Clearscope vs Surfer SEO vs MarketMuse vs Frase
A side-by-side look at scores, pricing and features — with RECATOOLS' ASEAN-aware verdict for each.
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Surfer SEO
AI-powered on-page SEO and content optimization platform that reverse-...
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MarketMuse
AI content intelligence platform that maps your site's topical authori...
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Frase
SEO + GEO content platform: SERP briefs to AI-visibility tracking.
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| RECATOOLS Score | 7.8 / 10 | 8.2 / 10 | 7.2 / 10 | 7.8 / 10 |
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| Value for money | ||||
| Ease of use | ||||
| ASEAN readiness | ||||
| API quality | ||||
| Pricing | Paid | Freemium | Freemium | Freemium |
| Free tier | None — no free plan and no free trial as of 2026 | Free Keyword Surfer browser extension; no free core plan | 10 queries/month, 1 user, no content briefs, no tracked topics | 7-day full-access trial (no credit card required; 5 articles included) |
| Paid from | Essentials $129/mo; Business $399/mo; Enterprise custom (unlimited seats all tiers) | From $79/mo Essential (billed annually); $175/mo Scale; Enterprise from $999/mo | Paid plans require a demo/quote; historically ~$99/mo (Optimize) to $499/mo (Strategy) | From $49/mo (Starter, monthly; lower annually) — 1 seat, limited articles/mo |
| Has API | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Open source | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Free to use | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Users | Used by major brands including IBM, Adobe, Shopify, and Condé Nast | Surfer reports 45,000+ customers and 800,000+ registered users | ~150 enterprise/agency customers at acquisition (2024); ACV ~$59K | Trusted by thousands of content & marketing teams |
| Founded | 2016 | 2017 | 2013 | 2016 |
| Maker | Mushi Labs LLC | Positive Group | Siteimprove | Copyrytr (formerly Copysmith) |
| Verdict | Clearscope earns its reputation as the gold standard for enterprise content grading. The IBM Watson NLU backbone produces semantic keyword recommendations that hold up better than raw TF-IDF tools, and the A++-to-F gradi... |
Surfer SEO is the market benchmark for data-driven on-page optimization, and the SERP-reverse-engineering approach delivers real ranking gains for teams willing to follow the data. The Content Editor's live scoring, NLP... |
MarketMuse is the benchmark for enterprise-grade topic modeling: its content inventory analysis, competitive heatmaps, and structured content briefs are genuinely differentiated tools for teams managing large-scale conte... |
Frase earns its reputation as the best-value research-to-brief workflow tool on the market. Its SERP analysis is genuinely best-in-class at this price point — generating a competitive brief in under 30 seconds from live... |
| Full review → | Full review → | Full review → | Full review → |
Comparisons cover up to 4 tools. Scores are RECATOOLS editorial assessments; verify current pricing on each vendor's site.