Ahrefs
Ahrefs is a bootstrapped Singapore-based software company that operates an AI-powered marketing intelligence platform built on proprietary web-scale data infrastructure, serving 44% of Fortune 500 companies and digital marketing agencies with SEO, content, and AI visibility tools.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2011
- HeadquartersSingapore, Singapore
- Headcount101–250
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Ahrefs does
Ahrefs Pte. Ltd. is a Singapore-headquartered, bootstrapped software company that builds an AI-powered marketing intelligence platform founded on proprietary web-scale data infrastructure. Founded in 2010 by Dmytro Gerasimenko, the company operates the #1-ranked SEO crawler (per Cloudflare Radar), a #34-ranked TOP500 supercomputer, and 3,600+ servers processing 10 million new pages daily into an index of 456.5 billion pages and 35 trillion external backlinks. The platform spans search marketing (Site Explorer, Keywords Explorer, Rank Tracker), website performance (Site Audit, Web Analytics, Bot Analytics), content marketing (Content Explorer, AI Content Helper, Social Media Manager), brand and AI visibility (Brand Radar), and reporting (Dashboard, Portfolios, Report Builder), with Agent A serving as an autonomous AI marketing agent built on frontier model infrastructure (Claude, GPT-5, Gemini, DeepSeek).
The company monetizes primarily through tiered SaaS subscriptions (Lite through Enterprise) plus usage-based add-ons such as Custom Prompts ($50–$250/month) and Brand Radar ($398–$699/month), with a freemium layer (Web Analytics, Site Audit, AI Visibility Checker) driving top-of-funnel acquisition. Go-to-market is product-led growth for SMB and self-serve segments, complemented by a dedicated enterprise sales motion targeting Fortune 500 accounts (44% penetration) and mid-market digital marketing agencies through an Agency Directory channel. Distribution is amplified by a large content marketing engine including a blog, YouTube channel (~$13.3M asset value), podcast, Academy with certifications, and the Ahrefs Insider community.
Ahrefs owns three sub-brands—Letaido (AI workspace infrastructure for Agent A), Firehose (real-time web data streaming), and Yep (a proprietary search engine built with $60M of internal capital featuring a 90/10 revenue-share model). The company is ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type 2 certified, employs approximately 140 people, and reported $149.1M in FY2024 revenue (49.1% YoY growth) without external funding.
Ahrefs firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Ahrefs
- Legal name
- Ahrefs Pte. Ltd.
- Website
- https://ahrefs.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2011
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 101–250 employees
- Short description
- Ahrefs is a bootstrapped Singapore-based software company that operates an AI-powered marketing intelligence platform built on proprietary web-scale data infrastructure, serving 44% of Fortune 500 companies and digital marketing agencies with SEO, content, and AI visibility tools.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Ahrefs industry classification
Industry- Product category
- SEO & Marketing Analytics Software
- NAICS
- Software Publishers (5132), Web Search Portals and All Other Information Services (51929)
- SIC
- Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Enterprise Search, Indexing & Content Discovery (HDAEAGAH)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- AI Search & Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Services (BPAFAJAO), Search Engines (BPAMAAAB), Enterprise AI Data & Knowledge Platforms (Vector Databases, Knowledge Graphs) (HDAEANAH)
Keywords
Where Ahrefs is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Singapore
- HQ country
- Singapore
- HQ region
- Asia
Offices2 records
Markets served
Ahrefs business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations
Revenue model
- SaaS Subscription (Core Platform): Subscription-based SaaS model with tiered plans (Lite, Standard, Advanced, Enterprise) providing access to the full Ahrefs marketing platform including Site Explorer, Keywords Explorer, Rank Tracker, Site Audit, Brand Radar, Content Explorer, and other tools.
- Brand Radar Add-on: AI visibility tracking add-on with tiered pricing by platform coverage. Single platform starting at $398/month, all platforms at $699/month. Includes YouTube, TikTok, and Reddit tracking in beta.
- Custom Prompts Add-on: Usage-based tracking for specific buyer questions in AI. Basic tier at $50/month (83 prompts/day, 2,500 checks/month), Growth at $100/month (233 prompts/day, 7,000 checks/month), Scale at $250/month (833 prompts/day, 25,000 checks/month).
- Agent A Subscription: AI marketing agent subscription at $99/month for unlimited users, powered by Letaido infrastructure. Includes AI credits with frontier model access and native Ahrefs integration.
- AI Content Helper Add-on: AI-powered content creation and optimization tool. Free tier with 1 document/month, paid at $99/month for 50 documents/month, Content Kit at $299/month for 250 documents plus AI Content Grader.
- Web Analytics Premium: Free tier with 1M events/month per project. Premium add-on available for higher volume limits as sites grow.
- API Access: Enterprise API access with 100+ flexible endpoints for Site Explorer, Keywords Explorer, SERP Overviews, and Site Audit. Powers custom dashboards, internal tools, and automated reporting.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Monthly | Brand Radar - Select Platforms |
| Subscription | Monthly | Brand Radar - All Platforms |
| Usage-based | Monthly | Custom Prompts - Basic |
| Usage-based | Monthly | Custom Prompts - Growth |
| Usage-based | Monthly | Custom Prompts - Scale |
| Subscription | Monthly | Agent A - Unlimited Users |
| Freemium | Monthly | AI Content Helper - Free |
| Subscription | Monthly | AI Content Helper - Paid |
| Subscription | Monthly | AI Content Helper - Content Kit |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels5 records
Marketing channels13 records
Ahrefs product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Ahrefs is an AI marketing platform built on a proprietary web-scale crawling infrastructure. It sells a SaaS suite of SEO tools including Site Explorer, Keywords Explorer, Rank Tracker, Site Audit, Brand Radar, Web Analytics, Content Explorer, AI Content Helper, and Agent A, enabling marketers to monitor search rankings, track AI chatbot visibility, analyze competitors, audit technical SEO, and produce content. The platform is sold via tiered subscriptions with free tiers and an enterprise segment, and is differentiated by an index of 456.5 billion pages, 35 trillion backlinks, and a #1-ranked SEO crawler.
Product overview
Ahrefs is an AI marketing platform built on big data infrastructure, offering a comprehensive suite of SEO and content marketing tools. The platform operates a platform-plus-modules architecture centered on core tools (Site Explorer, Keywords Explorer, Rank Tracker, Site Audit, Web Analytics, Content Explorer, AI Content Helper, Brand Radar, Agent A) with numerous add-on modules (Custom Prompts, GSC Insights, Bot Analytics, Social Media Manager, Dashboard, Portfolios, Report Builder, GBP Monitor, Patches). The platform also includes sub-brands Letaido (AI workspace), Firehose (data streaming), and Yep (search engine). Ahrefs processes data via its proprietary web crawler (AhrefsBot) with an index of 456.5 billion pages and 35 trillion external backlinks. The platform spans search marketing, website performance, content marketing, brand/AI visibility, and reporting use cases.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- Letaido: AI workspace for marketing - home of Agent A
- Firehose
- Yep
- Agent A
Products and services
- Site Explorer In-depth competitor analysis tool providing any website's organic traffic, paid traffic, backlink profile, and overall search/AI performance; built on an index of 20.1 trillion pages and 35 trillion live backlinks across 186 locations, for SEO professionals and marketers.
- Keywords Explorer Keyword research tool covering 28.7 billion filtered keywords from 110 billion discovered across 217 locations, providing instant keyword clustering, Keyword Difficulty scoring, Traffic Potential estimation, and Parent Topic identification; for SEO and content marketers.
- Rank Tracker Global keyword ranking monitor tracking positions across 190+ countries with mobile and desktop tracking, SERP feature monitoring including AI Overviews, and competitor benchmarking; for SEO professionals and agencies.
- Brand Radar AI visibility tracking product monitoring brand mentions across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Grok, AI Overviews, YouTube, TikTok, and Reddit. Tracks 405+ million monthly prompts for brand visibility analysis and competitive AI benchmarking; for marketing and brand teams.
- Site Audit Comprehensive technical SEO audit tool scanning for 170+ issues including Core Web Vitals, crawlability, structured data, and hreflang; processes up to 170K URLs per minute with JavaScript rendering; for SEO professionals and developers.
- Web Analytics Privacy-first, cookie-free website analytics platform with a 2KB script, zero cookies, instant data loading, and unlimited historical data. Tracks AI chatbot traffic including ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini referrals; positioned as an alternative to Google Analytics.
- Content Explorer Content discovery database of 20+ billion web pages with 300 million pages updated daily for finding top-performing content, identifying link prospects, and tracking brand mentions; includes a 404 page index for broken link building.
- AI Content Helper AI-powered content creation and optimization editor that grades content against competitors, fills topical gaps, detects multiple search intents, and supports 173+ languages; for content marketers and SEO teams.
- Agent A AI marketing agent with unrestricted access to Ahrefs data, running on frontier AI models (Claude, GPT-5, DeepSeek). Performs marketing tasks autonomously including content creation, audits, reports, briefs, and competitor monitoring; priced at $99/month for unlimited users.
- Ahrefs API Enterprise API offering 100+ flexible endpoints covering Site Explorer, Keywords Explorer, SERP Overviews, and Site Audit data; powers custom dashboards, internal tools, and automated reporting; for developers and enterprises.
Quantifiable outcome
- 49.1% YoY revenue growth in 2024 ($100M to $149.1M)
- +5 more outcomes
Companies that use Ahrefs
Customer profileNamed customers25 records
Segments11 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Ahrefs technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration21 records
AI capability15 records
Feature9 records
Ahrefs partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
17 partnerships are on record, tiered core and supporting.
- NotioncoreAgent A integrates with Notion for workspace collaboration. Users can connect Ahrefs data to Notion workflows, enabling marketing teams to incorporate SEO insights directly into their documentation and project management.
- SlackcoreAgent A connects to Slack for team communication and alerts. Marketing teams receive Ahrefs insights, rank change notifications, and AI visibility updates directly in Slack channels.
- HubSpotcoreAgent A integrates with HubSpot CRM for marketing automation workflows. Combines Ahrefs SEO data with HubSpot's marketing and sales platform for unified marketing operations.
- LinearsupportingAgent A integrates with Linear for project management. Marketing teams can track SEO tasks and technical SEO fixes within Linear's project tracking system.
- AirtablesupportingAgent A connects with Airtable for flexible database workflows. Users can build custom marketing dashboards and track SEO projects in Airtable with Ahrefs data.
- Fathom AnalyticssupportingAgent A integrates with Fathom for privacy-focused website analytics. Alternative to Google Analytics for marketing attribution.
- GongsupportingAgent A connects with Gong for sales intelligence. Sales teams can access brand visibility and competitive data during customer conversations.
- WordPresscoreAgent A integrates with WordPress for content publishing workflows. Users can create, optimize, and publish content directly to WordPress sites with Ahrefs insights.
- MailchimpsupportingAgent A connects with Mailchimp for email marketing integration. Combines Ahrefs data with email campaign optimization.
- SemrushsupportingAgent A integrates with Semrush (competing SEO platform) for comprehensive marketing intelligence. Enables users to combine data from both platforms.
- GitHubsupportingAgent A connects with GitHub for development workflows. Enables technical teams to automate SEO-related code deployments and track technical SEO implementations.
- ApifysupportingAgent A integrates with Apify for web scraping and data extraction. Extends Ahrefs capabilities with custom data collection workflows.
- FirehosecoreAhrefs product (Firehose.com) - a real-time web data streaming platform. Agent A integrates with Ahrefs' own Firehose product for enhanced data capabilities.
- LetaidocoreAhrefs product (Letaido.com) - AI workspace for marketing. Agent A runs on Letaido infrastructure as the underlying platform for building and running AI agents.
- Claude Code (Anthropic)coreAhrefs MCP (Model Context Protocol) integration enables Claude Code to access Ahrefs SEO data. Structured, secure connection to Ahrefs data for backlink analysis, keyword research, and more.
- CloudflarecoreBot Analytics operates via Cloudflare integration using Logpush (Enterprise) or Worker scripts. Server-side bot tracking through Cloudflare's infrastructure for comprehensive bot visibility.
- Rube MCPcoreUniversal server connecting AI tools to SaaS applications. Used to integrate Ahrefs with Claude Code for SEO data access through AI assistants.
Scale indicators27 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights6 records
Ahrefs competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Moz: Moz is a long-standing SEO software platform with Domain Authority, keyword research, link explorer, and rank tracking tools serving the same SMB and agency buyer personas as Ahrefs. Both compete for the "primary SEO tool" seat in marketing stacks.
- Semrush: Semrush is the closest direct competitor to Ahrefs, offering a comparable all-in-one SEO, content, and competitive intelligence platform with Site Audit, keyword research, backlink analysis, and rank tracking. Notably, Ahrefs' Agent A even integrates with Semrush data, underscoring how directly substitutable the two platforms are for marketers.
- SE Ranking: SE Ranking is an all-in-one SEO platform offering keyword rank tracking, website audit, backlink monitoring, and competitor analysis at SMB and mid-market price points. Directly comparable to Ahrefs' lower-tier subscriptions.
- Similarweb: Similarweb is a digital intelligence platform providing website traffic analysis, keyword research, and competitive benchmarking that overlaps directly with Ahrefs' Site Explorer and Keywords Explorer. Both monetize proprietary web-scale data for enterprise marketers.
- Conductor: Conductor is an enterprise SEO and content intelligence platform with rank tracking, content recommendations, and technical SEO auditing, primarily serving large brands and agencies. Comparable buyer segment and product surface to Ahrefs' enterprise offerings.
- BrightEdge: BrightEdge is an enterprise SEO and content performance platform serving Fortune 500 brands, directly overlapping with Ahrefs' enterprise tier (44% Fortune 500 penetration). Both compete on data-driven SEO insights at enterprise scale.
- Majestic: Majestic is a backlink intelligence tool with one of the largest historic link databases, directly competing with Ahrefs' Site Explorer backlink capabilities. Many SEO professionals evaluate Majestic and Ahrefs as alternatives for link analysis.
- SpyFu: SpyFu is a competitor keyword research and PPC intelligence tool that overlaps with Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer and competitor analysis features, particularly for SMB and agency buyers doing search gap analysis.
- Mangools: Mangools (KWFinder, Majestic-adjacent, LinkMiner, SERPChecker, SiteProfiler) is an SMB-focused SEO toolkit with comparable keyword research and SERP analysis features to Ahrefs, targeting bloggers and small agencies.
Emerging players
- Profound: Profound is an AI search visibility and brand mention platform tracking how brands appear across generative AI engines, directly competing with Ahrefs' Brand Radar. An emerging AI-native challenger attacking the same AEO/ GEO category Ahrefs is pioneering.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat6 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Ahrefs social profiles
Digital presenceAhrefs compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance2 records
Ahrefs financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Ahrefs leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles4 records
Ahrefs subsidiaries and ownership
Company hierarchySubsidiaries4 records
Ahrefs funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Ahrefs M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A1 record
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Ahrefs
What does Ahrefs do?
Ahrefs is an AI marketing platform built on a proprietary web-scale crawling infrastructure. It sells a SaaS suite of SEO tools including Site Explorer, Keywords Explorer, Rank Tracker, Site Audit, Brand Radar, Web Analytics, Content Explorer, AI Content Helper, and Agent A, enabling marketers to monitor search rankings, track AI chatbot visibility, analyze competitors, audit technical SEO, and produce content. The platform is sold via tiered subscriptions with free tiers and an enterprise segment, and is differentiated by an index of 456.5 billion pages, 35 trillion backlinks, and a #1-ranked SEO crawler.
Is Ahrefs a public or private company?
Ahrefs is a private company. It is classified as founder individual operated bootstrapped and is currently operating.
When was Ahrefs founded?
Ahrefs was founded in 2011. It employs 101 to 250 people.
Where is Ahrefs based?
Ahrefs is headquartered in Singapore, Singapore, in the Asia region.
How does Ahrefs make money?
Seven revenue lines are on record. SaaS Subscription (Core Platform) is the primary driver. The others are brand Radar Add-on, custom Prompts Add-on, agent A Subscription, AI Content Helper Add-on, web Analytics Premium and API Access.
Who are Ahrefs's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Moz, Semrush, SE Ranking, Similarweb, Conductor, BrightEdge, Majestic, SpyFu and Mangools. Profound is listed as an emerging player.
Does Ahrefs have an API?
Yes. Ahrefs offers a public API with 100+ flexible API endpoints for creating custom dashboards, internal tools, and automated reporting. The API powers data from Site Explorer, Keywords Explorer, SERP Overviews, and Site Audit endpoints. Authentication and rate limits are specified in the documentation. The API is accessible at docs.ahrefs.com. Developer documentation is at docs.ahrefs.com/api.
What industry is Ahrefs in?
Ahrefs's product category is SEO & Marketing Analytics Software. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDAEAGAH, Enterprise Search, Indexing & Content Discovery, with a secondary code of BPAFAJAO, AI Search & Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Services. Its NAICS code is 5132 and its SIC code is 7372.