Budget & alternatives · Prompt 8 of 8 · September 2026

A real buyer question from the September 2026 snapshot, asked 3× to each of the three models. 9 answers recorded.

“What's a good affordable alternative to the big desktop SEO crawlers?”

ChatGPT answered 3× this snapshot

A good affordable alternative is Screaming Frog’s free tier if your site is small, but if you want a true lower-cost replacement for the big desktop crawlers, here are the best options: Best affordable alternatives Sitebulb Usually cheaper than enterprise SEO crawlers Very user-friendly visual audits Great for technical SEO and client reporting A1 Website Analyzer One of the more budget-friendly desktop crawlers…

Named across its answers: 1. Screaming Frog2. Sitebulb3. A1 Website Analyzer4. Ahrefs5. Xenu Link Sleuth

Verbatim excerpt from one collected ChatGPT answer; formatting flattened, words untouched.

Screaming Frog is winning this question decisively, earning the first recommendation slot in 7 of 9 answers despite being framed as an "affordable alternative," which positions it as the default answer AI models reach for. Ahrefs appears universally but averages position 5.7, meaning it gets mentioned as context rather than as the answer buyers are actually looking for.

AI-generated read of the September 2026 measurements.

Who wins this question

Leaning Ahrefs Consensus

All three models name Screaming Frog, Sitebulb and Ahrefs on this question.

ChatGPT

Claude

Gemini mentioned · first · avg. pos

Ahrefs 887384256 9/9 · never first · #5.7

Screaming Frog 1111111 7/9 · 7× first · #1

Sitebulb 222222 6/9 · never first · #2

Beam Us Up 657141 6/9 · 2× first · #4

Xenu Link Sleuth 53437 5/9 · never first · #4.4

Netpeak Spider 4552 4/9 · never first · #4

Google Search Console 9243 4/9 · never first · #4.5

Scrutiny 5474 4/9 · never first · #5

SEO PowerSuite 363 3/9 · never first · #4

A1 Website Analyzer 346 3/9 · never first · #4.3

Seobility 636 3/9 · never first · #5

JetOctopus 985 3/9 · never first · #7.3

Each square is one collected answer; the number is the brand's position in that answer. Lime = the very first recommendation. Unlinked brands were named by the models here but sit outside this category's published top 15 overall. Showing the top 12 of 22 brands named at least once. Never mentioned here: Botify, Oncrawl, Firecrawl, Apify, Crawl4AI, ContentKing.