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Balzac vs Surfer

Two fact sheets from our own research, side by side — pricing, platforms, API access and status re-checked by us rather than quoted from the vendors.

The short answer

Cheaper
Surfer — $49/mo vs $79/mo for Balzac
Free plan
Neither — Balzac has paid plans only, Surfer has paid plans only
Public API
Both have one
Higher Trust score
Surfer — 96 vs 82 for Balzac
Best fit
Balzac: Small businesses that want steady SEO articles on one site without hiring writers · Surfer: Content teams and agencies producing dozens of briefed articles a month

From our own records as of each tool's last check. Anything we have not confirmed is left out rather than guessed. How we verify

BalzacSEO and GEO autopilot that finds keywords a website can win, writes or rewrites the pages, and publishes them to its CMS.SurferContent editor and AI-search visibility tracker that scores drafts against the pages ranking today

Side by side

FactBalzacSurfer
CategorySEO ToolsSEO Tools
Pricing modelPaidPaid
Starts at$79/mo$49/mo
Public APIYesYes
Trust score82 / 10096 / 100
PlatformsWeb, APIWeb, Chrome extension, API
CompanyBromance Software SRLSurfer Sp. z o.o.
Launched—2017
Last verifiedOct 15, 2026Oct 16, 2026

What our research says

Balzac

A good fit for a small business or agency that wants one site's SEO content researched, written and published every week without anyone opening the CMS, and that values updates to pages already ranking as much as new posts. At $79 per site it adds up fast for agencies with many clients, and anyone who wants to co-write each draft is better served by an editor-style tool.

Pros

  • Improves pages already ranking at positions 5 to 20 before writing new ones
  • Plans each article from currently ranking pages and lists its sources
  • Publishes to WordPress, Webflow, Wix, GoHighLevel or any site by webhook
  • MCP server, CLI and API for running it from agents
  • 3 free articles without a card, then a 30-day refund on the first payment

Cons

  • Priced per website, so multi-site use scales linearly
  • About 30 articles a month is the only volume on offer
  • No ranking guarantee, and articles take weeks to be indexed

Surfer

Surfer is the editor to buy when a team writes for Google in volume and wants a number on every draft before it ships; the term-coverage score is a proxy, but a disciplined one, and the Google Docs and WordPress routes keep writers out of yet another tab. Solo bloggers on a budget and teams who already run Clearscope will find the yearly-first pricing and the document quotas harder to love. The 2025 pivot to AI-search tracking is real but priced as a second product.

Pros

  • Live score in the editor turns a ranking-page analysis into concrete edits
  • WordPress plugin, Google Docs and Contentful integrations put the score where writing happens
  • Audit and ranking-drop alerts catch decay on pages that were once fine
  • AI-search visibility tracking across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and AI Overviews under the same login

Cons

  • Headline prices are billed yearly; monthly plans cost about 20% more
  • Documents and tracked pages are metered, and unused credits reset rather than roll over
  • API access is reserved for the Peace of Mind tier or an add-on
  • Owned by Positive Group since October 2025, so roadmap and pricing may follow the group's packaging

Which one fits

Choose Balzac if you need

  • Small businesses that want steady SEO articles on one site without hiring writers
  • Agencies running content for a few client sites on WordPress, Webflow, Wix or GoHighLevel
  • Developers who want to drive an SEO writing pipeline from an AI agent over MCP or API

Choose Surfer if you need

  • Content teams and agencies producing dozens of briefed articles a month
  • SEO leads who want a repeatable brief-and-score workflow writers can follow without training
  • Brands that want one place for Google rankings and ChatGPT or Perplexity mentions

Balzac vs Surfer: the questions people ask

Is Balzac cheaper than Surfer?

On published entry prices, Surfer starts lower — $49/mo against $79/mo for Balzac. Entry price is the lowest paid plan as we last verified it; what each plan includes differs.

Which has a public API, Balzac or Surfer?

Both ship a public API, so either can be built on; the fact table above shows the platforms each one runs on.

More comparisons

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