Affiliate disclosure: AI Tools Vetted is reader-supported. Some links below are affiliate links (marked “sponsored”): if you sign up through them, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Our Frase, Surfer and Semrush links are affiliate links. Picks follow official pricing and published features, not commissions.
Prices checked October 25, 2026, at 01:09–01:15 BRT on each vendor’s official US pricing page (USD).
Quick take
Verdict in 30 seconds
Frase (frase.io) is no longer just a content-brief tool. In 2026 it sells itself as “the content operating system for AI search”: it audits your site, researches topics, drafts articles, publishes them to your CMS and watches published pages for ranking decay. It also tracks whether AI tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI answers mention you.
Buy it if you’re a small team or freelancer that wants one tool to plan, write, publish and refresh content for a handful of sites, and you like hard monthly caps instead of surprise bills. Skip it if you mostly need keyword and backlink data at scale (look at Semrush) or you only want an on-page content editor (look at Surfer).
What Frase is in 2026
Frase describes its product as a loop with five stages, and the pricing page and docs line up on it:
- Listen: Google Search Console data, AI Visibility tracking and Frase Answers, a free chat widget for your site that captures the questions visitors ask.
- Create: research, briefs and drafts with SEO and GEO scores, in a brand voice it learns from your pages or that you set in a Brand Hub.
- Publish: one click to WordPress, Webflow, Sanity or Wix, or to FraseCMS, its own hosted CMS.
- Monitor: SEO analytics plus AI Visibility across engines that depend on your plan.
- Fix: Content Guard spots a page losing rank or traffic, drafts the revision and republishes it once you approve.
There’s also an agent that can draft and auto-publish content “whenever you switch it on,” and an MCP server and CLI on every plan, so you can drive Frase from Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or a terminal. Frase lists SOC 2 Type II and GDPR compliance on its pricing page.
One honest line from Frase itself is worth repeating: “What Frase will not do is promise you a ranking or a citation inside a 7-day window.” Rankings and AI citations take weeks.
Frase pricing
All prices are in USD on Frase’s official pricing page. Yearly billing saves 20%.
| Plan | Billed yearly | Month to month | Seats | Sites | Articles/mo | Audit pages/mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $39/mo | $49/mo | 1 | 1 | 10 | 50 |
| Professional | $103/mo | $129/mo | 3 (extra $29/mo each) | 5 | 40 | 250 |
| Scale | $239/mo | $299/mo | 5 (extra $29/mo each) | Up to 10 | 100 | 1,000 |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom | Custom | Custom | Custom |
Article and audit limits
The limits are the main difference between plans, and they’re tighter than the “unlimited” language you’ll see from some competitors. Starter also includes 25 AI generations a month (on-demand actions like idea expansions and image generation), Professional 100 and Scale 350. Content Guard watches 10 pages on Starter, 75 on Professional and 300 on Scale.
What happens when you run out matters. Frase says “Starter simply stops at its monthly limits, so a surprise bill is off the table.” On Professional and Scale, pay-as-you-go is “optional and off by default.” If you switch it on, Professional costs $5 per extra article, $0.50 per audit page and $0.25 per AI prompt; Scale costs $4, $0.40 and $0.20.
AI Visibility coverage also climbs with the plan: ChatGPT and Google AI on Starter, plus Perplexity on Professional, plus Claude and Gemini on Scale.
FraseCMS hosting is free on every plan for 100,000 page views a month (with a small “Powered by Frase” badge). Basic hosting is $19/mo for 250,000 page views and no badge; Pro hosting is $99/mo for 1,000,000 page views.
Free trial
Every plan starts with a free 7-day trial, no credit card required. Frase says the trial gives you “Professional’s full feature set,” capped at 5 articles, 50 audit pages, 25 AI prompts and up to 3 seats. Its docs add 10 briefs and 5 hero images. That’s enough to run an audit on your own site and draft a few pieces, not enough to judge rankings.
Upgrading, downgrading and canceling
Frase’s pricing FAQ says upgrades are “prorated on the spot” and downgrades take hold “at your next billing cycle.” Its current docs point you to Settings → Billing & Usage to manage your plan, but they don’t spell out the cancellation steps. Frase’s Terms of Service (last updated April 26, 2026, read October 25, 2026) are blunter: “All fees paid are final, and we do not provide any refunds.” The same Terms say the agreement renews automatically for periods equal to the expiring term unless you give notice of non-renewal “at least thirty (30) days before the end of the relevant term.” The initial term is one year unless your order form says otherwise, so put the 30-day deadline in your calendar if you pay annually. For the cancellation steps, Frase’s docs send you to support@frase.io. Because the trial needs no card, you can test before paying anything.
Key features
- Site audit with SEO and GEO scores. Frase says it scores each page “for search and for AI answers” and puts the most valuable fixes first.
- Research and drafting. It studies what already ranks for a topic, then drafts and optimizes “in your voice.” You get a draft you can edit, and nothing publishes until you approve it (unless you turn on auto-publish).
- Content Guard. Monitors published pages for Google rank and traffic decay and writes the fix for your approval.
- AI Visibility. Daily tracking of whether AI engines cite your brand, on a set number of prompts (20 on Starter, 50 on Professional, 75 on Scale). Frase notes it “does not auto-fix.”
- Publishing. Direct to WordPress, Webflow, Sanity or Wix, or FraseCMS.
- Content calendar and internal linking suggestions. Professional and up.
- Client-ready reports. Scale and up; white-label reports and a branded client portal are Enterprise only.
- API, MCP and CLI. 5,000 requests a month on Starter, 20,000 on Professional, 50,000 on Scale.
Pros and cons
Pros
– One tool covers audit, drafting, publishing and refreshes.
– Hard caps on Starter; overages are opt-in on higher plans.
– Free 7-day trial with no credit card.
– MCP server and CLI on every plan.
– Free hosted CMS if you don’t have one.
Cons
– 10 articles a month on Starter goes quickly for an active blog.
– Starter tracks only 1 site and 1 seat.
– Not a full keyword, backlink and competitor database like Semrush.
– Its Terms say “All fees paid are final, and we do not provide any refunds,” and the agreement auto-renews unless you give 30 days’ notice before the term ends; the cancellation steps aren’t spelled out in its docs.
– Rankings and AI citations still take weeks; the trial can’t show them.
Who should (and shouldn’t) buy
Good fit:
– Freelancers and solo site owners who want a guided workflow for one site (Starter).
– In-house content teams publishing a few articles a week across up to 5 sites (Professional).
– Small agencies that need client-ready reports across up to 10 domains (Scale).
Not a good fit:
– Teams that live in keyword, backlink and competitor data. Semrush covers more of that ground.
– Writers who only want an on-page optimization editor inside their own workflow. Surfer is built around that.
– Anyone expecting rankings inside a trial. No tool ranks you inside a trial, and rankings take weeks after you publish.
Frase alternatives
| Tool | Entry price (official) | Best for | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Frase | $39/mo yearly, $49 monthly | All-in-one content loop for a few sites | Check Frase price |
| Surfer | Discovery $49/mo billed yearly | On-page content optimization | Check Surfer price |
| Semrush | SEO $117.33/mo billed yearly ($139 monthly); free plan | Keyword, competitor and site data | Check Semrush price |
Surfer is the closest like-for-like rival. Its Discovery plan is $49/mo billed yearly for 120 documents a month; Standard is $99/mo billed yearly for 360 documents plus AI visibility tracking on 25 prompts (checked weekly); Pro is $182/mo billed yearly. For a direct comparison, read our Surfer SEO vs Frase breakdown.
Semrush is a different kind of tool: a large SEO data platform. Its SEO plan is $117.33/mo billed annually ($139 monthly) for 5 websites and 500 tracked keywords, and the SEO + AI Search Starter plan is $165.17/mo billed annually ($199 monthly). It also has a free plan with 10 reports a day. See how it stacks up against Surfer in Surfer SEO vs Semrush; our full Semrush review is publishing soon.
If you’re a small business choosing your first SEO tool, our guide to the best AI SEO tools for small businesses puts all three side by side.
How we evaluated
We didn’t run ranking experiments, and we don’t claim results we haven’t measured. We read Frase’s official pricing page and docs on October 25, 2026, and compared them with Surfer’s and Semrush’s official pricing pages on the same morning. We looked at:
- Price per useful unit: articles, audit pages and seats per dollar.
- Billing safety: caps, overage rules, trial terms, and refund and renewal terms.
- Workflow coverage: audit, research, writing, publishing and monitoring.
- Fit by team size: solo, in-house team, agency.
- Transparency: whether limits, upgrades, refunds, renewal and cancellation are clearly documented.
FAQ
Is Frase worth it in 2026?
For a solo site owner or small team that wants one tool to audit, draft, publish and refresh content, yes, especially on Professional ($103/mo billed yearly). If you need deep keyword and backlink data, Semrush is the better spend.
How much does Frase cost?
On October 25, 2026, Starter was $39/mo billed yearly or $49 month to month; Professional $103/mo yearly or $129 monthly; Scale $239/mo yearly or $299 monthly. Enterprise is custom.
Does Frase have a free plan?
No paid-feature free plan, but there’s a free 7-day trial with no credit card, capped at 5 articles, 50 audit pages and 25 AI prompts. FraseCMS hosting has a free tier included with any plan.
How many articles can I write with Frase?
10 a month on Starter, 40 on Professional and 100 on Scale. Starter stops at the limit; Professional and Scale can turn on pay-as-you-go ($5 and $4 per extra article).
Frase vs Surfer: which is better?
Frase covers more of the workflow (audit, publish, monitor). Surfer focuses on content optimization, starting at $49/mo billed yearly for 120 documents. Our Surfer SEO vs Frase comparison goes deeper.
How do I cancel Frase?
Frase’s docs say you manage your plan in Settings → Billing & Usage, but they don’t spell out the cancellation steps. Frase’s Terms of Service (last updated April 26, 2026) say “All fees paid are final, and we do not provide any refunds,” and that the agreement renews automatically for periods equal to the expiring term unless you give notice of non-renewal at least 30 days before the term ends. So give notice at least 30 days before your term ends, and contact support@frase.io for the steps. Don’t count on a refund if you’re billed again.
Verdict
Frase.io is a strong pick for small teams that want the whole content loop in one place, with published pricing and hard caps on Starter. Its Terms make all fees final with no refunds, so use the free trial with your own site first, then choose Starter for one site or Professional if you need more seats, sites and articles. Pick Surfer if you only want an optimization editor, or Semrush if your work depends on keyword and competitor data.
Sources
Official pages checked October 25, 2026, 01:09–01:15 BRT (USD):
- Feature refresh October 31, 2026 (~07:05 BRT): Frase pricing page and homepage rechecked; trial quote and two feature quotes updated to current wording; prices unchanged.
- Frase pricing (~01:09 BRT) · Frase homepage (~01:11 BRT)
- Frase docs: Plans & Pricing (~01:15 BRT)
- Frase Terms of Service (last updated April 26, 2026; read October 25, 2026, ~01:38 BRT)
- Surfer pricing (~01:11 BRT)
- Semrush pricing (~01:11 BRT)