Long Tail Pro vs Ahrefs in 2026: Long Tail Pro Is Gone, Here's What to Use
If you are comparing Long Tail Pro with Ahrefs, the first thing to know is that the comparison no longer has two sides. Long Tail Pro's website doesn't sell the tool anymore, so the real question is what to use instead of it.
This guide sets out what we could verify about Long Tail Pro, what Ahrefs offers for keyword research today, and the cheaper tools people use in its place, with prices from each vendor's own pages, read on 7 November 2026. None of them paid to be here.
What happened to Long Tail Pro
Here is what we checked ourselves on 7 November 2026:
Several independent reviews say the tool went offline in mid-2024, but they give different dates, and we found no official announcement. Whatever the exact date, you can't sign up for Long Tail Pro today.
Long Tail Pro vs Ahrefs at a glance
Sources: Long Tail Pro's homepage as archived on 14 February 2024, and Ahrefs' pricing, Keywords Explorer, keyword generator and Webmaster Tools pages, read on 7 November 2026. Ahrefs showed prices in euros to our European connection; US visitors may see dollars.
What Ahrefs offers for keyword research
Keywords Explorer is the part of Ahrefs that replaces Long Tail Pro's keyword tool. Ahrefs says it filters its database down to 28.7 billion keywords across 217 locations, and shows search volume trends, the Traffic Potential of the page ranking first, and a Parent Topic that tells you whether a broader page could rank for your keyword too.
Its Keyword Difficulty score is calculated, in Ahrefs' words, "based solely on the average number of backlinks to the top-ranking pages". That makes it a quick filter for long-tail keywords where the current results have few links, which is the job many people used Long Tail Pro for.
On price, Lite costs €119 a month with 1,000 credits per user, 750 tracked keywords and six months of history; Standard at €229 removes the credit limit and tracks 2,000 keywords; Advanced at €419 tracks 5,000. Paying yearly saves up to 17%. Starter, at €27 a month, is a lighter plan for seeing "what people search" and checking competitors, and it is the closest in price to what Long Tail Pro charged.
For free, Ahrefs' keyword generator suggests ideas from a database of over 8 billion queries for Google, Bing, YouTube and Amazon, and Ahrefs Webmaster Tools gives free Site Audit and Site Explorer data for sites you verify, though not Keywords Explorer.
Cheaper Long Tail Pro alternatives
Sources, read on 7 November 2026: Mangools plans and KWFinder, Semrush pricing and Keyword Magic Tool, and Google Ads help on Keyword Planner.
Mangools' KWFinder is the most similar to Long Tail Pro: it is built to "find long tail keywords with low SEO difficulty", and its Basic plan costs about the same as Long Tail Pro did, with 100 keyword lookups a day and a 48-hour money-back guarantee. Semrush suits you if you also want site audits and position tracking in the same place; its free plan is enough to try the Keyword Magic Tool. Google Keyword Planner is designed for ad campaigns, and Google asks you to finish setting up a Google Ads account with billing information before you can get keyword ideas.
Steps to find long-tail keywords without Long Tail Pro
Once you have a list, our guides to free SEO audit tools and link building platforms cover the next steps: making sure the pages can be indexed, and earning the links that help them rank.
Where rankpeak fits
rankpeak isn't a standalone keyword tool like the ones above. Its keyword research suggests keywords your site can realistically rank for, with search volume and difficulty, and then it writes articles for the keywords you choose and publishes them to your site on a schedule. If you were using Long Tail Pro to plan content rather than to analyse keywords for their own sake, see what each plan includes on the pricing page.
Frequently asked questions
Is Long Tail Pro still available?
No. On 7 November 2026 its domain showed an unrelated company's website and its pricing page no longer existed. Independent reviews say it went offline in mid-2024, though we found no official announcement.
Is Ahrefs better than Long Tail Pro?
Ahrefs is the one you can still buy, and it covers far more than keyword research: backlinks, site audits and rank tracking. It also costs more, from €119 a month for Lite, or €27 a month for the lighter Starter plan.
What is the best Long Tail Pro alternative?
For the same kind of long-tail research at a similar price, Mangools' KWFinder is the closest, from €37.70 a month billed yearly. For a full SEO suite, Ahrefs or Semrush.
Is there a free alternative to Long Tail Pro?
For occasional research, yes: Ahrefs' free keyword generator, Semrush's free plan (10 reports a day) and KWFinder's 5 free lookups a day. None of them replaces a paid plan for daily work.

About the author
Benjamin is the founder of rankpeak. He builds software for small teams that want organic growth without an agency, and reviews every rankpeak guide before it goes live.
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