like SpyFu”, “sites like SpyFu”, “similar to SpyFu”
- you want the same shape of product, not a cheaper SpyFu. worth saying plainly: every tool in that table is a suite, and CrawlGraph is not one. if what you liked about SpyFu was having rank tracking, audits, and keywords in a single login, a specialist is not similar to it and you should buy a suite. if you only ever opened the backlink module, the similarity you were looking for is one report, not the login around it.
- “better than SpyFu”
- the only honest response is “at what?”. better across the board, at a lower price, does not exist, and a page that claims it is selling you something. better at one thing is real: for listing the domains that link to a competitor and not to you, the open Common Crawl graph finds the same gap a subscription would, then finds the contact address and drafts the outreach.
questions people actually ask
- Is there a free SpyFu alternative?
- Partly, and it is worth being precise about which part. CrawlGraph's backlink gap analysis is free and needs an email rather than an account, and it returns your first 5 gaps; a free API key gives you 15 backlink lookups a month. The full list, exports, and unlimited API access are $99 once, not a subscription. None of it is a time-limited trial.
- What is the cheapest SpyFu alternative?
- Of the tools compared on this page, Majestic is the cheapest subscription at $50/mo. CrawlGraph is $99 paid once, so it costs less than Majestic after about 2 months and never renews after that.
- Which SpyFu competitors are worth comparing?
- The realistic shortlist is Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz, Majestic, Serpstat, SE Ranking, Ubersuggest, and CrawlGraph. They are not interchangeable, so compare them on the job rather than on the feature count: the table on this page names the one thing each tool does better than the rest. For competitor backlink discovery specifically, the open Common Crawl hyperlink graph finds the same gap any of them would, and that is what CrawlGraph runs on.
- Is anything actually better than SpyFu?
- Not across the board, and be suspicious of any alternatives page that claims so. SpyFu beats us at PPC and AdWords competitor intelligence, its real specialty. What beats SpyFu is narrower: for the single job of listing the domains that link to a competitor and not to you, open data finds the same gap without a subscription, and CrawlGraph then finds the contact address and drafts the outreach email.
- Do these alternatives use the same backlink data as SpyFu?
- Not identical data, and anyone claiming otherwise is selling. SpyFu runs its own crawler. CrawlGraph reads Common Crawl's open hyperlink graph, 121.1M domains and 3.90B domain-level links as of the current release, republished every quarter. A live commercial index is fresher and deeper on brand-new links. For the job most people open SpyFu for, finding the domains that link to a competitor but not to you, the open graph finds the same gap.
test the data before you switch anything
not ready to move off SpyFu? don't. pull the same open graph yourself first and see whether the links you already know about show up. a free key is emailed to you, no card, no account to create.
see the gap before you pay anyone
run your domain against a competitor and read the list of sites linking to them and not to you. your first 5 gaps for an email, seconds.
first 5 gaps for an email · $99 once unlocks the full list, export, and API