An SEO audit checks your site for the issues holding back your search and AI visibility, then tells you what to fix. Both free and paid audits exist, and the difference comes down to depth, coverage, and what happens after the list of problems.
What a free audit gives you
- An overall grade and section scores (technical SEO, performance, and often GEO).
- The list of issues found, usually across a sample of your pages.
- A clear sense of your biggest problems and where to start.
A free audit is ideal for a quick health check and for deciding whether deeper work is worth it.
What a paid audit adds
- Full-site coverage instead of a sample: every page crawled, every affected URL listed.
- Step-by-step fixes, often with code, so you can act rather than only diagnose.
- Exports (PDF and CSV) to share with a team or client.
- Verification and tracking: re-checks that confirm a fix actually worked, plus scheduled re-audits so regressions get caught.
How to choose
Start free to see your grade and the shape of the problems. Move to paid when you need the full list, guidance to fix it, and a way to confirm the work held. If you manage several sites or clients, exports and white-label reports usually tip the decision.
A note on "free"
Be wary of "free" audits that show only a teaser and gate the real findings behind a sales call. A good free audit gives you real, usable information. Crawlyze's free tier, for example, grades your site and lists the issues; the paid tier adds full crawls, step-by-step fixes, exports, and a fix tracker that verifies each change on your live site. Related reading: the technical SEO checklist.