Majestic API or Ahrefs for scoring a donor list: a decision tree
Choosing between Majestic and Ahrefs is the wrong first question. Start with how many rows you score, how often, and whether you need traffic numbers at all.
SourceRanker editorial team ·
Start from the list, not the brand
Most people comparing the Majestic API with Ahrefs hold a list of a few hundred to a few thousand domains. They want one sortable column of authority.
Majestic is known for Trust Flow and Citation Flow, two metrics built around link quality and link volume. Ahrefs is known for Domain Rating, plus a large keyword and rank-tracking suite. Moz has Domain Authority. Each is calculated differently from its own crawl, so the same site gets different numbers in each tool.
That is the first practical rule. Pick one metric per project and never merge columns from two tools into a single ranking. The reference page shows what ours offers for comparison.
Google itself does not publish any of these scores as inputs, and none of them predicts rankings. They are shortcuts for ordering work, nothing more, and they work best when you open the top rows by hand afterwards.
Decision tree, in plain steps
List under 100 rows and you already pay for Ahrefs or Majestic: use what you have, no new tool
List over 1,000 rows and you only need a link-based authority column: a prepaid per-call API fits better than a subscription
You need keyword difficulty, traffic estimates or rank tracking: Ahrefs or Semrush, our API does not cover it
You need Trust Flow specifically because a client asks for it: Majestic, we do not produce that metric
You need daily-fresh crawl data: ours refreshes about monthly, so look elsewhere
You score lists a few times per quarter: prepaid credit avoids paying a monthly fee for idle weeks
Side by side, only what we can state
Facts about our API come from our own documentation; for other tools check their current pricing pages
Question
SourceRanker
Ahrefs API
Pricing model
Prepaid credit, 1 credit = $0.0001
API units inside a subscription
Entry cost
$100 free credit, no card
From $129 a month for 200,000 units
Minimum per request
1 credit, any size up to 2,000 domains for bulk_dr
At least 50 units per request
Main metric
Domain Rating, log scale of referring domains
Domain Rating from Ahrefs' own crawl
Keywords and rank tracking
No
Yes, a full product
Index refresh
About once a month
Check the vendor
A budget for a mid-sized list
Suppose you score 6,000 domains. With bulk_dr that is three calls, three credits, $0.0003. Pull refdomains for 40 finalists and you add 80 credits, still under a cent.
Now set that against a subscription allowance. Quite a gap. The allowance is billed monthly whether or not you used it, so idle weeks still cost money. For a team scoring lists weekly, the subscription may be the right tool anyway, since it bundles keywords. For a freelancer who scores five lists a year, it is hard to defend.
One caution on the worked figures. Those numbers are an example built on the public price list, and your own call mix will differ. Re-read the credit costs in the errors and costs table before you budget.
Accuracy matters as much as cost. A cheap score that is stale is worse than a dear one that is current. Ours is rebuilt about once a month, so for a site that signed a big partnership last Tuesday, look at Ahrefs' fresher crawl or wait for our next cycle. Neither answer is wrong. They answer different timing needs, and you should know which one yours is before you pay.
Our position
Use the cheapest tool that answers the question
If the question is which of these 5,000 sites has the most independent referring domains, a link API is enough. If the question is which of them ranks for terms you want, you need a suite. Many teams end up with both.