Surfer SEO
AI SEO platform that scores content in real time and tracks brand visibility across AI search engines
Content optimization platform that grades drafts against SERP competitors and tracks brand visibility in ChatGPT and Gemini
Clearscope grades content against the pages currently ranking for a target query and, since its repositioning around answer-engine optimization, tracks whether your brand gets cited in ChatGPT and Gemini. There is no free tier and no free trial — Essentials starts at $129/month for 50 tracked prompts and 50 pages, Business is $399/month for 300 of each, and Enterprise is custom. Every plan includes unlimited users. Best for content teams that publish consistently and can justify a three-figure monthly floor before writing a single word.
Clearscope is a web-based content optimization platform built by Mushi Labs. Its original mechanic is content grading: you give it a target query, it analyzes the pages currently ranking for that query, and it reports which terms and topics your draft covers versus what the competition covers. The output is a coverage grade and a term list, which is deliberately narrow — Clearscope does not try to be a full SEO suite with backlink indexes and rank trackers bolted on. It grades content, and it does that one job with a tight feedback loop inside Google Docs or WordPress rather than in a separate tab.
The 2026 product is broader than that description suggests. Clearscope now positions around answer-engine optimization alongside traditional SEO, organizing itself into stages: Discover finds topic clusters worth attacking, Write produces an AI-assisted first draft, Optimize handles term coverage and collaborative editing, Expand tracks visibility across Google and AI chatbots, and Protect monitors an existing content inventory for ranking decay. The Expand stage is the notable addition — Prompt Tracking watches specific prompts in ChatGPT and Gemini, reports whether your brand gets mentioned, and shows which sources the models pulled from. Essentials includes 50 tracked prompts and Business includes 300. This puts Clearscope in direct competition with Surfer SEO, which added comparable LLM-citation tracking, though Surfer gates its version above the entry tier while Clearscope includes it from Essentials.
Clearscope’s pricing sorts its audience more sharply than its features do. There is no free tier and no free trial, so the entry cost is $129/month before you have optimized anything — that rules out casual evaluation and most solo bloggers. What partly offsets it is that every plan includes unlimited users and unlimited projects, so the cost is fixed no matter how many writers you add. That makes Clearscope disproportionately good value for a team and disproportionately bad value for one person. If you are a single writer optimizing a handful of posts a month, Frase or Surfer SEO start considerably cheaper; if you have six writers, Clearscope’s flat fee beats per-seat rivals quickly.
Typical users include:
Starting price: $129/mo · Free tier: no · Model: paid
Price history tracked from June 2026
| Plan | Price | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| Essentials | $129/mo | 50 Tracked Prompts · 50 Pages in Content Inventory · 20 monthly Topic Explorations · 20 monthly Drafts · Unlimited users and projects · Add-on pages at $25/mo per block |
| Business | $399/mo | 300 Tracked Prompts · 300 Pages in Content Inventory · 50 monthly Topic Explorations · 20 monthly Drafts · Dedicated account manager · Add-on pages at $15/mo per block |
| Enterprise | Custom | Everything in Business · Custom credit allocations · Custom agreements · Crawler whitelisting · Single sign-on (SSO) |
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Unlimited users on every plan, including the $129/mo entry tier — no per-seat math as the team grows | No free tier and no free trial — evaluating the product means paying $129 up front, which is a harder entry than rivals that let you sign up and look around first |
| Prompt Tracking is included from the entry tier rather than gated behind a mid-tier upgrade | The $129/mo floor is roughly 2.5x the entry price of Surfer SEO's $49/mo tier, and Clearscope's cheapest plan caps Content Inventory at 50 pages |
| Google Docs and WordPress integrations keep writers in the tools they already use | Draft limits do not scale with price — both Essentials and Business include only 20 monthly Drafts, so the $399 tier buys tracking volume rather than writing capacity |
| Term coverage reports produce an objective score that works well as an agency deliverable | No publicly documented API; official docs list only the Google Docs add-on and WordPress plugin, so programmatic workflows need a conversation with sales |
| Overages are billed as add-on blocks, so a team that outgrows 50 pages mid-month pays incrementally rather than getting headroom |
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No. Clearscope has no free tier and no free trial. The cheapest way in is the Essentials plan at $129/month. Some third-party reviews report a 7-day refund window for new subscribers, but that is not stated on the official pricing page — confirm with Clearscope before relying on it.
Essentials is $129/month and Business is $399/month. Enterprise pricing is custom. Add-ons are billed separately: extra pages cost $25/month per block on Essentials or $15/month on Business, and extra drafts cost $50 on Essentials or $20 on Business.
Business raises Tracked Prompts and Content Inventory pages from 50 to 300, raises monthly Topic Explorations from 20 to 50, and adds a dedicated account manager. Monthly Drafts stay at 20 on both tiers, so Business mainly buys tracking and monitoring volume rather than more AI writing capacity.
Yes. Clearscope has repositioned around answer-engine optimization. Its Prompt Tracking feature monitors specific prompts across ChatGPT and Gemini to show whether your brand is mentioned and which sources the models cite. Essentials includes 50 tracked prompts; Business includes 300.
Clearscope does not publicly document an API. Its official integrations documentation lists a Google Docs add-on and a WordPress plugin only. Some third-party sources describe account-gated API access, but there is no public developer documentation, so treat programmatic access as something to confirm with Clearscope directly.
Yes. Clearscope publishes a Google Docs add-on that surfaces its recommendations inside your document, and a WordPress plugin that links drafts so recommendations appear inside the CMS. Both are documented in the official support center.
All plans include unlimited users and unlimited projects. This is unusual in the SEO tooling category, where per-seat pricing is common, and it makes the $129/month floor easier to justify for a team than for a solo consultant.
It depends on team size and volume. Surfer SEO starts at $49/month, so Clearscope's $129/month entry is roughly 2.5x higher. Clearscope counters with unlimited users on every plan and prompt tracking from the entry tier, which can flip the math for a team of several writers. A solo user publishing occasionally will find Clearscope hard to justify.