Frase Review (October 2026): Pricing, Article Caps and No-Refund Terms
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By Lennit Herrera, founder and editor, AI Tool Stack Reviews · Last updated October 19, 2026
The verdict: Frase is no longer just the “paste a keyword, get an SEO brief” tool it was a few years ago. Its pricing page now sells it as a “content operating system for AI search” that researches, writes, scores, publishes and monitors pages. Starter costs $39 a month on yearly billing ($49 month to month), Professional $103 ($129) and Scale $239 ($299), and the plans are capped by articles per month, not by words. It is a reasonable fit for a solo site owner or small content team that wants one tool covering briefs, drafts and AI-search tracking. It is a poor fit if you want a refund option: Frase’s terms say all fees are final and it does not provide refunds. Both points, and what the caps mean in practice, are below.
Plans, limits, trial terms, the terms of service and the privacy policy were read on Frase’s own pages on October 19, 2026. Surfer’s prices were read on its own pricing page the same day, and Google’s guidance on AI-generated content on Google’s own documentation. We do not test content tools ourselves, so this page makes no claim about draft quality, ranking results or speed.
On this page
- Frase at a glance
- Pricing: four plans, three you can buy online
- What the monthly caps mean
- The 7-day trial
- What it does
- Billing terms and privacy
- Google and AI-written content
- What we like and what to watch out for
- Frase vs Surfer
- Who should buy it, and who should skip it
- How we researched this review
- Frequently asked questions
Frase at a glance
What it is: a web app for researching topics, drafting articles with an AI agent, scoring pages for SEO and for visibility in AI answer engines, and publishing · Starting price: $39/month on yearly billing, $49 month to month · Free plan: none; a 7-day trial with no card · Publishes to: WordPress, Webflow, Sanity, Wix, or Frase’s own hosted CMS · Languages: Frase says it writes natively in 70+ languages · Compliance: its pricing page shows SOC 2 Type II and GDPR badges · Company: Frase, Inc.
See Frase’s current plans on its own site →
Pricing: four plans, three you can buy online
Frase’s pricing page offers Starter, Professional and Scale for self-serve checkout and a custom Enterprise tier through sales. Yearly billing takes 20% off the monthly rate, per the page. All figures below are in US dollars and were read on October 19, 2026.
| Plan | Yearly billing, per month | Month to month | Articles a month | Seats | Sites |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $39 | $49 | 10 | 1 | 1 |
| Professional | $103 | $129 | 40 | 3 | 5 |
| Scale | $239 | $299 | 100 | 5 | 10 |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom | Custom | Custom |
Two bits of arithmetic the page does not do for you, both ours and both simple division: on yearly billing, Starter works out to about $3.90 per included article ($39 divided by 10), Professional to about $2.58 ($103 divided by 40) and Scale to about $2.39 ($239 divided by 100). Yearly billing means paying 12 months up front, so the “$39” is $468 charged once, Professional is $1,236 and Scale is $2,868. Frase says you can switch back to monthly, and that plan upgrades are prorated immediately while downgrades take effect at the next billing cycle.
Extras you pay for separately. Additional seats are $29 a month each on Professional and Scale, per the page. Hosting on Frase’s own CMS is free up to 100,000 page views a month with a small “Powered by Frase” badge. A Basic hosting add-on is $19 a month (250,000 page views, your own domain, no badge) and Pro hosting is $99 a month (a million page views), with overage fees of $1.00 and $0.50 per extra 1,000 views.
What the monthly caps mean
The detail that matters most when you compare Frase with other tools is that it caps output (articles, audit pages, tracked prompts), and what happens at the cap depends on the plan. From the pricing page’s FAQ:
- Starter stops at its limit. It “holds at the limit until your cycle resets or you upgrade,” so there is no surprise bill, but also no way to buy an eleventh article that month without changing plan.
- Professional and Scale can buy more, if you switch it on. Pay-as-you-go is off by default. On Professional the stated overage rates are $5 per extra article, $0.50 per extra audit page and $0.25 per extra AI prompt; on Scale they are $4, $0.40 and $0.20. Overages bill at the end of the cycle.
- Audit pages and AI prompts are separate allowances. Starter includes 50 audit pages and 50 tracked AI-visibility prompts; Professional 250 and 200; Scale 1,000 and 500.
- AI generations are a third meter. The comparison table lists on-demand AI actions (idea expansions, image generation) at 25, 100 and 350 a month, separate from the article count.
- Content Guard watches a set number of pages for ranking decay: 10 on Starter, 75 on Professional, 300 on Scale.
In plain terms, a single-site blogger publishing a few posts a week lives comfortably inside Starter’s 10 articles. A team publishing daily will outgrow Starter within a week and will be on Professional or Scale by arithmetic, not preference.
The 7-day trial
Frase’s trial is free for 7 days and asks for no credit card, per every plan card on the pricing page. The FAQ says the trial gives you Professional’s full feature set, including letting the agent publish on its own, but with quantities capped at 5 articles, 50 audit pages, 25 AI prompts and up to 3 seats. That is a more useful trial than a feature-locked one, and 5 articles is enough to judge whether the drafts suit your site.
The page is also candid about what a week can show. Its FAQ says: “What Frase will not do is promise you a ranking or a citation inside a 7-day window,” and that rankings and AI citations “build over the weeks after you publish.” We agree, and it means a trial tells you about workflow and draft quality, not about whether the tool will move your traffic. Neither Frase nor anyone else can promise that.
What it does
Frase’s pricing and platform pages group the product into a loop. These are the vendor’s descriptions; we have not used the product.
- Research. Topic research and clustering that ends in a content brief, which is the feature the product started with.
- Write. An AI agent that drafts with your brand voice in context. The page says the agent can publish on its own “on any content type” on every plan, with your monthly articles as the only limit.
- Optimize. SEO scores for Google and a separate “GEO” score for being cited by AI answer engines, plus internal-link suggestions from Professional up.
- AI Visibility. Daily monitoring of whether ChatGPT and Google’s AI answers cite you (Starter), adding Perplexity (Professional) and Claude and Gemini (Scale). The page says this feature monitors and alerts and “never touches your content.”
- Content Guard. Watches published pages for Google rank or traffic decay, drafts a fix, and republishes only after you approve. Approval is the default; you can opt in to automatic low-risk fixes.
- Publish. One-click push to WordPress, Webflow, Sanity and Wix, or hosting on Frase’s CMS.
- Frase Answers. A free chat widget for your site that captures what visitors ask, to feed topic ideas.
- Tool access. An MCP server, CLI and API on every plan (5,000, 20,000 and 50,000 requests a month on Starter, Professional and Scale), so Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or a terminal can drive Frase.
The “G2 4.8/5” figure on the pricing page is Frase’s own claim about its G2 listing. G2 blocked our automated request, so we have not checked it and do not rely on it.
Billing terms and privacy
From Frase’s terms of service (last updated April 26, 2026) and privacy policy (last updated September 20, 2026), read October 19, 2026:
- No refunds. “All fees paid are final, and we do not provide any refunds.” Monthly plans are billed in advance. The 7-day no-card trial is therefore your only risk-free look.
- Auto-renewal. The terms give an initial term of one year “or other initial term stated on the applicable order form,” renewing for equal periods unless either side gives notice of non-renewal at least 30 days before the end of the term. That wording reads like an annual contract, while the pricing page offers monthly billing and says you can switch back to monthly. We could not reconcile the two, so if you buy yearly, diarise the renewal date and give notice early.
- Price changes. Frase “reserves the right to change pricing at any time,” and you pay the fees in effect when a charge falls due.
- Cancellation. The terms say you can end your account by discontinuing use and cancelling your subscription. Frase may also suspend or terminate your account at its sole discretion.
- AI training. The privacy policy says Frase does not use customer data obtained through Google APIs to develop, improve or train generalized AI or machine-learning models. That sentence is specific to Google-connected data. Some features send content to third-party AI providers that process a request and return a result, so check the policy before pasting confidential material.
Google and AI-written content
Because Frase’s agent can publish drafts on its own, the question to settle first is what Google says about that. Two Google documents are directly relevant. Google Search Central’s guidance on generative AI content (last updated October 1, 2026) says generative AI “can be particularly useful when researching a topic, and to add structure to original content,” but that using it “to generate many pages without adding value for users may violate Google’s spam policy on scaled content abuse.” Google’s spam policies (last updated August 28, 2026) define scaled content abuse as “when many pages are generated for the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings and not helping users,” and add that it applies “no matter how it’s created.”
The practical reading: the method is not the offence, the pattern is. A tool that can draft and publish on autopilot is exactly the kind of setup where volume can outrun value. If you use Frase’s auto-publish, keep a human editing step and add what the draft lacks: your own data, examples and sourcing. That is our reading of Google’s text, not a statement from Frase or Google about this product.
What we like and what to watch out for
What we like
- A trial with no card that includes Professional’s features and the auto-publish agent
- Starter cannot run up a surprise bill; it stops at its limits
- Prices, caps and overage rates are all printed on one page
- Tracks AI-answer citations as well as Google rank, from the entry plan
- Publishes to four major CMSs, and an MCP server and API on every plan
Watch out for
- The terms say all fees are final and there are no refunds
- The auto-renew wording reads annual even though monthly billing is offered
- Article, audit-page and prompt caps mean volume sites outgrow Starter fast
- Auto-publishing can drift into scaled content if you do not edit
- No free plan; the page’s G2 rating is a vendor claim we could not verify
Frase vs Surfer
Surfer is the tool Frase is most often compared with. Prices below were read on each company’s own pricing page on October 19, 2026, and all of Surfer’s are quoted on yearly billing. For a head-to-head on features and limits see our Frase vs Surfer SEO comparison, and for the wider field our best AI writing tools guide. To see Frase against NeuronWriter, Semrush, Ahrefs, Clearscope and Writesonic as well, read our best AI SEO tools roundup.
| Tool and plan | Price per month (yearly billing) | What the page lists |
|---|---|---|
| Frase Starter | $39 | 10 articles, 50 audit pages, 1 site, AI Visibility on ChatGPT and Google AI |
| Surfer Discovery | $49 | 120 documents, tracks 10 pages, Surfy assistant and humanizer |
| Frase Professional | $103 | 40 articles, 250 audit pages, 3 seats, 5 sites, content calendar |
| Surfer Standard | $99 | 360 documents, 25 AI prompts refreshed weekly, team collaboration |
| Surfer Pro | $182 | 50 AI prompts refreshed daily, 5 brand spaces, internal linking |
| Frase Scale | $239 | 100 articles, 1,000 audit pages, 5 seats, 10 domains, client reports |
The two products count different things (Frase counts articles, Surfer counts “documents”), so the price rows are not a like-for-like comparison, and we do not claim one is cheaper per unit of output. What the table does show is that Frase’s entry plan costs $10 less per month than Surfer’s on yearly billing, and that Surfer’s page states annual plans save “up to 17%” against Frase’s 20%. Surfer’s AI Search Analytics plan ($82 a month) is a separate tracking product.
Who should buy it, and who should skip it
Buy it if you run one site or a few and want research, drafting, scoring and AI-answer tracking in one subscription; you will edit what the agent produces; and you are happy to judge it on a 7-day trial with the 5-article cap. Start on the trial, then Starter on monthly billing for a month or two before committing a year, given the no-refund terms.
Skip it if you want the option of a refund, you plan to publish large volumes without a human editing pass (Google’s spam policy is aimed at exactly that), you need more than the Starter caps but cannot justify Professional, or you only need a one-off brief, in which case a trial plus a cancelled subscription is cheaper than a year.
How we researched this review
We read Frase’s pricing page (including its FAQ and plan comparison), terms of service and privacy policy, and Surfer’s pricing page, on October 19, 2026, plus two Google Search Central documents on AI-generated content and spam. We compared two tools in the table because the market for this product is crowded and a longer list would require reading pages we have not verified. We do not use or test these products ourselves, so every price and limit is the vendor’s published figure and this page makes no claims about draft quality or ranking outcomes. Third-party reviews we saw while searching disagreed with Frase’s own pages on plan names and limits, which is why we cite only the vendors’ pages.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Frase cost?
On October 19, 2026: Starter $39 a month billed yearly or $49 month to month; Professional $103 or $129; Scale $239 or $299; Enterprise is custom. Extra seats are $29 a month each on Professional and Scale.
Does Frase have a free plan?
No. It offers a free 7-day trial with no credit card, capped at 5 articles, 50 audit pages, 25 AI prompts and up to 3 seats. Its hosting product, FraseCMS, has a free tier, but that is hosting rather than a free plan.
Can I get a refund?
Frase’s terms of service say all fees are final and it does not provide refunds. Use the free trial to decide before paying.
What happens when I use up my articles?
On Starter the account holds at its limit until the cycle resets or you upgrade. On Professional and Scale you can switch on pay-as-you-go, at $5 and $4 per extra article respectively, per the pricing page. It is off by default.
Which sites can Frase publish to?
WordPress, Webflow, Sanity and Wix, or Frase’s own hosted CMS.
Will Frase’s AI content rank on Google?
Neither Frase nor we can promise that, and Frase’s own page says it will not promise a ranking within 7 days. Google says AI-generated pages made at scale without adding value for users may violate its spam policy, so the editing you add matters.
Does Frase train AI on my content?
Its privacy policy states it does not use customer data obtained through Google APIs to train generalized AI or machine-learning models. That statement is specific to Google-connected data, and some features send content to third-party AI providers, so read the policy before uploading anything sensitive.
Is Frase better than Surfer?
Neither wins on every point; they count output differently and we have not tested either. See the Frase vs Surfer SEO comparison for the detail.
Bottom line
Frase is worth a 7-day trial if you want research, drafting and AI-search tracking in one place, and Starter at $39 a month on yearly billing is a modest bet for a single site. The things to respect are the no-refund terms, the annual-sounding renewal wording and Google’s stance on mass-produced pages. Try it, edit what it writes, and buy monthly before yearly.
This page is for information, not financial or legal advice. Plans and prices change; confirm on Frase’s own pages before you buy.
About the author. Lennit Herrera founded AI Tool Stack Reviews to compare AI tools using the vendors’ own published pricing and documentation. He does not run controlled tests of the products reviewed here, and says so on every page. More about this site.
