Before comparing vendors, work out how many numbers your team really needs each month. The answer is often smaller than any plan's smallest tier.
RankWiser research team ·
What moz api pricing is really buying you
Moz API pricing is usually a monthly line item. It rarely stays one. For the neighbouring comparison, see Ahrefs against Majestic. Product teams get further by dividing it into the metrics it delivers. Ask how many rows you will request, how often, and for which metric.
We will not quote Moz's current plan prices here, because they change and we are not the source. Open their pricing page, note the monthly cost and the row allowance, and divide one by the other. That is your cost per row.
Then repeat the sum for the link source you are comparing it with. Our side is easy: a credit is $0.0001, and a bulk_dr call is one credit for up to 2,000 domains.
Three ways to price the same 100-domain monthly pull
Illustrative model. Fill the first two rows with the vendor's figures from the day you read this.
Pricing shape
What you enter
What you get for 100 domains
Seat or tier with row allowance
Monthly fee, rows included
Fee divided by rows, times 100
Units inside a subscription (Ahrefs shape)
From $129/month for 200,000 units; at least 50 units per request
At least 50 units even for one row, so batch before you call
Prepaid per call (RankWiser)
1 credit = $0.0001
One bulk_dr call, 1 credit, $0.0001
Worked example (hypothetical)
A growth team with 120 domains and a monthly report
Suppose a team watches 120 domains and also pulls referring domains for 15 of them. That is one bulk call at 1 credit and 15 calls at 2 credits, 31 credits in all, or $0.0031. Even if the team runs it weekly, the year costs about 16 cents.
The example is a model, not a customer
Real cost scales with calls, not with rows
Fresh data still arrives only about monthly
Where a cheap link API will disappoint you
Price is not the only axis. Moz is known for Domain Authority, Spam Score and local listings through Moz Local, and none of that is replicated here. Our product is link data and a DR.
If the stakeholders have learned to read DA, the switch has a political cost. A new number needs a new column, a short explainer, and some patience while people stop asking for the old one.
A sound compromise is the split many teams already run. Keep the incumbent for the metric people know, and use the cheap source to widen coverage: more domains, more frequent snapshots, and anchors or top pages that a seat-priced plan would ration.
Questions to ask a vendor before signing
Does a request cost the same for one row and for a thousand? It should. Per-request minimums, like the 50 units Ahrefs charges at least per call, make small lookups costly. Ours bills one credit per call regardless of rows, up to 1,000 rows, and bulk_dr takes 2,000 domains.
What happens when the allowance runs out? Some plans stop, some bill overage. With prepaid credit, you get HTTP 402 and a stopped job, which is annoying but never a surprise bill.
Can you export the history? Whatever you choose, store every pull in your own table. Then a vendor change does not erase your trend line. See how to build that table in a few steps.
Putting the sums in the roadmap deck
A single slide is enough. List the metrics you need, the rows per month for each, the vendor price per row and the total. Put the free option next to it, since Moz Local and other tools may serve a different job entirely.
Round honestly. A tiny cost does not need a spreadsheet of its own; it needs a sentence saying who pays and what happens when credit runs low.