Deep Dive: Is Ahrefs AI Content Helper Worth the Cost?

Every industry has been buzzing with AI talk for quite a few years now. It has quickly evolved from a novel way to handle simple tasks, to something businesses use across entire workflows and decision-making processes. So, with the release of Ahrefs AI Content Helper, it may feel like yet another AI tool in a growing flood of mediocrity. However, don’t let the generic name mislead you. While it’s not perfect, it fills a unique niche in SEO-focused content.

What Is the Ahrefs AI Content Helper?

The Ahrefs AI Content Helper is a writing assistant that helps users develop SEO-friendly content. It uses Ahrefs’ keyword and SEO data to help users build outlines by highlighting topics and keywords used by high-ranking pages. It can also suggest title tags and meta descriptions, while also providing general feedback and generating content. That makes it a well-rounded tool that has a surprising number of features for such a plain interface.

How Much Does Ahrefs AI Content Helper Cost?

Ahrefs offers AI Content Helper as a paid add-on to its core platform. The overall cost depends on which add-on you choose and the base Ahrefs plan you pair it with.

• AI Content Helper add-on ($99 per month): This is the entry-level option that gives access to the AI-powered writing and optimization tools.
• Content Kit add-on ($299 per month): A higher-tier option built for larger teams or heavier publishing needs. It includes 250 documents each month.
• Additional documents (100 for $50 per month): Extra document credits can be purchased if you exceed the monthly allowance included with your plan.
• Ahrefs subscription (starting at $129 per month): An active Ahrefs plan, such as the Lite tier, is necessary to use either add-on.

At a minimum, the combined cost starts at $228 per month for the Lite plan plus the base AI Content Helper add-on. Teams that opt for the Content Kit or require additional documents will see their total climb depending on usage.

A Walkthrough of the AI Content Helper

To better explain what the Ahrefs AI Content Helper can do, we’ll do a walkthrough to show an example of how it can be used.

1. Choosing a Keyword

When using Ahrefs AI Content Helper, the first step isn’t actually using the tool itself. Instead, it’s best to start with the Keywords Explorer, which lets you do preliminary research to find the right keyword to target. For the sake of example in this walkthrough, we’ll use “franchise lead generation,” which has a low keyword difficulty, along with good search volume and traffic potential.

2. Plugging the Keyword Into the AI Content Helper

Next, we’ll navigate to the AI Content Helper itself and plug the keyword into the target box. You can optionally include an article URL from your website, which will essentially copy/paste the text for this page. However, for this example, we’ll leave it blank.

3. Selecting Your Competitors

Next, you’ll reach a screen that lets you select your competitors. By default, it toggles on grouping by search intent. Generally, that’s a good thing and works pretty well. However, for our example keyword, 39% of the intent’s traffic share is targeted by their grouping. That’s a lower number than we’d like to see.

So, we’ll be toggling search intent off and doing our own custom blend. What to mix and match depends on the goal of your page or article. For this example, we’ll treat this as as more of an educational and strategic guide to franchise lead generation, rather than a service landing page. Our mix might look like this:

4. Highlighted Topics and Keywords

While it does take a few steps to set up, now we’re getting into the meat of the tool. The initial page you land on will show a breakdown of a list of topics, along with keywords aligned with each one. For now, we’ll ignore the content score and other options. These topics are essentially compiled from all the competitors we have selected, meaning this list touches on most everything that high-ranking results are discussing. And notably, no competitor is likely discussing every single thing compiled here.

Enabling the highlight toggle will display a more concise version that includes only the topic and summary, without keywords. For this example, we want to view both. Looking at the above topic, it specifically outlines what needs to be discussed, along with keywords that should be considered. Beyond the SEO side of it, the keywords themselves can help drive key talking points. For example, email drip campaigns are noted in the data, making them worth mentioning in the overall post.

5. Exploring Competitor Headings

Next, we’ll jump down to look at the headings used by competitors. Combined with the topic and keyword data we just reviewed, this can help identify the specific topics each site is addressing. That’s valuable for drafting your own list of headings, both to ensure you cover every topic and to understand the overall flow of the competitors.

This type of breakdown is also helpful for finding shortcomings in competitor content. Some may have bloated headings or an unclear narrative. Use that to your advantage!

6. Developing the Content

At this point, you should be able to develop a framework for your post that includes a full list of headings aligned with the topics you want to discuss. Also, don’t hesitate to talk about something that doesn’t show up in the analytics if it makes sense for the theme of the post. The goal is not only to match your competitors, but also to provide fresh insights that set your content apart for both readers and search engines.

From there, you start writing the content based on the outline. Since this is only a tool walkthrough, and everybody has their own style and voice, we’ll leave the writing process up to you. After you draft the full post based on the outline, the next step is plugging that content into the text editor. Some people may prefer to write directly inside the tool; there is no wrong way!

Next, you can optionally use the title tag and meta description generation tools. While content generation can be a mixed bag for AI in general, focused areas like this work surprisingly well. You can either use a recommended title and/or meta description, tweak them, or use them as inspiration for your own ideas. You can also review competitor titles and meta descriptions from this view, or even regenerate the suggestions for a new batch.

7. Reviewing the Content Score

The next step is reviewing the content score of everything you’ve plugged into the editor. It provides an overall score, along with individual scores for each topic that was originally outlined. That can help show which areas are more strongly covered, and which may need to be expanded upon or were missed entirely. For this example, we mocked up a basic post for our hypothetical franchise lead generation piece.

This is where we begin to see some of the flaws and limitations of the tool. Scoring can feel arbitrary, in the sense that you can cover every single topic and keyword, then still score poorly. You can also write a piece that almost entirely ignores the data, and it scores well. That’s not to say either way is wrong from an SEO standpoint. Rather, there’s so much inconsistency with how content is scored that it doesn’t feel as useful.

8. AI Insights and Tweaking Content

Lastly, we’ll be looking at the AI chat itself. This is used to help fine-tune content before moving on to the editing and publishing process. Scattered throughout different sections, there’s an “Ask AI” button that can be used to get input on something specific. You can also navigate to the AI chat tab and ask any questions more directly. That can be anything from feedback on particular aspects to generating or rewriting content.

The feedback goes in-depth and highlights some useful gaps, but can also feel wordy and redundant. For example, we wanted feedback on the topic of Budgeting and Resource Allocation for Lead Generation, which scored 49. It proceeded to write a nearly 1,000-word breakdown of what we needed to do for that one specific topic, which isn't always practical. However, you can also ask for a more concise and impactful version. From there, it will better summarize the feedback. Just keep in mind that isn’t the default behavior.

For general organization, it offers a basic history feature, which makes it easy to flip between different areas of feedback. Overall, the AI is serviceable, although it may require extra prompting to yield better insights. Don’t let yourself get lost in endlessly tweaking your content to please a finicky AI or to reach an arbitrary content score.

How Ahrefs AI Content Helper Compares to ChatGPT and Other AI Tools

When it comes to content generation, Ahrefs AI Content Helper can handle full-fledged requests. Yes, it’ll even rewrite your entire article to make it rhyme. With some creative prompting, you can even get it to go off-topic, such as providing coffee brewing tips, though that’s not really the intent of the tool. It uses a model reminiscent of ChatGPT, which results in an overreliance on em dashes and other phrasing quirks characteristic of it.

Another flaw with the tool’s AI is the perpetual feedback. It’s never fully satisfied with the content’s SEO performance, even if a section scores 100 and you’ve made multiple rounds of updates. In many ways, this is the opposite problem seen elsewhere, where AI is too quick to say something is already great. So, while the feedback can be valuable, it’s important to know there are limitations.

As a whole, it’s a below-average tool for directly generating content. Other major LLMs, like the latest GPT-5 model, generally do a much better job at it. They’re also less confined, meaning they won’t try to stonewall you if your needs flip between completely different things within the same chat thread. However, it still works solidly when paired with the SEO data that other alternatives won’t have access to.

Impact on SEO and Content Strategy

Ahrefs AI Content Helper is designed to keep content closer to what search engines reward. It uses SERP analysis, snippet analysis, and content scoring to show how well a draft matches search intent. That makes it easier to find gaps in header structure or on-page text optimization before publishing. The content grader is not always exact, but it still gives a quick check to see if your outline covers the right topics.

From a strategy view, the tool can support EEAT elements by pointing out missing details and showing how content compares to top-ranking pages. It also highlights ranking factors like referring domains and competitor structures that can shape your approach. When used the right way, it helps guide content planning and optimization. But it still takes human judgment to add originality and avoid chasing scores just for the sake of it.

Looking at the Pros & Cons of Ahrefs AI Content Helper

The Ahrefs AI Content Helper isn’t a perfect tool, but it can provide a lot of value depending on how you use it. Based on our time exploring it, here are some of the main pros and cons to keep in mind:

Pros:

• Easy to use and integrates smoothly into the writing process.
• Generates adjacent keyword ideas from a single input, cutting research time.
• Surfaces search intent and related topics, showing what searchers actually engage with.
• Automates competitor analysis, highlighting ranking patterns and topic gaps without manual review.
• Provides scoring on high-ranking competitor pages for a quick SEO comparison.
• Speeds up outlining and topic planning when paired with keyword research data.

Cons:

• At $99/month or $1,188/year for the baseline add-on, plus the cost of an Ahrefs subscription and any higher tiers, pricing can feel high for what’s offered.
• Productivity gains vary by workflow and level of use, so the value is not consistent for everyone.
• Content scores are not always precise and need manual oversight.
• Heavy reliance on the tool can make content formulaic or too close to competitors.
• AI content generation is below average compared to cheaper purpose-built tools.
• AI feedback can be overly long, unfocused, and repetitive, requiring extra prompting to get concise and useful insights.

The Bottom Line on Ahrefs AI Content Helper

When it comes to using AI, I’ve always told people: the more focused the task, the better it does it. Ahrefs AI Content Helper is no exception to this. It’s at its best when crawling and analyzing SEO data from competitors, then providing insights that are directly focused on that data. In contrast, its shortcomings quickly become apparent when you start using its AI chat tools, which run into a lot of the same issues as other LLMs.

So, is it worth the cost for your business? It really depends on how you plan to use it and if you're already subscribed to Ahrefs. If your goal is primarily to write content, there are many better and cheaper options available. However, if you spend a lot of time analyzing competitor pages and data, it provides plenty of time-saving insights. At the end of the day, the AI Content Helper is best used as a support tool for SEO and writing, not as a replacement for creating the content itself.