SpyFu vs. SurferSEO

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
SpyFu
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
SpyFu is the eponymous SEO and PPC research platform from the company in Scottsdale, Arizona focused on "spying" on competitors, or basically using their behaviors to refine your own through keyword and content analysis, and backlink poaching. This positional search engine optimization and paid listings management platform touts the ability to lower costs and raise rankings via a Kombat-oriented approach... basically a cute way of saying "it makes comparisons" of how well your site does in niche…
$39
per month
SurferSEO
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
SurferSEO, from Polish company Surfer, is presented as a modern tool for SEOs and marketers for efficient and comprehensive on-page SEO optimization.N/A
Pricing
SpyFuSurferSEO
Editions & Modules
Basic
$39
per month
Professional
$79
per month
Team
$299
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
SpyFuSurferSEO
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Features
SpyFuSurferSEO
SEO
Comparison of SEO features of Product A and Product B
SpyFu
7.2
51 Ratings
7% below category average
SurferSEO
7.7
2 Ratings
1% below category average
Keyword analysis6.951 Ratings8.02 Ratings
Backlink management5.939 Ratings00 Ratings
SERP ranking tracking8.143 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Page grader7.729 Ratings8.02 Ratings
Competitive analysis9.150 Ratings7.02 Ratings
Site audit / diagnostics7.132 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Site recommendations7.030 Ratings00 Ratings
Task management6.120 Ratings3.01 Ratings
SEO Channels
Comparison of SEO Channels features of Product A and Product B
SpyFu
7.7
38 Ratings
1% above category average
SurferSEO
7.0
1 Ratings
8% below category average
Local SEO7.632 Ratings6.01 Ratings
Social SEO8.027 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile SEO8.029 Ratings7.01 Ratings
Global SEO7.134 Ratings8.01 Ratings
SEO Platform & Account Management
Comparison of SEO Platform & Account Management features of Product A and Product B
SpyFu
8.7
27 Ratings
3% above category average
SurferSEO
7.0
1 Ratings
18% below category average
Multi-domain support8.927 Ratings7.01 Ratings
Integration with web analytics tools8.518 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
SpyFuSurferSEO
Small Businesses
Google PageSpeed Insights
Google PageSpeed Insights
Score 9.9 out of 10
Google PageSpeed Insights
Google PageSpeed Insights
Score 9.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Advanced Web Ranking
Advanced Web Ranking
Score 8.3 out of 10
Advanced Web Ranking
Advanced Web Ranking
Score 8.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Dupli Checker (DupliChecker.com)
Dupli Checker (DupliChecker.com)
Score 8.7 out of 10
Dupli Checker (DupliChecker.com)
Dupli Checker (DupliChecker.com)
Score 8.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
SpyFuSurferSEO
Likelihood to Recommend
8.1
(61 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(10 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.6
(13 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
SpyFuSurferSEO
Likelihood to Recommend
SpyFu
If you have a Google ads PPC campaign and then I would say this is more or less essential if you want to know what your competitors are doing. You can get very useful data out of it even if you subscribe for one month. And the pricing is very reasonable. Even if you don't use Google ads, I would say this is still useful for your SEO/SMO team since it gives you a great idea of what keywords and traffic your competitors are working on.
Read full review
Surfer
Surfer is well suited for:
  • Creating (and resisting) articles and web pages to increase their SEO relevancy for a keyword.
  • To identify NLP terms and the frequency of terms to be added to the page
  • To find internal linking opportunities
  • To plan pillar pages/topic clusters
Surfer is not a tool for
  • Technical SEO
  • Crawl Audits
  • Serp / Keyword Tracking
  • Project Management
Read full review
Pros
SpyFu
  • Keeping a tab on competitors organic and inorganic activities
  • Helps identify where the competitor is getting the backlinks from.
  • Identify competitors top content and the keywords that's bringing them traffic
  • Get proper information of their current and past ADS run on Google.
Read full review
Surfer
  • Analysis for on-page ranking factors
  • Competition analytics
  • NLP Analysis for webpage content
  • Content SEO scoring
  • Content editor with details about what to rank for
  • Plugin that helps with search data on Google
Read full review
Cons
SpyFu
  • As with any database, their keyword database has limits, so the data returned is relative to their database, not necessarily the full picture.
  • When SpyFu database or scoring chances, the data provided can spike, thus causing confusion among stakeholders, we're reporting to.
Read full review
Surfer
  • AI Writing: This is a new feature, and in comparison to alternatives it's poor both from a pricing and result perspective
  • Monthly Pricing: Surfer used to a clear value for money solution, it's somewhat pricing out solo-operators with the current pricing model
  • Backlinks: Surfer does have a backlink crawler, but it's quite limited
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
SpyFu
Love this tool but would like insights from all 3 major search engines not just Google. I would also like deeper understanding of the placement for local businesses on Google Places/Maps. Insight into mobile search rankings and best landing pages per industry would also help :) Overall, SpyFu is a necessity for serious search marketers.
Read full review
Surfer
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
SpyFu
SpyFu comes with a link to tutorial videos. I recommend you watch them. The software is capable of so much you really need to watch the videos and learn how to get the most out of it. When I have a question 90% of the time it's there. When it isn't, and I reach out to them, support is always quick and concise.
Read full review
Surfer
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
SpyFu
I was surprised to find I preferred Semrush when it comes to keyword research. SpyFu is great (and less expensive than Semrush), but I felt the data Semrush provided was vaster than SpyFu. I was able to get more competitors spending insights in Semrush than SpyFu. Overall, I liked the ability to use both in our keyword research for both paid and organic marketing.
Read full review
Surfer
Frase gives a lot of content to use, but it doesn't give you the factors you need to rank. This is ultimately why we use SurferSEO over any other editor tool that is out there. The analytics are number one to the entire space.
Read full review
Return on Investment
SpyFu
  • Helping us track our ranking.
  • It helps solve the problem of ambiguity when it comes to Google Ads. It makes the strategy more clear.
  • You can sift through lots of different online analytics to find the information, but it takes way too long. SpyFu has it all in one place!
Read full review
Surfer
  • Surfer has been a key tool in the past to help us rank many clients
  • We've been able to help clients reduce word count on pages that were stuffed or vice versa using Surfer
  • The results from using surfer on an article were easily seen within 3 months on average.
Read full review
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