Ahrefs vs Planoly (2026): pricing, features, which to pick
Ahrefs free plan; from ~$29/mo, Planoly from $14/mo (14-day trial), checked by hand in 2026. Where each one wins, what a team of five really pays, and the cases where neither is the right buy.
- Ahrefs: Standard $249 plus 4 extra users at $60/mo; Lite allows only 2 extra users
- Planoly: Pro seats 6 users and 6 social sets
- ViralHunt: Agency: up to 10 users and 10 brands
| Tool | Best for | Starting price | What that price covers | Free plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ahrefs | SEO teams researching keywords, backlinks and top-linked content | free plan; from ~$29/mo | 1 user included | Free plan (limited) |
| Planoly | creators and solo brands who plan an Instagram or TikTok grid and sell from their bio | from $14/mo (14-day trial) | 1 social set, 1 user (Starter) | Free trial |
| ViralHunt | discovering viral content and turning it into posts, as a team | from $29/mo | 1 user (Creator). Studio: $99/mo for up to 4 users and 4 projects, no per-seat charge | Yes, and it never expires |
Every price was read off the vendor's own pricing page. We show no G2 or Capterra ratings because we are not listed there, and an invented rating would destroy the only thing these pages have, which is that all of it can be checked.
Choosing between Ahrefs and Planoly? Below we break them down feature by feature, on pricing and on use case, and show where ViralHunt fits as the all-in-one alternative that tracks viral content across 12 networks.
| Feature | Ahrefs | Planoly | ViralHunt |
|---|---|---|---|
| Social platforms covered | Web / search index | 8, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Threads, Pinterest, X | 12, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Reddit, X, Bluesky, Mastodon, Douyin, RSS, Quora, Tumblr |
| Real-time viral content discovery | Partial | ✗ | ✓ |
| Per-post engagement tracking | Partial | Partial | ✓ |
| Cross-platform trending radar | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Editorial board (Kanban workflow) | ✗ | Partial | ✓ |
| AI content studio | Partial | Partial | ✓ |
| Built-in team chat | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Browser-extension scrapers | Partial | ✗ | ✓ |
| Niche / keyword tracking | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Mention / sentiment listening | ✗ | ✗ | Partial |
| Post scheduling & publishing | Social Media Manager (beta) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Auto-DM (comment → DM) | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Public API + AI-agent access | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Free trial | Free plan (limited) | ✓ | Free plan, no expiry |
| Starting price | free plan; from ~$29/mo | from $14/mo (14-day trial) | from $29/mo |
📡 12 networks, one screen
TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Reddit, X, Bluesky, Douyin, RSS, Quora & Tumblr, viral posts and engagement in a single radar.
🗂️ Built-in workflow
Assign any post to an editorial board, draft with the AI studio, and coordinate in team chat, no extra tools.
💸 Better value
One affordable plan instead of stacking a discovery tool + a workflow tool + a listening tool.
What is Ahrefs?
Ahrefs is a full SEO toolset, backlinks, keyword research, rank tracking and site audits, with a Content Explorer that searches billions of pages by topic to surface the most-linked and most-shared articles. Marketers often weigh it against BuzzSumo for content research. But Ahrefs is built around search/SEO: it finds top web pages and their backlinks, not the native viral posts running on TikTok, Instagram or Reddit right now, and it has no content workflow.
- Best-in-class backlink and keyword data
- Content Explorer finds top-shared/linked articles
- Deep SEO site audits and rank tracking
- SEO/search-centric, not native social-viral discovery
- No editorial board or content workflow
- Standard includes one user; five users cost $489/mo with four additional users at $60/mo. Lite permits only two additional users.
Pricing: free plan; from ~$29/mo
What is Planoly?
Planoly is a visual-first scheduler for creators: a drag-and-drop grid and calendar, a media library, AI content ideas, comment-to-DM automation and a link-in-bio storefront for selling digital products, publishing to Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Threads, Pinterest and X. Starter is $14 a month for 1 social set and 1 user; Growth $24 for 2 sets and 2 users; Pro $47 for 6 sets and 6 users, with extra sets and users as add-ons; every paid plan has a 14-day trial and the mobile app has a free tier of 10 uploads a month. It plans and sells your own content; it does not discover what is going viral across networks.
- Grid preview and visual calendar built for creators
- Auto-DM and a link-in-bio storefront included
- From $14 a month, 6 users on Pro
- No viral or trending discovery across networks
- Basic analytics; no social inbox or listening
- Priced per social set: more profiles are add-ons
Pricing: from $14/mo (14-day trial)
When to buy one of these two
You came here comparing two tools, not looking for a third. So first, plainly, what each one is the better buy for:
- Ahrefs if your job is seo teams researching keywords, backlinks and top-linked content. Best-in-class backlink and keyword data.
- Planoly if your job is creators and solo brands who plan an instagram or tiktok grid and sell from their bio. Grid preview and visual calendar built for creators.
If either of those sentences describes your job, you have your answer and the rest of this page is not for you. What follows is for the case where neither one does.
The third option: ViralHunt
ViralHunt is a viral-content discovery platform that tracks the top-performing posts across 12 networks, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Reddit, X, Bluesky, Mastodon, Douyin, RSS, Quora and Tumblr, in real time. Beyond discovery, it turns trends into a team workflow with an editorial Kanban board, an AI content studio and built-in team chat, and now schedules and auto-publishes finished posts to 11 social networks, with separate brand/client projects. So a whole team can find, create and publish content in one place instead of stacking a discovery tool, a workflow tool and a scheduler.
- Tracks viral posts across 12 networks in one dashboard
- Editorial board, AI studio and team chat built in, no extra tools
- Schedules & auto-publishes to 11 networks, with multi-brand projects
- Affordable, a free plan that never expires, plus a REST API for AI agents
- Not a dedicated enterprise listening/analytics suite
- Younger brand than the incumbents
Pricing: from $29/mo
Comparing Ahrefs and Planoly because neither one quite does what you need? ViralHunt has a free plan that does not expire, so checking is free and there is no countdown.
Try for freeWhich should you choose?
- Ahrefs, best for SEO teams researching keywords, backlinks and top-linked content.
- Planoly, best for creators and solo brands who plan an Instagram or TikTok grid and sell from their bio.
- ViralHunt, best if you want to discover viral content across 12 networks and turn it into content as a team.