The short version
- SE Ranking Core tracks 2,000 daily keywords across 10 projects for $129/mo. Moz Medium tracks 1,500 across 10 sites for $179/mo.
- Moz is easier to learn and has the stronger local product; SE Ranking is better value and better built for agency reporting.
- Moz has a genuinely cheap entry tier ($49/mo Starter) — with a very small allowance attached.
- Neither has a permanent free tier. Both offer trials.
This is an unusual pairing to shortlist, and the teams that do it are usually optimising for different things at once: a low invoice and a tool nobody needs training on. Those pull in opposite directions, and the right fit should depend on who is going to use it every week.
The short answer
Fit for your workflow
SE Ranking for agencies. Moz for small businesses and local.
SE Ranking gives you more tracked keywords, more projects and far cheaper seats — the three things agency economics turn on. Moz Pro is easier for a non-specialist and pairs with Moz Local, which is the better local product. Pick by who is at the keyboard.
- Agency with client reporting obligations
- SE Ranking, on seat cost and tracking volume alone.
- Small business, generalist marketer
- Moz Standard at $99/mo.
- Local or multi-location business
- Moz Pro plus Moz Local from around $20/mo.
Pricing
Moz blocks automated retrieval of its pricing page, so those figures came from independent trackers rather than the vendor. SE Ranking figures were read directly. Confirm both before purchase.
Moz Medium includes three seats where SE Ranking Core includes one, so the gap narrows on a three-person team — roughly $179 against $161. Above three people, SE Ranking pulls ahead again.
That table is a good example of why headline price comparisons mislead. At exactly three users, Moz Medium and SE Ranking Core land within $20 of each other. At one user, SE Ranking is $50/mo cheaper. At six users, SE Ranking is cheaper again. Count your seats before you conclude anything.
Capability comparison
The two differentiators the rubric does not fully capture are ease of use, where Moz is meaningfully ahead of everything in this category, and content optimisation, where SE Ranking has built more native capability than Moz has.
Ease of use is a real line item
Moz’s biggest advantage does not appear in any feature table: a non-specialist becomes productive in it in an afternoon, where SE Ranking assumes more background. If the person using the tool is a business owner or a generalist marketer, the hours not spent learning it are a genuine cost saving that can exceed the price difference in the first year.
That advantage inverts for an agency. A team that uses the tool daily absorbs any learning curve once and then spends years benefiting from cheaper seats and higher tracking limits. It is worth being explicit about which situation you are in, because the same $50/mo difference is decisive in one and irrelevant in the other. Both tools also assume you already know the fundamentals — Google’s starter guide is the free prerequisite for either.
The constraint both share
Both tools tell you what is wrong. Neither changes it. For an agency that is arguably fine — the deliverable *is* the report, and the client implements. For a small business using Moz alone, the report is not the deliverable, and a stack of unimplemented audits is the most common way SEO spend produces nothing.