The short answer
- Moving from Ahrefs Starter to Google Search Console (free tier) saves $298 in the first year, after setup and upkeep time (Stackcut's model: modeled, not measured).
- Google Search Console's official guide covers setting up, but nothing carries over from Ahrefs automatically; 4 things stay behind. Details
- 4 public accounts of making this switch: 3 evaluated, 1 switched. Read them
What Ahrefs and Google Search Console cost
List prices from each vendor's pricing page, as stored in the Stackcut catalog. Each price links its source.
| Plan | Billed monthly | Billed yearly (per month) | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ahrefs Lite | $129/mo | $107.50/mo | 5 projects, 750 tracked keywords, 100,000 crawl credits, 6 months history; 1 user + up to 2 more at $40/mo |
| Ahrefs Standard | $249/mo | $207.50/mo | 20 projects, 2,000 tracked keywords, 2 years history; 1 user + up to 5 more at $60/mo |
| Ahrefs Advanced | $449/mo | $374.17/mo | 50 projects, 5,000 tracked keywords, 5 years history; 1 user + up to 10 more at $80/mo |
| Ahrefs Enterprise | $1,499/mo | $1,499/mo | Annual commitment required; 100 projects, from 10,000 tracked keywords; from 3 users, extra users $100/mo |
- Ahrefs free plan: Ahrefs Free: Ahrefs data on your own verified site ahrefs.com
- Google Search Console free plan: Free search.google.com
Google Search Console's plans aren't in the Stackcut catalog yet; check Google Search Console's own site.
Moving from Ahrefs to Google Search Console
What Google Search Console's importer carries over, what it leaves behind, and any help it offers switchers.
To Google Search Console
Official guide support.google.com · Tools: Google Search Console property setup
Doesn't move: Ahrefs keyword rankings history; Ahrefs backlink index and link history; Ahrefs Site Audit crawl data; Competitor data (GSC only covers properties you verify). support.google.com
Watch out for:
- DNS TXT/CNAME verification records can take up to two or three days to propagate support.google.com
- If all verified owners lose access, all users lose the Search Console property support.google.com
- GSC keeps only 16 months of history and caps query rows at 1,000 per report, so export or API-backup early support.google.com
From each destination's own migration docs and switching pages, plus community write-ups where no official guide exists, each checked against its page. Confirm terms on the linked page before you rely on an offer.
People who moved from Ahrefs to Google Search Console
4 public accounts of leaving Ahrefs: 3 evaluated, 1 switched. Summaries are ours; each links the original, and each was checked against its page before it appeared here.
First-person account of replacing paid SEO tools with a free stack: GSC covers rankings, queries and CTR for her own site (about 40% of prior paid-tool use), Keyword Planner covers topic clusters, and Ubersuggest handles competitor checks; backlink analysis is conceded as unsolvable for free. Lilach Bullock
Founder-authored guide mapping each Ahrefs feature to a free replacement, with GSC as the backbone: it replaces Ahrefs keyword-rankings and site-health checks with real first-party data, while MozBar, Ubersuggest, AnswerThePublic and GA4 cover authority checks, competitor research and traffic quality. We Are Founders
Site owner who tracked organic pages, keywords and backlinks in Ahrefs questions the tool's value after a Google update: rankings dropped 600 keywords in Ahrefs while peers argued what Ahrefs says doesn't matter. Fetch returned only the OP body, not comments. Reddit
Vendor-published synthesis of a Reddit report: one user's GSC showed strong growth while Ahrefs claimed keyword losses and showed a fraction of real traffic; the same user reported poor backlink detection. Relays community sentiment; the underlying Reddit thread is not linked. Search Atlas
How to leave Ahrefs
Export first, then cancel. Every step links the vendor's own help page, checked on the date shown.
How to leave Ahrefs
Export first
- Reports and tables: The Export button at the top right of any report; in Keywords Explorer, the 3-dot menu (CSV, Google Sheets (Keywords Explorer)). Exported rows count against your plan's monthly export-row limit, so export before the last billing day. help.ahrefs.com
Cancel
- Export the reports you want to keep first (see export).
- Account settings → Billing, then follow the cancellation prompts.
- Remove your card once you're on the free tier: cards can't be deleted while a subscription is active.
- Takes effect
- At the end of the billing cycle (the day before the next billing date). The account then changes to the free tier.
- Refunds
- Ahrefs' terms say it has no obligation to refund unless the law requires it. You can ask by email for a refund for non-use; Ahrefs decides.
- After you cancel
- No further charges unless you resubscribe.
FAQ
Is Google Search Console cheaper than Ahrefs?
Modeled, not measured: moving from Ahrefs Starter to Google Search Console (free tier) saves $298 in the first year, after setup and upkeep time at $50/hour. It depends on your plan, seats and usage. the math
Can I move my Ahrefs data to Google Search Console?
It doesn't move: Ahrefs keyword rankings history; Ahrefs backlink index and link history; Ahrefs Site Audit crawl data; Competitor data (GSC only covers properties you verify). support.google.com
Keep reading
Check your own stack
Get your free stack audit
Stackcut finds every software subscription in your inbox and shows what to cancel, what to pay per use, and what AI can replace, with a spec and a cost for each. Your stack audit is free and takes about 2 minutes.
Or ask your agent
Connect the Stackcut MCP server (https://stackcut.io/mcp, no API key) and ask: “We pay for Ahrefs. Should we move to Google Search Console?”
find_alternatives({"vendor": "Ahrefs"})