Majestic vs Keyword Insights: Backlink Analysis or Keyword Clustering?
Majestic and Keyword Insights are often compared as "SEO tools", but they do different jobs. Majestic is a backlink database: it crawls the web, maps who links to whom, and scores links with its own Trust Flow and Citation Flow metrics. Keyword Insights is a content-planning tool: it finds keywords, groups them by the Google results they share, and turns each group into a brief and an AI-written draft. So the real question for a startup is not which one is better, but which problem you have right now: too few quality links, or no clear plan for what to write. We checked both tools on their official websites and pricing pages in October 2026 and removed the claims from the older version of this article that the vendors' pages don't support.
Quick answer: choose Keyword Insights first if you are an early-stage startup with little content: it tells you which pages to create and helps you write them, from $58 a month on a credit system, with a $1 seven-day trial. Choose Majestic when content is in place and you need links: it shows where competitors get their backlinks and how strong those links are, from €46.99 a month (Lite, excluding VAT), with a free account for a few searches a day. Many content teams use both, Keyword Insights to plan pages and Majestic to earn links to them.
Are you getting customers from ChatGPT yet?
More and more traffic is coming from Perplexity, ChatGPT, Grok and other AI tools.
👉 Rank on ChatGPT
Majestic vs Keyword Insights at a Glance
Sources: majestic.com plans, help and glossary pages, keywordinsights.ai homepage and pricing page, checked 28 October 2026.
What Is Majestic?
Majestic is a specialist backlink tool. It runs its own crawler and keeps two link indexes: a Fresh Index, updated several times a day (on 28 October 2026 it covered links found between 29 June and 26 October 2026), and a much larger Historic Index that reaches back to 2006 and is useful for checking a domain's past. You type in a domain or URL in Site Explorer and see its backlinks, referring domains, anchor text, new and lost links, and the topics of the sites linking to it.
- Flow Metrics: Trust Flow measures the quality of the links pointing to a page or site, Citation Flow measures their quantity, and Topical Trust Flow sorts a site's influence into more than 800 topic categories. All scores run from 0 to 100 on a logarithmic scale.
- Link prospecting tools: Compare (up to 10 domains side by side), Link Graph, Related Sites, Clique Hunter on Pro (domains that link to more than one competitor) and a Bulk Backlink Checker for up to 400 pasted URLs.
- Some keyword features: Keyword Checker shows how often a phrase appears in Majestic's index with a 0 to 100 search volume score, and N-grams Near Links builds keyword lists from seed websites. There is no keyword clustering or search-intent analysis.
- Pricing (monthly, default view in euros, excl. VAT): Lite €46.99 for 1 user and 1 million analysis units, Fresh Index only; Pro €94.99 for 1 user and 20 million analysis units, adding the Historic Index, raw data exports, Compare, Backlink History and Search Explorer; API €379.99 for 5 users, 100 million analysis units and full API access. Lite and Pro have a 7-day money-back guarantee for new customers, and annual billing costs less.
- Free options: a free account gives a few Site Explorer searches a day, a showcase site gets almost Lite-level access each week, browser plugins show Trust Flow and Citation Flow for the page you are on, and the Majestic Million list of top domains is a free download.
Best for: startups that already publish useful content and now need links: finding which sites link to competitors, judging whether a link prospect is worth the effort, and checking a domain's history before you buy it or partner with it.
Majestic is compared with other backlink suites in our guides to Ahrefs alternatives, free Ahrefs alternatives and open-source Ahrefs alternatives, and head to head in Semrush vs Majestic.
Is your startup on ChatGPT?
More and more traffic is coming from Perplexity, ChatGPT, Grok and other AI tools.
👉 Rank on ChatGPT
What Is Keyword Insights?
Keyword Insights is built around topical authority. Its core feature is keyword clustering: it groups keywords whose Google results overlap, so each cluster becomes one page you should write. On top of that it adds search intent, content briefs, two AI writing tools and a Mentions feature aimed at visibility in AI answers.
- Keyword Discovery: keyword ideas from Google Autocomplete, Reddit, Quora and People Also Ask, with search volume, keyword difficulty and CPC.
- Keyword clustering: groups keywords by SERP similarity, groups the clusters into topics, flags clusters your domain doesn't rank for, compares your visibility with competitors and spots keyword cannibalisation.
- Search intent: shows how many of the top 10 Google results are informational, commercial, transactional or other, so you pick the right page type.
- Content briefs and AI writing: AI briefs built from live search results, Reddit and Quora; a Writing Assistant (200 credits an article) and an AI Writer Agent (1,200 credits an article).
- Mentions: finds Reddit, Quora and YouTube threads where your brand can contribute and earn mentions that AI models pick up.
- Pricing (monthly): Basic $58 with 10,000 credits, 1 user seat and 5 workspaces; Professional $99 with 20,000 credits, 3 seats, 10 workspaces and team sharing; Enterprise is custom. Annual billing saves 20%. Clustering costs 1 credit per keyword and a brief 100 credits; unused subscription credits reset at the end of each billing period.
- Trial and pay as you go: $1 buys a 7-day trial with 5,000 one-time credits (for example 2 discovery searches, 500 keywords clustered and one brief). Afterwards the account drops to pay as you go and you pay nothing more unless you subscribe; pay-as-you-go credits work for clustering only and expire after 30 days.
Best for: startups that publish content regularly and need to turn a long keyword list into a clear site structure, without guessing which keywords belong on the same page.
We also compared Keyword Insights with two other tools: Similarweb vs Keyword Insights (market and traffic data) and SpyFu vs Keyword Insights (competitor SEO and Google Ads research). For a wider view of clustering software, see our roundup of keyword clustering tools.
Boost Your SEO by Getting Featured in Our Blogs and get a backlink.
We publish content about startups, education, tech, funding, etc. that ranks well not only in Google but also in Perplexity, ChatGPT, Grok and other AI tools.
👉 Get featured now!
What Changed Since the Last Version
- Majestic's prices: the older article said "from $49.99 a month". The pricing page's default view now shows Lite at €46.99 a month excluding VAT, with dollar and pound prices also available.
- Majestic's Historic Index: the index box on majestic.com lists the Historic Index date range as 6 June 2006 to 26 March 2024, last updated on 3 May 2024. Fresh Index data is current; for links found after March 2024 rely on the Fresh Index.
- Keyword Insights' pay as you go: it still exists, but pay-as-you-go credits now cover clustering only and expire 30 days after purchase. Briefs, discovery and AI writing need a subscription or the trial.
- Keyword Insights' scope: it has grown from a clustering tool into briefs, an AI Writer Agent and Mentions for AI search, which the older version didn't cover.
Which One Should a Startup Choose?
- You have fewer than a few dozen pages: Keyword Insights. Links help most once you have pages worth linking to, and clustering shows which pages are missing.
- You have a long keyword list and no content plan: Keyword Insights, to cluster it into pages and see the intent behind each one.
- You rank on page two and competitors have more links: Majestic, to see where their links come from and which prospects have relevant Topical Trust Flow.
- You are buying a domain or choosing a partner site: Majestic. The Historic Index and Backlink History (Pro) show whether a domain had a spammy past.
- You want briefs and AI drafts in the same tool: Keyword Insights.
- Your budget is tight: start with Majestic's free account and Keyword Insights' $1 trial on one real project, then pay for the one that solves your bigger problem. Pair them with free keyword tools from our Keyword Revealer vs Keyword Planner and Keyword Tool vs Keyword Planner comparisons.
Still choosing a wider SEO suite? See Moz vs SE Ranking and Ahrefs vs Wincher.
How Founders Use Majestic and Keyword Insights Together
- Cluster your keywords. Start from your customers' words and your competitors' keywords (our guide to checking competitor keywords explains how), then cluster the list in Keyword Insights.
- Write one page per cluster. Match the intent of the top 10 results, use a brief, and write yourself, with Keyword Insights' writer, or with the F/MS AI SEO Tool.
- Study competitors' links. For the pages that outrank you, open Majestic's Site Explorer and look at referring domains, anchor text and Topical Trust Flow.
- Pitch relevant sites. Prioritise prospects whose topics match yours. Our list of free ways to get quality backlinks and our guide to choosing a link-building agency help here.
- Track and refine. Watch new and lost links in Majestic and clicks in Google Search Console, then update the pages that get impressions but few clicks.
Short on budget? Our guide to keyword research on a $0 budget covers the free route, and the F/MS marketing resources help you plan the rest. And if nobody searches for the problem you solve, that is a reason to validate your startup idea before you build more.
Boost Your SEO by Publishing Your Startup Press Release with us.
We publish content about startups, education, tech, funding, etc. that ranks well not only in Google but also in Perplexity, ChatGPT, Grok and other AI tools.
👉 Publish Press Release
FAQ: Majestic vs Keyword Insights
What is the main difference between Majestic and Keyword Insights?
Majestic analyses backlinks: who links to a site and how strong those links are. Keyword Insights plans content: it clusters keywords by shared Google results and adds intent, briefs and AI writing.
How much does Majestic cost?
In the pricing page's default view, Lite costs €46.99 a month, Pro €94.99 and API €379.99, excluding VAT. Prices are also shown in dollars and pounds, and annual billing is cheaper. Lite and Pro have a 7-day money-back guarantee for new customers.
How much does Keyword Insights cost?
Basic costs $58 a month with 10,000 credits and Professional $99 a month with 20,000 credits; annual billing saves 20%. Enterprise pricing is custom, and a 7-day trial costs $1.
Is Majestic free?
Partly. A free account gives a few Site Explorer searches a day, the browser plugins show Trust Flow and Citation Flow for free, and the Majestic Million list is a free download. Full reports need a paid plan.
What are Trust Flow and Citation Flow?
They are Majestic's own scores from 0 to 100. Trust Flow measures the quality of the links pointing to a page or site, and Citation Flow measures their quantity.
Does Majestic do keyword research?
Only a little. Keyword Checker and N-grams Near Links give keyword data from Majestic's link index, but there is no keyword clustering or search-intent analysis.
Does Keyword Insights check backlinks?
No. It focuses on keywords, clusters, briefs and AI writing; for backlink analysis you need a tool such as Majestic.
Where can I submit a guest post about my startup?
You can publish a guest post in one of the Fe/male Switch startup blogs, which rank in Google and in AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity. Get a quality backlink.
Should a startup buy both tools?
Only when it needs both jobs done. Most early-stage startups get more from a content plan first, then add a backlink tool once they have pages worth linking to.
Can I use AI to write SEO articles from my keyword clusters?
Yes. Keyword Insights has its own AI writer, and the F/MS AI SEO Tool turns a keyword into a full article written to rank on Google and to be cited by AI assistants, with human editors reviewing it.
About the Author
Violetta Bonenkamp, also known as MeanCEO, is an experienced startup founder with an impressive educational background including an MBA and four other higher education degrees. She has over 20 years of work experience across multiple countries, including 5 years as a solopreneur and serial entrepreneur. Throughout her startup experience she has applied for multiple startup grants at the EU level, in the Netherlands and Malta, and her startups received quite a few of those. She’s been living, studying and working in many countries around the globe and her extensive multicultural experience has influenced her immensely.
