Screaming Frog: technical SEO audits for professionals

Screaming Frog is indispensable for SEO freelancers and consultants who carry out technical audits. It complements suites like Semrush or Ahrefs: it doesn't do keyword research, but it crawls a site the way Google would and reports everything that's technically wrong.

• Full crawl: detects 404 errors, redirects, duplicate pages, missing tags (title, meta, H1) and images without alt text
• Redirect analysis: shows all redirect chains and identifies loops
• Tag audit: complete inventory of all titles, meta descriptions and H1s, flagging duplicates and fields that are too long or too short
• Google Analytics & Search Console integration: enriches crawl data with real traffic data
• JavaScript crawling: JS rendering for auditing SPA sites or sites with dynamically loaded content
• CSV export: all results can be exported for your client reports

• Free: crawl up to 500 URLs, basic features. Enough to audit a small site or run a client demo.
• Annual license: £199/year (around €235/year). Unlimited crawling + all advanced features.

The license is per user and per machine. It renews every year.

It's simply the most reliable tool for technical SEO audits, used by agencies and consultants around the world. The free version is enough to try the tool and for small sites. At £199/year, it's one of the best investments an SEO freelancer can make: what you bill for a single client audit easily covers the annual subscription.

The weak point: it's desktop software (not a web app), it uses a lot of RAM on large sites, and the interface isn't the most intuitive for beginners.

Suites like Semrush or Ahrefs include their own technical audit tool. For small sites or limited budgets, they may be enough. But for in-depth technical audits, Screaming Frog remains irreplaceable as a complement.

→ See all Screaming Frog alternatives