On plan limits read on 2 Oct 2026, NeuronWriter and Surfer are the cheapest per optimised article, Frase sits in the middle, and Clearscope costs the most per article. Filling the cheapest plan that covers 20 articles a month on annual billing: NeuronWriter Bronze $0.95 an article, Surfer Discovery $2.45, Frase Professional $5.15, Clearscope Essentials $6.45 (monthly billing only). The four count different things as an “article”, so the unit table below comes before the cost grid.
What each plan counts
| Tool | The counted unit | Entry plan limit | Source wording |
|---|---|---|---|
| Surfer | Documents (content editor items) | Discovery: 120 documents, 10 pages tracked | “Documents” and “Pages tracked” on the pricing page |
| Frase | Articles | Starter: 10 articles, 50 audit pages a month | “10 articles and 50 audit pages each month” |
| Clearscope | Drafts and topic explorations | Essentials: 20 drafts, 20 topic explorations a month, 50 tracked queries, 50 pages | Pricing page plan card |
| NeuronWriter | Content writer analyses | Bronze: 25 analyses, 2 projects, 15,000 AI credits | Pricing page plan card |
Treat each unit as one article for this comparison. That is an assumption: a Frase article and a Surfer document are both created per piece, but a NeuronWriter analysis is a keyword-level analysis you can reuse, and Clearscope’s page lists drafts and topic explorations as separate monthly allowances.
Prices, as read on 2 Oct 2026
USD list prices. Annual figures are the per-month price when billed annually.
| Plan | Monthly billing | Annual billing, per month | Articles per month (as counted above) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Surfer Discovery | $59 | $49 | 120 |
| Surfer Standard | $119 | $99 | 360 |
| Surfer Pro | $219 | $182 | 360 |
| Surfer Peace of Mind | $359 | $299 | “Unlimited” (fair use) |
| Frase Starter | $49 | $39 | 10 |
| Frase Professional | $129 | $103 | 40 |
| Frase Scale | $299 | $239 | 100 |
| Clearscope Essentials | $129 | not stated | 20 |
| Clearscope Business | $399 | not stated | 20 |
| NeuronWriter Bronze | $23 | $19 | 25 |
| NeuronWriter Silver | $45 | $37 | 50 |
| NeuronWriter Gold | $69 | $57 | 75 |
| NeuronWriter Platinum | $93 | $77 | 100 |
| NeuronWriter Diamond | $117 | $97 | 150 |
Surfer’s page showed euro signs when read from the Netherlands, with the same numbers; the dataset records them as USD list prices, so confirm the currency on your own connection. Frase Enterprise and Clearscope Enterprise are custom-priced and left out. Surfer’s AI Search Analytics plan ($95 monthly, $82 annual) tracks AI-answer visibility rather than documents and is not part of this comparison; see the AI visibility tools page.
Cost per optimised article
Our division: plan price divided by articles a month, using the cheapest plan whose limit covers the volume. Annual billing in the first figure, monthly billing in brackets.
| Articles a month | NeuronWriter | Surfer | Frase | Clearscope |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Bronze: $4.75 ($5.75) | Discovery: $12.25 ($14.75) | Starter: $9.75 ($12.25) | Essentials: ($32.25) |
| 20 | Bronze: $0.95 ($1.15) | Discovery: $2.45 ($2.95) | Professional: $5.15 ($6.45) | Essentials: ($6.45) |
| 100 | Platinum: $0.77 ($0.93) | Discovery: $0.49 ($0.59) | Scale: $2.39 ($2.99) | none covers it |
Notes on the cells:
- At 4 articles a month you are mostly paying the minimum plan, so the per-article gap is really a gap between entry prices: $19, $39, $49 and $129 a month.
- At 100, Surfer Discovery’s 120 documents make it the cheapest on paper at $0.49. It is also Surfer’s entry plan with 10 tracked pages, so check its feature list against your workflow before choosing on this number. Standard ($99 annual, 360 documents) is $0.99 an article at 100 and $0.28 at a full 360.
- Clearscope’s Business plan lists the same 20 drafts as Essentials ($399 against $129) and adds tracked queries (300), pages (300), topic explorations (50) and an account manager. Its per-draft price at 20 is $19.95. Add-on drafts are listed at $50 on Essentials and $20 on Business, with the unit not shown on the page we could read, so no 100-article figure is given.
- Full-allowance cost is not the same as your cost. If you use 12 of Frase Professional’s 40 articles, you pay $8.58 each on annual billing.
Where the next plan pays for itself
Whole plan price against volume, annual billing, for the two tools with a smooth ladder:
| Move up when you need more than | Frase | NeuronWriter |
|---|---|---|
| Entry plan limit | 10 articles: $39 a month | 25 analyses: $19 a month |
| Next plan | 40 articles: $103 a month | 50 analyses: $37 a month |
| Extra cost for the extra capacity | $64 for 30 more articles ($2.13 each) | $18 for 25 more analyses ($0.72 each) |
Surfer’s ladder is steeper at the top: Standard to Pro keeps 360 documents but raises tracked pages from 50 to 200 and the price from $99 to $182.
Pick by what you do
- A solo writer doing a few articles a month: NeuronWriter Bronze at $19 annual, or Frase Starter if you want the writing and publishing tools in the same plan at $39.
- A steady 20 to 50 articles a month: NeuronWriter Bronze or Silver, or Surfer Discovery and Standard, on price alone. Frase Professional costs more per article than either, and lists 3 seats and 5 sites (extra seats $29 a month).
- An agency that wants a named account manager and many tracked queries: Clearscope Business, whose plan card lists a dedicated account manager (Surfer’s Peace of Mind lists dedicated success management). It is the dearest per article.
- Anyone choosing on quality: no pricing page tells you whether the suggested terms improve rankings. Compare each tool’s trial (Frase 7 days, no card; Clearscope 14 days) on one of your own pages. Reviews: Surfer, Frase, Clearscope; the wider field is in best AI SEO content tools.
NeuronWriter has no review page or tracker entry here yet; its numbers on this page come from its pricing page alone.
Method
Researched from the four vendor pricing pages, read on 2 Oct 2026 (NeuronWriter read as page text and checked against the page’s own markup). USD list prices; Surfer’s currency label depends on visitor location. Cost per article is our division of plan price by the plan’s stated monthly allowance and assumes the allowance is fully used and that one allowance unit equals one article. No trial discounts or lifetime deals are included. Nothing here comes from using these tools.