PLAN COST AND PRICING GUIDE

SEO software pricing guide: what you will actually pay elev8tor a month

Pricing pages show list prices. This guide shows the bill. Six setups, from one local business to a ten client agency, with the plan, the scanner credits and the Autopilot add-on added up, then the same numbers next to Semrush, Ahrefs and Search Atlas as listed on October 24, 2026.

Prices are USD, monthly, with the annual price per month in parentheses. Nothing here is a quote; your Settings > Billing screen shows the exact bill.

HOW THE PRICING WORKS

Three things you pay for, three things you never do

You pay for a plan, for Content Scanner credits, and, when it opens, for the Autopilot add-on. You never pay for users, for verified sites or for client portals. That split is deliberate. Users and sites are how agencies get taxed by other tools; we would rather be paid for the data and the work the software does.

Plans come two ways. Data Included plans (Starter, Growth, Agency, Agency Plus) include the search data: tracked keywords, research credits, audit pages and AI visibility prompts scale with the plan. Bring Your Own Data plans (BYO Pro, BYO Agency) charge a software fee only; you connect your own DataForSEO, Google and Claude accounts and pay those providers directly.

Credits run the content scanner and everything the agent does: a scan is 1, a keyword brief 0.5, a repair 3, a new page 8. Buy them monthly (Scanner 50 at $59, 150 at $149, 500 at $399) or pay as you go at $1.50 with a 20 credit minimum. The scanner runs on our servers, never on your keys, so credits cost the same on BYO plans.

Autopilot (early access) is a flat fee per site for the schedule, the approval queue, publishing through your site’s own REST API or the elev8tor API, the interlink pass and the re-scan: $39 for 4 posts a month, $69 for 8, $99 for 12. The posts themselves use credits, about 10.5 each.

SIX SETUPS

The bill, added up

Pick the row closest to you. Credits are sized so the month’s work fits inside the pack; the last column says what the money buys.

Who

What they buy

Monthly total

What it covers

One local business, do it yourself

Small Business Content $129 (early access)

$129 a month

500 tracked keywords, 750 research credits, 10,000 audit pages, 60 scanner credits included: about 6 new pages a month, or 60 scans, or a mix. Content Ideas, the writer and WordPress drafts. Logo on reports.

One local business, posts on a schedule

Small Business Bundle $199 (early access)

$199 a month

8 posts a month on Autopilot, researched, written, scored, linked and published through your WordPress connection in the mode you set. 90 credits covers the 84 the posts use with a little room for scans; buy a pack for more.

Freelancer with their own data keys

BYO Pro $49 + pay as you go credits

$49 a month plus $1.50 a credit

You pay DataForSEO, Google and Anthropic directly. 20 credit minimum, credits good for 12 months. Unlimited verified sites and portals.

Writer or small shop, scanner only

Content Scanner only, Scanner 50

$59 a month

No base plan. Scan any URL, run briefs, write and repair pages, send drafts to WordPress. No rank tracking or audits until you add a plan.

Agency with 10 client sites

Agency $349 + Scanner 500 $399

$748 a month, about $75 a client

3,000 tracked keywords, 5,000 research credits, 150,000 audit pages, full white label, unlimited portals, API, 500 credits (about 60 new pages, or 500 scans).

Agency, 10 clients, 4 posts each on Autopilot

Agency $349 + 10 x Autopilot 4 $39 (early access) + Scanner 500 $399 + pay as you go

$1,138 plus about $30 in extra credits

40 posts a month at 10.5 credits each is 420 credits; the 500 pack covers them with 80 left for scans. Per client, about $114 a month for software and content.

Autopilot fees are early access pricing and open on accounts as the add-on rolls out. Everything else is live and billed through Stripe. Full limits per plan are on the SEO software pricing page.

SMALL BUSINESS

Why the owner's setup stays under $200

A monthly SEO program from an agency starts near $1,000, because a person owns the outcome: strategy, review, links, Google Business Profile, a call each month. Software should not pretend to be that. The Small Business Bundle is $199 a month (early access), and for that you get the research, eight written and scored posts a month, the links wired in and the publishing done through your own WordPress connection, with no plugin of ours installed. Small Business Content at $129 is the same without the schedule: you pick from Content Ideas and approve each page. Add API access for $19 a month when the site is not on WordPress, or have us connect WordPress for $99 one time.

If you would rather not pick keywords or approve drafts at all, say so from the contact page: Vertical Web, the agency that built elev8tor, runs the done for you version. The honest answer is sometimes the cheaper one.

AGENCIES

Per client math that holds up

Agency at $349 with Scanner 500 is $748, about $75 a client for ten clients, and that includes full white label, unlimited portals and the API. Add Autopilot 4 per client at $39 and the content runs itself: 40 posts a month at 10.5 credits is 420 credits, inside the 500 pack. All in, about $114 a client for software and content, against the $1,000 to $2,500 most agencies charge for the service. The agency SEO platform page covers roles, portals and the client view; white label SEO reporting covers branding.

Larger rosters move to Agency Plus at $699 for 7,000 tracked keywords and 12,000 research credits, and BYO Agency at $129 suits shops that already pay for DataForSEO.

NEXT TO THE OTHERS

Semrush, Ahrefs and Search Atlas as listed in October 2026

The research suites have far larger databases, and Search Atlas automates more technical work. The grid is about money. Our fuller read of two dozen tools is on agentic SEO tools compared, and the Semrush and Ahrefs plan by plan view is on Semrush alternative.

Semrush

Ahrefs

Search Atlas

elev8tor

Entry plan

SEO $139 monthly

Lite $129

Starter $99 (1 OTTO site)

Starter $69 ($55 annual)

Middle plan

Starter SEO + AI Search $199

Standard $249

Growth $199 (2 sites)

Growth $159 ($127)

Agency plan

Pro+ $299; Advanced custom

Advanced $449; Enterprise $1,499

Pro $399; Agency $999 (10 sites, portals)

Agency $349 ($279); Agency Plus $699 ($559)

Extra users

Per seat, by plan

By plan

Free and unlimited

Client portals

Not listed

Agency $999 and up

Unlimited on every paid plan

AI content and publishing

Content Toolkit, no standalone price shown

Content Kit add-on from $99, grader marked soon

Included: OTTO content and fixes on every plan

Scanner credits: brief 0.5, scan 1, repair 3, new page 8; Autopilot add-on from $39 (early access)

Bring your own data

BYO Pro $49, BYO Agency $129

Vendor prices as shown on their pricing pages on October 24, 2026; most show annual billing by default. Check their sites for current pricing.

SOFTWARE OR A RETAINER

How SEO pricing models compare, and where elev8tor sits

Most SEO pricing guides are about buying a service, so here is the map. Agencies charge a monthly retainer, usually $1,000 to $5,000 for a small business and more by industry and competition; hourly consulting runs about $100 to $300 an hour; a one time project such as a site audit or a migration is quoted as a fixed fee. In every model the SEO cost is mostly expertise and hours: a person reads the data, decides, writes, builds links and reports results. Revenue from the work follows the strategy and the budget you give it, and results take months either way.

Software pricing is a different model. You pay for data and for what the agent does, and you supply the decisions. elev8tor sits at $49 to $699 a month for the plan plus credits for the work, which is why a full small business setup lands near $287 and a ten client agency near $75 a client. The retainer buys judgment; the software buys execution and visibility: rankings, AI Overview and Perplexity, ChatGPT and Gemini citations, leads and conversions in one place. Vertical Web sells both and tells you which fits.

WHAT THE PLAN FEE BUYS

The features behind the price, plan by plan

Every Data Included plan carries the same feature list; the limits scale. Rank tracking checks every tracked keyword weekly to position 100, with the ranking page, map pack and AI Overview noted, and daily priority keywords on top. Keyword research returns volume, difficulty, intent and the ranking pages for each keyword, and competitor reports show the pages a competitor ranks for that your website does not, with a backlink summary (referring domains, spam filtered). Site audits crawl 10,000 pages a month on Starter ($69/mo) and 400,000 on Agency Plus ($699/mo). AI visibility tracks 25 to 300 prompts across Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Gemini, and AI search findability checks run inside every audit. Google Search Console and GA4 connect in one click so clicks, impressions and conversions sit next to rankings in the all in one SEO tools dashboard.

Growth ($159/mo) adds white label reports and lifts every limit; Agency ($349/mo) adds full white label and the API; Agency Plus ($699/mo) is the largest pool. BYO Pro ($49/mo) and BYO Agency ($129/mo) carry the same features with your own data keys. Nothing in the feature list is gated by seat count, because users are free.

FINE PRINT THAT MATTERS

What the pricing page does not have room for

Costs you can predict

Credits are taken when a job finishes; failed jobs cost nothing
Usage bars warn at 80 and 100 percent; you are never billed overage without buying a pack
Monthly scanner credits reset; pay as you go credits last 12 months and are used second
Annual billing is about 20 percent less and is shown per month in parentheses
Switching plans keeps your scanner subscription and unused credits

Things that stay free

Users on every plan, sharing the account’s pools
Verified sites, with Search Console or a lead connector test as proof
Client portals on every paid plan, BYO included
The optional lead tracking with GA4 connector, demo included
Help center, tooltips, the support form and the help desk

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

How much does elev8tor cost a month?

From $0 for the free demo, $49 for BYO Pro, $69 for Starter, $159 for Growth, $349 for Agency and $699 for Agency Plus, with annual prices about 20 percent lower. The Content Scanner is extra on every plan: Scanner 50 is $59, 150 is $149, 500 is $399, or $1.50 a credit pay as you go. Content Scanner only has no base plan.

What does a credit buy?

A page scan is 1 credit, a keyword brief 0.5, an AI page repair 3 and a new AI page 8. Autopilot adds an interlink pass at 1 credit and a draft scan at 1, so a scheduled post is about 10.5 credits all in. Credits are taken when a job finishes; a failed job costs nothing.

Do monthly credits roll over?

Subscription credits reset each month. Pay as you go credits last 12 months and are used after the monthly ones run out, so a pack is the right way to cover a busy month.

What is free on every plan?

Users, verified sites and client portals. A site is verified when the Google account connected in Settings has Search Console access to it, or when the elev8tor connector installed on it has sent a lead. Unverified sites are capped per plan: 3 on Starter, 10 on Growth, 30 on Agency, 75 on Agency Plus, 5 on BYO Pro, 50 on BYO Agency.

What does Autopilot cost?

Autopilot is an add-on in early access: $39 a month for 4 posts, $69 for 8, $99 for 12, per site. The fee covers the schedule, the approval queue, publishing through the WordPress REST connection (or the API and webhooks elsewhere), the interlink pass and the re-scan. The content itself uses credits, about 10.5 a post. Request early access from the contact page and we will tell you when it opens on your account.

Is there a contract?

No. Plans are month to month or annual, with a 7 day trial on paid plans that needs a card. Cancel from Settings > Billing. Unused pay as you go credits stay valid for 12 months even if you drop to the demo.

When should I hire an agency instead?

When you would rather not approve drafts, pick keywords or read reports at all. Software, even with Autopilot, still asks you to make a decision a few times a month. Vertical Web, the agency that built elev8tor, sells a done for you SEO program; ask from the contact page and we will tell you whether the software or the service fits.

Why does a small business setup stay under $300?

Because that is where software belongs. A monthly SEO service from an agency starts near $1,000 because a person owns the outcome. elev8tor gives you the research, the writing, the score and the publishing for a fraction of that, and you supply the judgment. If you want the person, that is a different purchase, and we will say so.

Start with the demo, upgrade when the numbers make sense

The free demo runs on your own site with 5 scans and a sample workspace, so you can see what a page is worth before you spend a credit on it.

SEO software pricing: Every plan, limit and credit option
Agentic SEO tools compared: Two dozen tools on the same five questions
Small business SEO software: The under $300 setup and when to hire instead
Agency SEO platform: Roles, portals and the client view
Content scanner: What a credit buys and why