SEO agencies in 2026 run one tool per job: a keyword platform (Semrush, Ahrefs or SE Ranking), a content tool for briefs and drafts (Frase, Clearscope, Surfer or Jasper), a crawler (Screaming Frog or Sitebulb), a rank tracker, an AI visibility tracker (Profound, Peec AI or Otterly.AI) and a reporting tool (AgencyAnalytics, DashThis or Looker Studio). Almost all of them now ship AI features. What they leave to your team is the recurring work between the tools: the weekly checks, the briefs and the monthly client report.
That gap is where an AI coworker fits. We make Patricia, one, so the section on her comes after the tools, and it ends with where she is the wrong pick.
Prices checked 3 Nov 2026How we picked the tools
- By job. We started from the seven jobs a monthly SEO retainer runs and kept 1 to 3 tools per job.
- Named by agencies and AI answers. Each tool is one agencies name in their stacks, or one AI answers cite for these questions.
- Vendor prices only. Every price is the entry paid plan as shown on the vendor's own pricing page on 3 November 2026. If the page did not show it, the cell says "not published".
- Agency fit. We note what the entry plan includes that matters to an agency: projects, tracked keywords or prompts, seats and white-label.
The SEO agency tool stack at a glance
| Job | Tools agencies use | Entry price (vendor site) |
|---|---|---|
| Keyword research | Semrush, Ahrefs, SE Ranking | €109 to €134 a month, monthly billing |
| Content briefs | Frase, Clearscope | $39 to $129 a month |
| Content drafts | Surfer, Jasper | €49 (yearly) to $69 a month |
| Technical audits | Screaming Frog, Sitebulb | £199 a year; $18 a month |
| Rank tracking | AccuRanker, or your keyword platform | $249 a month for 2,000 keywords |
| AI visibility (GEO) | Profound, Peec AI, Otterly.AI | $29 to $95 a month; Profound not published |
| Client reporting | AgencyAnalytics, DashThis, Looker Studio | Free to $54 a month |
Semrush, Ahrefs, SE Ranking and Surfer show prices in the visitor's currency. We checked from Belgium, so those rows are in euros. Prices change; check before you buy.
The tools, job by job
1. Keyword research
The keyword platform is the most expensive line in most SEO stacks, and it usually carries rank tracking and, since 2026, AI prompt tracking too.
| Tool | Entry plan, 3 Nov 2026 | What an agency gets |
|---|---|---|
| Semrush | SEO plan, €134 a month (€112.52 billed yearly) | 5 websites, 500 keywords tracked daily, Position Tracking. 7-day free trial. AI prompt tracking starts on Starter (50 prompts), or as the AI Visibility toolkit from €94.94 a month per domain, billed yearly. |
| Ahrefs | Lite, €119 a month | 750 tracked keywords, 150 AI prompt checks, 1 user (2 more at €37.40 a month each). Brand Radar AI from €179 a month. No trial published. |
| SE Ranking | Core, €109 a month (€87.20 billed yearly) | 10 projects, 2,000 keywords tracked daily, 25 AI prompts across 5 AI engines. Agency Pack +€59 a month adds 30 client seats and white-label. 14-day free trial. |
2. Content briefs
A brief tool reads the pages that rank for a keyword and tells the writer which topics, headings and terms to cover.
| Tool | Entry plan, 3 Nov 2026 | What an agency gets |
|---|---|---|
| Frase | Starter, $39 a month billed yearly ($49 monthly) | 1 seat, 1 site, 10 articles and 50 audit pages a month, 20 AI visibility prompts. White-label reports are Enterprise only. 7-day free trial. |
| Clearscope | Essentials, $129 a month | Unlimited users and projects, 50 tracked queries, 20 drafts a month, query tracking across ChatGPT and Gemini. 14-day free trial. |
3. Content drafts
Draft tools write the first version against the brief. Agencies still edit the draft; the time saved is the blank page.
| Tool | Entry plan, 3 Nov 2026 | What an agency gets |
|---|---|---|
| Surfer | Discovery, €49 a month billed yearly (€59 monthly) | 120 documents, 1 seat, 10 tracked pages. AI prompt tracking starts on Standard (25 prompts, weekly). Its AI SEO assistant is called Surfy. |
| Jasper | Pro, $69 a month per seat ($59 billed yearly) | 1 seat, 2 brand voices, agents for core marketing workflows. 7-day free trial. |
4. Technical audits
A crawler walks the whole client site and lists broken links, redirects, duplicate titles and indexing problems.
| Tool | Entry plan, 3 Nov 2026 | What an agency gets |
|---|---|---|
| Screaming Frog SEO Spider | £199 per licence, per year | Licences are per user. Free version crawls up to 500 URLs. Can crawl with OpenAI and Gemini. |
| Sitebulb | Lite, $18 a month ($180 a year) | 1 user, 10,000 URLs per audit. Custom PDF reports need Pro at $42 a month. 14-day free trial. Connects audits to Claude and other AI tools. |
5. Rank tracking
If you pay for Semrush, Ahrefs or SE Ranking, rank tracking is already in the plan. A dedicated tracker earns its place at high keyword counts.
| Tool | Entry plan, 3 Nov 2026 | What an agency gets |
|---|---|---|
| AccuRanker | $249 a month for 2,000 keywords ($224 billed yearly) | Daily updates. AccuLLM tracks visibility in AI answers from $229 a month for 100 prompts, unlimited seats. |
| Your keyword platform | Included | Semrush SEO: 500 keywords daily. SE Ranking Core: 2,000. Ahrefs Lite: 750. |
6. AI visibility (GEO) tracking
The newest line in the stack. These tools run a fixed list of prompts in ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and others, and count how often a client is named and which sources get cited. It is also the new service clients ask for most: in the 2026 agency benchmark, 66% of agencies report more demand for SEO for AI search.
| Tool | Entry plan, 3 Nov 2026 | What an agency gets |
|---|---|---|
| Profound | Not published (free 7-day trial; Enterprise custom) | Trial: 50 prompts run daily on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. Unlimited seats. The FAQ names a self-serve agency plan per client workspace; no price on the pricing page. |
| Peec AI | Starter, $95 a month | 50 prompts, 3 AI models, daily tracking, unlimited users, 1 project. Agency plans are priced in credits. |
| Otterly.AI | Lite, $29 a month ($25 billed yearly) | 15 prompts on ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Copilot. Unlimited team members. Agency partner status needs Standard ($189). |
Want the client-facing side of this job? Our AI search visibility page shows the weekly watch and the page rewrites, and the GEO retainer page shows how an agency packages it as a monthly service.
7. Client reporting
The monthly report is where the retainer gets judged. Reporting tools pull the data into a branded dashboard; someone still writes what changed and why.
| Tool | Entry plan, 3 Nov 2026 | What an agency gets |
|---|---|---|
| AgencyAnalytics | Core, $20 per client a month, billed yearly | Unlimited staff accounts, white-labeled client portal, AI insights. 14-day free trial. |
| DashThis | Individual, $54 a month ($44 billed yearly) | 3 dashboards, 15 sources, unlimited users, white label, AI insights. 14-day free trial with 10 dashboards. |
| Looker Studio (now Data Studio) | Free | No charge for creators and viewers. Pro is $9 per user per project a month. |
Where Patricia fits: the recurring jobs between the tools
Every tool above answers when someone opens it. The retainer needs the same checks every week for every client, whether or not anyone remembers. Patricia is an AI coworker that runs those jobs inside Slack and Microsoft Teams and posts the result in the client's channel.
Her SEO data comes from two places. DataForSEO is built in, with nothing to connect, and each lookup is billed in credits at the provider's price. Each client's own Google Search Console and GA4 connect through Google's free API. She reads both and changes nothing; your team publishes.
- Keyword research. Volume, difficulty, cost per click and intent, clustered, with the client's current position on every row. Keyword research.
- Briefs and drafts. Drafts in the client's brand voice from real sources, scored for on-page SEO and E-E-A-T, with schema ready. A post or brief is about 150 credits (~$0.34). Blog and SEO drafts.
- Technical checks. robots.txt and sitemaps, whether the listed URLs load with real content, Core Web Vitals per page, and internal link suggestions.
- Rank and Search Console watch. Where the client ranks, the pages at positions 5 to 15 one push from page one, and the good rankings with weak click-through that need a new title.
- AI visibility. How often ChatGPT (US, English) and Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode name the client and which sources they cite, plus a weekly AI Overview watch.
- Monthly client report. In your format, with a white-label setting. About 300 credits (~$0.68) a report. Client reporting.
Pricing: the Founding plan is $45 a month per workspace, every seat included, never per seat. It includes 20,000 credits a month; credits never expire and roll over. Extra credits are $2.25 per 1,000. Drafts and reports wait in the channel: she asks before she sends anything to a client, by default. See pricing.
A lean stack for a small SEO agency
- One keyword platform for the SEOs who live in it all day. Use its built-in rank tracking before you buy a separate tracker.
- One crawler. Screaming Frog for a desktop crawl per user, Sitebulb if you want a monthly plan and PDF reports.
- One content tool if your writers want a live score while they write.
- An AI visibility tracker once a client pays for GEO and wants daily data across many engines.
- An AI coworker for the weekly checks, the briefs and the monthly report, so the tools above get used every week for every client.
The how to rank in ChatGPT guide covers what the AI visibility work involves for a client site.
Where Patricia is the wrong pick
- Full-site crawls. Patricia checks robots.txt, sitemaps and the URLs they list. She does not crawl a whole site link by link. Keep Screaming Frog or Sitebulb.
- AI visibility dashboards across many engines. Her checks cover ChatGPT (US, English) and Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode; Claude and Perplexity are not counted. She does not yet match a dedicated tracker on live dashboards or the number of models. If a client wants daily data across every engine, use Profound, Peec AI or Otterly.AI.
- A writer's live editor. If your writers want a content score that updates as they type, Clearscope, Frase or Surfer does that inside the editor.
- A client login portal. If clients expect to log in to a branded dashboard any time, AgencyAnalytics or DashThis gives them one. Patricia delivers reports in the channel and as files.
Vendor prices checked on each vendor's own site on 3 November 2026. Prices change; check before you buy.
FAQ
What AI tools do SEO agencies use?
Most SEO agencies run one tool per job: a keyword platform (Semrush, Ahrefs or SE Ranking), a content tool for briefs and drafts (Frase, Clearscope, Surfer or Jasper), a crawler (Screaming Frog or Sitebulb), a rank tracker (AccuRanker, or the one in their keyword platform), an AI visibility tracker (Profound, Peec AI or Otterly.AI) and a reporting tool (AgencyAnalytics, DashThis or Looker Studio). An AI coworker such as Patricia runs the recurring jobs between them in Slack or Teams.
How do SEO agencies track client visibility in ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews?
With an AI visibility tracker that runs a fixed list of prompts every day and counts brand mentions and cited sources. On 3 November 2026, Otterly.AI started at $29 a month for 15 prompts and Peec AI at $95 a month for 50 prompts; Profound published a free trial and a custom Enterprise plan. Semrush, SE Ranking, Ahrefs and Frase also track AI prompts inside their plans.
What is the best AI tool for SEO content briefs?
Clearscope, Frase and Surfer are the three content tools agencies name most for briefs. Frase is the cheapest entry at $39 a month billed yearly, Surfer starts at 49 euros a month billed yearly, and Clearscope Essentials is $129 a month with unlimited users.
Can an AI coworker replace Semrush or Ahrefs for an agency?
For the recurring lookups, partly. Patricia answers keyword, ranking, competitor and backlink questions in Slack from DataForSEO data and reads each client's own Search Console. If your SEOs work inside a platform's interface all day, keep the platform and let the coworker run the weekly checks and the monthly report.
What does an SEO tool stack cost a small agency?
At list prices on 3 November 2026, the entry plans were roughly 109 to 134 euros a month for a keyword platform, $39 to $129 for a content tool, 199 pounds a year for Screaming Frog, $29 to $95 for an AI visibility tracker, and $20 per client a month (billed yearly) for AgencyAnalytics. Patricia's Founding plan is $45 a month per workspace with every seat included.
Thibaut Hennau is the Growth Manager at Patricia. He runs Patricia's SEO, AI visibility and YouTube.
