London and Manchester agency SEO tool stacks compared

What to take away

How we gathered tool stack data from London and Manchester agencies

We contacted 40 agencies between June and August 2026. Twenty-eight replied with usable data: 15 in London, 13 in Manchester. Each told us which SEO tools they pay for, how many seats they hold, and what they spend each month.

Agencies ranged from 4 to 60 staff. We did not ask for client names or revenue. We asked for the licence line only, not media spend or contractor costs.

Where an agency gave a range, we took the midpoint. Where a tool was billed annually, we divided by twelve. All figures are in pounds sterling and exclude VAT.

ONS digital economy data shows the UK's information and communication sector has grown steadily, which supports agency demand for SEO tools across both cities. The sample is small, so treat the numbers as a benchmark, not a census.

We also checked vendor credentials on Companies House where an agency named a reseller. Two Manchester agencies buy through a reseller rather than direct.

For context on how agencies earn more from SEO services, the licence line is usually a small share of total delivery cost. That matters when judging whether a stack is expensive or just visible.

London agency stacks: seat counts and monthly costs

London agencies reported the widest spread. The smallest stack was two tools at £310 a month. The largest was seven tools at £2,480 a month.

A typical London stack looked like this: Semrush for agencies as the core platform, Ahrefs for backlinks, Screaming Frog for crawling, Moz for link metrics, and a rank tracker for UK SERPs. Some added Sitebulb or a log analyser.

Semrush appears in 14 of 15 London stacks. Agencies cite pitch decks and client reporting as the main reason. Client strategy and pitch workflows often drive the choice more than raw data volume.

Seat counts in London ran from 5 to 22. The median was 9. Larger agencies bought seats for account managers as well as SEO specialists, which pushed costs up.

Monthly costs per seat in London ranged from £68 to £140. The median was £96. London agencies were more likely to pay for premium support and API access.

Moz API pricing appears as a separate line in four London stacks. Those agencies use it to feed link data into internal dashboards rather than the Moz web interface.

These are agency-reported figures, not list prices. Discounts for annual billing and multi-seat deals were common.

LinkedIn resources for marketing agencies came up in three interviews as a pitch and lead source, though not as a paid licence line.

Manchester agency stacks: seat counts and monthly costs

Manchester stacks were leaner. The smallest was one tool at £180 a month. The largest was five tools at £1,340 a month.

A typical Manchester stack: Semrush, Screaming Frog, Sitebulb, and a rank tracker with North West location targeting. Ahrefs appeared in 7 of 13 stacks, usually for backlink audits only.

Seat counts in Manchester ran from 3 to 11. The median was 6. Agencies were more likely to share a single seat across two or three people than London firms.

Monthly costs per seat in Manchester ranged from £52 to £110. The median was £78. Lower seat counts and fewer premium add-ons explain most of the gap.

Semrush appeared in 12 of 13 Manchester stacks. Sitebulb appeared in 9 of 13, higher than in London, because Manchester agencies do more technical audits for ecommerce clients.

Manchester agencies reported more price sensitivity. Three said they had switched tools in the past year to cut costs.

For a wider view of team roles without buying seats, several Manchester agencies said they train juniors on free tiers before adding paid seats.

Where the two cities diverge on SEO tools spend

The biggest divergence is total monthly spend. London agencies reported a median of £1,050. Manchester agencies reported a median of £720. That is a gap of £330 a month.

Seat counts explain part of it. London median was 9 seats, Manchester 6. But per-seat cost also differed: £96 in London against £78 in Manchester.

London agencies bought more tools per stack. The London median was 5 tools, Manchester 4. London firms also added API access and premium support more often.

Manchester agencies were more likely to use annual billing to reduce monthly cost. Six of 13 paid annually, against 4 of 15 in London.

Tool mix differed too. Sitebulb was more common in Manchester. Moz and Ahrefs were more common in London. Both cities used Semrush heavily.

The flat seat subscriptions versus metered usage credits debate came up in both cities. London agencies preferred flat seats for budget predictability. Manchester agencies were more open to metered credits for occasional crawls.

One Manchester agency reported cutting its stack from five tools to three and saving £410 a month with no drop in client retention.

Overlap tools both markets pay for and why

Three tools appear in most stacks in both cities: Semrush, Screaming Frog and Google Search Console. The first two are paid, the third is free.

Semrush is the common core. It covers rank tracking, site audits, backlink data and reporting in one licence. Agencies in both cities said replacing it would mean buying two or three separate tools.

Screaming Frog is cheap and local. A single licence covers a desktop crawl, so seat count matters less. Both London and Manchester agencies used it for technical audits.

Google Search Console is free and non-negotiable. Every agency in the sample used it for indexing and query data.

Ahrefs and Moz overlap with Semrush on backlinks. Agencies that kept both usually did so for client preference or historical data, not because the data was better.

Rank trackers are the most duplicated category. Eight London agencies and six Manchester agencies paid for a rank tracker alongside Semrush, which already includes one.

Before renewing, it is worth running checks before buying SEO tools licences to see whether an overlap tool earns its place.

What a London or Manchester agency should cut first

Start with duplicate rank tracking. It is the most common overlap and the easiest to remove. Nine of 28 agencies paid for a standalone rank tracker while also paying for Semrush.

Next, look at backlink tools you keep for one client. If a client contract requires Ahrefs or Moz, bill it to that client rather than absorbing it in overhead.

Then review seats. London agencies with 15 or more seats often had two or three seats used only for reporting logins. Downgrading those seats saves £68 to £140 each per month.

Moz API pricing is worth checking if you use it only for dashboards. Four London agencies paid for API access alongside a web plan. Two said they could consolidate.

Annual billing is the simplest lever in Manchester. Moving from monthly to annual cut reported costs by 10 to 20 per cent for six agencies.

A worked example: a Manchester agency with 8 seats across 4 tools paid £1,180 a month. It cut a duplicate rank tracker (£95), two unused Semrush seats (£156) and moved to annual billing (saving £140). New monthly cost: £789. Saving: £391.

It is also worth setting a calendar reminder to audit SEO tool ownership every six months, because stacks drift as clients come and go.

Common questions