Best free SEO & analytics tools (2026)

Plenty of SEO & analytics tools advertise a free plan; fewer truly back it up. These do.

Every entry below separates a real free plan from a time-limited trial, lists the actual limits (seats, items, sends or storage) and the trade-off you accept at $0. Limits are summarised from public plans at the time of writing.

The free tools at a glance

Tool	Free offer	What you get free	Best for
Amplitude	Free plan	up to 10k MTUs / 2M events, 1k session replays/mo	product-teams
Contentsquare	Free plan	up to ~200k monthly sessions, 10k session replays	enterprise
Hotjar	Free plan	up to ~35 daily sessions, unlimited surveys/feedback	ux-research
Mangools	Free plan	free trial	bloggers
Matomo	Free plan	open source, unlimited, run on your own server	data-ownership
Mixpanel	Free plan	1M events/mo, unlimited seats and history	product-teams
Similarweb	Free plan	free tier	competitor-research
Google Analytics 4	Free plan	2 or 14 month retention, 1M/day BigQuery export cap	measurement
Heap	Free plan	up to 10k monthly sessions	product-teams
Microsoft Clarity	Free plan	no traffic, session or seat limits	budget-conscious
Plausible Analytics	Free plan	AGPL-3.0, run via Docker on your own server	privacy
Screaming Frog SEO Spider	Free plan	up to 500 URLs per crawl, core features only	technical-seo
Fathom Analytics	30-day free trial	trial only	privacy
Moz Pro	30-day free trial	trial only	beginners
SE Ranking	14-day free trial	trial only	agencies
Sitebulb	free trial	trial only	technical-seo
Sitechecker	free trial	trial only	site-monitoring
Wincher	free trial	trial only	bloggers

The picks, ranked

1. Amplitude Product Analytics

Enterprise-grade digital analytics platform for product, behavioral and growth analytics with strong cohort, retention and experimentation features.

Free plan: up to 10k MTUs / 2M events, 1k session replays/mo

Standout feature: Behavioural and product analytics.

Best for: Product, growth and data teams running experimentation and behavioural analysis.

Full Amplitude overview

Try Amplitude free →

2. Contentsquare Experience Analytics

Enterprise digital-experience analytics platform combining zone-based heatmaps, journey analysis, session replay and (post-Heap) product analytics at scale.

Free plan: up to ~200k monthly sessions, 10k session replays

Standout feature: Customer journey analysis.

Best for: Enterprise digital, ecommerce and CRO teams at scale.

Full Contentsquare overview

Try Contentsquare free →

3. Hotjar Behavior Analytics

Popular product-experience tool combining heatmaps, session recordings, surveys and feedback widgets to show how and why users behave on a site.

Free plan: up to ~35 daily sessions, unlimited surveys/feedback

Standout feature: Surveys and feedback widgets.

Best for: UX researchers and CRO teams wanting qualitative insight into user behaviour.

The catch: Daily-session caps stop recording once exceeded.

Full Hotjar overview

Try Hotjar free →

4. Mangools Keyword Research

Affordable, exceptionally easy-to-use suite (KWFinder, SERPChecker, SERPWatcher, LinkMiner, SiteProfiler) built for solo SEOs, bloggers and small teams.

Free plan: free trial

Standout feature: KWFinder for long-tail keyword research with difficulty scores.

Best for: Bloggers, freelancers and budget-conscious small teams doing keyword research.

The catch: Daily search/lookup limits rather than monthly pools can feel restrictive.

Full Mangools overview

Try Mangools free →

5. Matomo Web Analytics

Open-source, fully data-owned web analytics platform positioned as an ethical Google Analytics alternative, available self-hosted (free) or cloud-hosted.

Free plan: open source, unlimited, run on your own server

Standout feature: Self-hosted (free) or cloud-hosted options.

Best for: Privacy- and data-ownership-focused organisations wanting control over analytics.

Full Matomo overview

Try Matomo free →

6. Mixpanel Product Analytics

Event-based product analytics for funnels, retention and user behavior, helping product teams understand engagement and improve conversion.

Free plan: 1M events/mo, unlimited seats and history

Standout feature: Group Analytics and Data Pipelines add-ons.

Best for: Product and growth teams at SaaS and app companies analysing user behaviour.

The catch: Some advanced features (alerts, anomaly detection) gated to paid tiers.

Full Mixpanel overview

Try Mixpanel free →

7. Similarweb Market Intelligence

Leading website and market intelligence platform for traffic estimates, audience analysis, competitor benchmarking and digital market trends across web and apps.

Free plan: free tier

Standout feature: Audience analysis and demographics.

Best for: Competitive intelligence, market research and sales teams benchmarking competitors.

Full Similarweb overview

Try Similarweb free →

8. Google Analytics 4 Web Analytics

The default, free, event-based web and app analytics standard, deeply integrated with Google Ads and Search Console for quantitative measurement.

Free plan: 2 or 14 month retention, 1M/day BigQuery export cap

Standout feature: Predictive metrics and AI insights.

Best for: Most websites and ecommerce teams wanting free quantitative measurement.

The catch: Standard data retention capped at 14 months.

Full Google Analytics 4 overview

9. Heap Product Analytics

Autocapture product analytics (now part of Contentsquare) that records every user interaction without manual event tagging, plus session replay and AI insights.

Free plan: up to 10k monthly sessions

Standout feature: Session replay.

Best for: Product teams wanting tag-free, retroactive product analytics.

Full Heap overview

10. Microsoft Clarity Behavior Analytics

Completely free heatmap and session-recording tool from Microsoft with no traffic, session or seat limits, plus native GA4 integration.

Free plan: no traffic, session or seat limits

Standout feature: Rage/dead-click and frustration signals.

Best for: Budget-conscious teams and any site wanting free, unlimited behaviour analytics.

The catch: Session/heatmap data retained only ~30 days.

Full Microsoft Clarity overview

11. Plausible Analytics Web Analytics

Lightweight, privacy-first, cookie-free Google Analytics alternative; open-source, EU-hosted and GDPR-friendly with a simple single-page dashboard.

Free plan: AGPL-3.0, run via Docker on your own server

Standout feature: Lightweight single-page analytics dashboard.

Best for: Privacy-conscious site owners and small businesses wanting simple GDPR-friendly analytics.

Full Plausible Analytics overview

12. Screaming Frog SEO Spider Technical Seo

The de-facto desktop crawler for technical SEO audits: crawls sites for broken links, redirects, duplicate content, metadata and more, with a flat-fee unlimited model.

Free plan: up to 500 URLs per crawl, core features only

Standout feature: JavaScript rendering via headless Chromium.

Best for: Technical SEOs and agencies running in-depth site audits and crawls.

The catch: Free version capped at 500 URLs per crawl.

Full Screaming Frog SEO Spider overview

Free trials (no permanent free plan)

Trial-only options: free to try, not free to keep, but useful for a hands-on check:

Fathom Analytics — 30-day free trial. privacy. Start Fathom Analytics trial →
Moz Pro — 30-day free trial. beginners. Start Moz Pro trial →
SE Ranking — 14-day free trial. agencies. Start SE Ranking trial →
Sitebulb — free trial. technical-seo. Sitebulb details →
Sitechecker — free trial. site-monitoring. Start Sitechecker trial →
Wincher — free trial. bloggers. Start Wincher trial →

How to pick a free tool

Match the free plan to your actual volume first. If branding or a watermark is a dealbreaker, filter for the ones without it. Treat the free tier as a 30-minute test drive on one real task, then decide whether paying removes a limit you genuinely care about.

FAQ

Which of these are genuinely free, and which are just trials?

12 tools here offer a permanent free plan you can keep using at $0 — including Amplitude, Contentsquare and Hotjar. Fathom Analytics, Moz Pro, SE Ranking, Sitebulb, Sitechecker and Wincher only offer a time-limited free trial, not a standing free plan.

What's the catch with a free plan?

Free tiers trade away scale or polish. The usual limits are usage caps (seats, contacts, sends, storage), a reduced feature set, vendor branding or watermarks, and gated automations. Each pick above lists its specific limit and catch where the data names one.

How were these chosen?

We include a tool only when its own pricing or an independent source confirms a real free plan or trial — no assumed free tiers. Details, limits and facts are drawn from the vendors' plans and the reviews cited in Sources below.

Can you actually run a business on a free plan?

Up to a point. Free plans suit solo users and small volumes; once you need more seats, higher limits or to drop the vendor branding, upgrading is the honest call.

Sources

Free-plan limits and facts above are drawn from these vendor pages and independent reviews: