What is Frase?

Frase is a content workflow platform built for SEO and content teams who need to research, brief, write and optimise articles without juggling five separate tools. It pulls the top-ranking pages for a target query into a research panel, turns that research into a content brief and outline, and then helps you draft and score the article against what is already ranking. In 2026 Frase has broadened its pitch beyond classic Google SEO to "AI visibility" — tracking whether your content gets cited by AI answer engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity, not just whether it ranks in blue links.

It sits in the same space as Surfer SEO and Clearscope, but at a noticeably lower entry price, which is why it has become the default pick for freelancers, solo bloggers and small in-house teams who want brief-and-optimise tooling without an enterprise budget.

Who it is for

Freelance writers and solo SEOs who need fast briefs without paying for a full content-ops suite
Small marketing teams publishing a steady cadence of blog content
Agencies managing SEO content across several client sites (on the Scale plan)
Anyone who wants a single dashboard for research, drafting, optimisation and now AI-visibility monitoring

It is a weaker fit for large content organisations that need deep workflow automation and multi-model orchestration — Copy.ai or Semrush's content suite scale further for that.

Key features

Research panel: aggregates the top-ranking pages, headings and questions for any query so you are not opening ten browser tabs
AI-generated briefs and outlines built from that research, editable before you write
Content editor with a live SEO score that updates as you write against competitor benchmarks
AI Visibility / GEO tracking: monitors whether AI crawlers (including Perplexity) are citing your pages, and adds a Content Guard feature that flags ranking decay
Content calendar for planning and internal linking suggestions across your site
Direct publishing to WordPress, Webflow, Sanity, Wix, or Frase's own FraseCMS, which includes free hosting for up to 100,000 monthly page views
Audit tool to re-optimise existing pages, not just new drafts

Pricing

Frase runs on paid plans only, with a 7-day free trial (no credit card required):

Starter — $39/month billed yearly ($49 month-to-month): 1 seat, 1 site, 10 articles and 50 audit pages/month
Professional — $103/month billed yearly ($129 month-to-month): 3 seats, 5 sites, 40 articles and 250 audit pages/month, extra seats at $29/month
Scale — $239/month billed yearly ($299 month-to-month): 5 seats, up to 10 domains, 100 articles and 1,000 audit pages/month
Enterprise — custom pricing, with white-label reporting, a branded client portal and SSO/SAML

Strengths

Meaningfully cheaper entry point than Surfer or Clearscope for the same core brief-and-optimise workflow
Research panel and outline generation are genuinely fast — a usable brief in a couple of minutes
Content scoring gives writers a concrete target instead of vague "write more SEO content" instructions
Actively shipping AI-visibility features as search shifts toward AI answer engines, rather than staying a pure legacy-SEO tool

Weaknesses

The built-in AI writing is serviceable rather than excellent — most teams will still draft in a stronger writing tool and bring the text back to Frase to optimise
The interface and editor feel dated next to newer, more polished competitors
Article and seat limits bite quickly on the Starter plan if you publish often

Getting started

Sign up for the 7-day trial, pick a target keyword, and let Frase build a research panel and outline before you write anything. Most new users start with a single article to see how the content score changes as they edit, then decide whether Starter's 10-article cap is enough or whether Professional's higher limits and extra seats make more sense for a team.

Verdict

Frase is the pragmatic choice for SEO content teams who want research, briefs and on-page optimisation without paying Surfer or Clearscope prices. It won't replace a dedicated AI writer, and the interface shows its age, but as a briefing and scoring layer it is hard to beat at this price. Compare it against the rest of the field in AI Marketing & SEO, or pair it with a stronger drafting tool like Copy.ai if the built-in writer isn't enough on its own.