About SEO Tools Tested and Bike Hawley, Its Editor

This page is about SEO Tools Tested and Bike Hawley, the editor who signs its reviews. SEO Tools Tested is an independent site that reviews and prices SEO tools for the people who pay for them, and it puts method first: every price is read on the vendor's own page and dated, and no tool gets a score until our own test has run.

About SEO Tools Tested

SEO Tools Tested is written for SEO agency owners, freelance consultants and in-house SEOs: the people who choose a tool, put it on a card and pay for it every month. Each of them asks a different first question. An agency owner wants to know what happens to the bill at ten clients, a freelancer wants the cheapest plan that does the job and an honest trial, and an in-house team wants seats, limits and exports. We write for those questions.

The site is independent and owned by its editor, Bike Hawley. It covers 16 tools across five jobs: SE Ranking, Nightwatch and AccuRanker for rank tracking; Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz Pro, Search Atlas, SpyFu and Mangools for keyword research; NeuronWriter and Surfer for content optimization; Local Falcon, BrightLocal and Whitespark for local SEO; and GoHighLevel and AgencyAnalytics for agency CRM and reporting. Rank trackers get the closest look, because the position in a client report depends on them, and because Google has been changing what automated checks see.

What SEO Tools Tested Publishes

SEO Tools Tested publishes the facts a buyer needs before paying, set out the same way on every review. That means the cheapest plan and what it includes, the full plan table, the trial and refund terms with their catches, scores from G2, Capterra and Trustpilot with review counts and the date we read them, the complaints that recur in low reviews (paraphrased and linked), what the tool's affiliate program pays us, and its test status. For rank trackers we add what one tracked keyword costs a month, so a $39 plan and a $249 plan sit on the same scale; the full list is on our rank tracker prices page.

Some of the most useful facts are the ones vendors don't headline. SE Ranking's cheapest plan went from $65 to $129 a month in February 2026. AccuRanker dropped its free trial in late 2025. Semrush refunds annual plans only, within 7 days. BrightLocal prices by location brackets, so ten locations cost far less than ten times one. Facts like these go on the page next to the price. When a vendor's own pages disagree, we say which page we used, and prices stay in the currency the vendor sells in, so Nightwatch stays in euros.

How SEO Tools Tested Works

SEO Tools Tested works from published facts first and its own tests second. Every price on the site was read on the vendor's pricing page on October 23, 2026, in monthly billing unless a page says otherwise and in the vendor's own currency. Our picks are reasoned from those prices, plan limits, trials, refund terms, update frequency and review-site scores, and each pick says so. We don't award stars, publish testimonials or invent experience; no page here claims we used a tool for months. Every page shows the date its prices were checked, and when a vendor changes a plan, the page and its date change with it.

No test has run yet. The first, Test 01, will check whether rank trackers report the page Google shows a real person, by running the same search through a tracker and through a person's browser and comparing the two lists position by position. It matters now because AccuRanker, a rank tracker vendor, reports that Google has been serving swapped results to automated sessions during 2026. Until Test 01 runs, every tool on the site reads Test pending. The full method is on our how we test page.

How SEO Tools Tested Makes Money

SEO Tools Tested makes money from affiliate commissions, and the site runs no ads. When you buy a tool through one of our links, the vendor may pay us; most of the programs we use or plan to use pay a share of every payment for as long as the customer stays, and a few pay once. A customer on a lifetime program can earn us more over time than a one-time bounty does, and we say so openly, because that pull is the main risk on any affiliate site. Four tools we review (Ahrefs, BrightLocal, Whitespark and AccuRanker) pay us nothing, and they still win picks when the numbers favor them. Every program and its terms are on our affiliate disclosure page.

Bike Hawley, Editor of SEO Tools Tested

Bike Hawley edits SEO Tools Tested and signs its reviews, so his name sits on every verdict. He is the founder of High Salience, a search intelligence firm. You can find him on LinkedIn, read his blog at aiseo.ooo and see his wiki at bikehawley.wiki.

Why Bike Hawley Goes by Bike

Bike Hawley's given name is Mike, and the nickname has a plain origin. In 2010 he went over the handlebars of a bicycle and broke his collarbone. He came home from the ER still on painkillers, changed his Facebook name to Bike, and it stuck. He kept Bike Hawley on purpose, because several Michael and Mike Hawleys already exist.

How to Contact SEO Tools Tested

To contact SEO Tools Tested, email hello@seotoolstested.com. Write if a price has changed, a fact is wrong, or a page seems to lean toward a tool for reasons the numbers don't support. We check each correction against the vendor's page or the review site it concerns; if it holds, we fix the page and change its date. Vendors can use the same address for corrections to their own facts, and they get the same check.

About Bike Hawley: Sources

These sources about Bike Hawley are his own pages, cited above.

High Salience, the search intelligence firm he founded
Bike Hawley on LinkedIn
aiseo.ooo, his blog
bikehawley.wiki, his wiki