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- Best for
- SEO specialists, agencies and in-house marketers who run technical SEO audits on their own computer
- Starting price
- $279 per licence, per year
- Free plan
- ✓ Yes
- Free trial
- ✗ No
Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a website crawler you install on your computer. It crawls a site the way a search engine bot does and lists technical SEO issues, such as broken links, redirect chains, missing titles and duplicate pages. The free version crawls up to 500 URLs.
Screaming Frog describes it as a crawler that audits a site for over 300 SEO issues. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux.
Who is the SEO Spider for?
The SEO Spider suits SEO specialists, agencies and in-house marketers who need to audit websites in detail. Small sites under 500 URLs can be audited for free. Larger sites, or teams that need JavaScript rendering, scheduled crawls and analytics data in one view, need a paid licence. Because it is desktop software, very large crawls depend on your computer's memory and storage. Teams that prefer a cloud dashboard with alerts may want a cloud-based crawler instead.
What can the SEO Spider check?
Broken links, errors and redirects
The crawler finds broken links (404s), server errors and redirects, including redirect chains and loops. Fixing these is usually the first step in a technical SEO audit.
Page titles, meta data and directives
It analyses page titles and meta descriptions across the site. It also reviews meta robots directives and hreflang attributes, which matter for on-page SEO and international sites.
Duplicate content and sitemaps
The free version finds exact duplicate pages. A licence adds near-duplicate detection. You can also generate an XML sitemap from a crawl.
Advanced features with a licence
The pricing page lists these as paid-only:
- Scheduling and crawl comparison
- JavaScript rendering
- Custom extraction with XPath, CSS Path or regex, and custom JavaScript
- AI integration with OpenAI, Gemini and other providers
- Google Analytics, Search Console and PageSpeed Insights integrations
- Structured data validation, spelling and grammar checks and accessibility auditing
- A Looker Studio crawl report and technical support
How much does the SEO Spider cost?
US dollar prices checked on 1 November 2026 on Screaming Frog's pricing page:
| Licences | Price |
|---|---|
| Free version | Free, 500 URL limit |
| 1 to 4 | $279 per licence, per year |
| 5 to 9 | $265 per licence, per year |
| 10 to 19 | $249 per licence, per year |
| 20+ | $235 per licence, per year |
Licences are per user, so two people need two licences, and each licence lasts one year. The pricing page also lets you switch to US dollars or euros.
What do users say about the SEO Spider?
On G2, where it is listed as "SEO Spider", it is rated 4.7 out of 5 at the time of checking. G2's summary of reviews says users value its in-depth website analysis, detailed reporting and how quickly it surfaces on-page and technical issues.
Criticisms on G2 are few but consistent: the layout can be hard to navigate, the free version's 500-URL limit and speed are restrictive, and a few reviewers found buying a licence confusing.
When should you choose an alternative?
- You want a second auditing tool to compare. Sitebulb is another SEO crawler, available as desktop or cloud software.
- You want ongoing monitoring rather than one-off crawls. ContentKing, now part of Conductor as website monitoring, watches a site continuously; see our ContentKing page.
- You need keyword research and backlinks too. An all-in-one suite such as Semrush or Ahrefs includes a site audit tool.
- You only need Google's view of your site. Start with the free Google Search Console.
Browse more SEO tools.
Key features
- Broken links, errors and redirects. Finds broken links, server errors, redirect chains and loops across a site.
- Page titles and meta data. Analyses page titles and meta descriptions across the whole site.
- Duplicate content. Finds exact duplicates in the free version and near duplicates with a licence.
- JavaScript rendering. Renders pages like a browser to crawl sites built with JavaScript frameworks (paid).
- XML sitemaps. Generates XML sitemaps from a crawl.
- Integrations. Pulls in Google Analytics, Search Console, PageSpeed Insights and link metrics data (paid).
- Custom extraction and AI. Scrapes data with XPath, CSS Path or regex, and can run prompts through OpenAI, Gemini and other AI providers during a crawl (paid).
- Scheduling and crawl comparison. Runs crawls on a schedule and compares crawls to see what changed (paid).
Screaming Frog SEO Spider pricing
| Plan | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Free version | Free | Crawl limit of 500 URLs. Covers broken links, page titles and meta data, robots directives, hreflang, exact duplicates, XML sitemaps and site visualisations. |
| Paid licence (1 to 4 licences) | $279 per licence, per year | Unlimited crawling (limited by memory and storage), plus scheduling, JavaScript rendering, crawl comparison, integrations, custom extraction and support. Licences are per user. |
| 5 to 9 licences | $265 per licence, per year | Bulk discount. |
| 10 to 19 licences | $249 per licence, per year | Bulk discount. |
| 20+ licences | $235 per licence, per year | Bulk discount. |
Screaming Frog SEO Spider FAQ
Is Screaming Frog SEO Spider free?
Yes, there is a free version that crawls up to 500 URLs and covers core checks such as broken links, titles, meta data and XML sitemaps. A paid licence removes the limit and adds advanced features.
How much does a Screaming Frog licence cost?
On 1 November 2026 the pricing page listed $279 per licence per year for 1 to 4 licences, dropping to $235 per licence for 20 or more. Licences are per user and last one year.
Does Screaming Frog work on Mac?
Yes. The SEO Spider runs on Windows, macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel) and Linux.
Can Screaming Frog crawl JavaScript websites?
Yes, with a paid licence. JavaScript rendering is not part of the free version.