Best Frase Alternatives by Category & Team Size (2023 Guide)
Frase.io is a popular solution for creating optimized content because it has:
Tools to generate content briefs and build outlines, SEO reports, and real-time content scoring to help writers produce top-ranking content.
An AI writing assistant to “do the job for you” (i.e., automatically generate briefs, build outlines, and fill in the gaps with optimized content).
The biggest gripe with Frase is that they don’t offer cost-effective options for mid-size and large content marketing teams. The packages are inexpensive but only accommodate independent writers, bloggers, and small teams — the Team plan includes three seats, and Frase charges $25/month for any extra seats. (Plus, you can’t buy the AI writing tools alone, you have to add them to the key features, and they cost an additional $35/month.)
So we put together this guide with Frase alternatives that can better support large and growing teams. We categorize alternatives by type of solution: content optimization software to guide writing workflows and AI content writing tools.
We kick off our guide with a review of our content optimization tool, Clearscope: we offer packages for marketing writers, small teams, and enterprise users — and we can customize plans (and pricing) based on team requirements to suit a wide variety of users.
Note: Clearscope is our product. We’re proud of what we’ve built and believe we have the best content optimization and monitoring platform on the market. Request a personalized demo.
Clearscope
Content optimization software with custom solutions for all team sizes
Clearscope guides content optimization strategies and simplifies SEO so writers can use our tool within existing workflows to produce top-ranking content (that drives traffic and conversions). We offer:
Keyword Discovery, so teams can find content ideas and research topics on your content plan. Our features let users perform SERP analysis and analyze competitor content to understand how to outperform what’s already ranking.
Content Reports with clear recommendations to build outlines and draft optimized content. We show headings and a list of terms and phrases to incorporate in content. You can even look at key themes (to get a broad idea of the content angle), FAQs (to know which questions to answer), and common citations (to continue research or gather ideas for links). Then writers have well-rounded resources to analyze search intent and brainstorm original ideas to engage audiences.
Content Inventory, to monitor real-time SEO scores after content is published. You can add existing site pages and new URLs to this dashboard to track how well page content is optimized for target keywords. Then, you can plan updates more strategically (use Content Reports to guide the refresh) and ensure content remains competitive.
Our platform is easy to learn, and we provide free online tutorials so you can see how it works — but we also offer complimentary onboarding, training, and support for all users who need extra help. Anyone can get started with our Essentials package, or you can meet with us before signing up to talk about your requirements and custom plans.
Clearscope offers flexible plan changes and unlimited free report sharing, so you can easily adjust your package and add freelance writers to the platform.
This flexibility is what allows us to accommodate a variety of team needs. But, as we mentioned above, there are two types of Frase Alternatives — and our solution is best for teams that want to support natural writing flows and unique content creation.
Let’s talk a little bit about how our features work.
Feature Overview
Our features guide each stage of content development: researching topics, writing SEO content briefs, outlining, drafting, editing, and optimizing content.
You can use these tools to streamline your current processes (we even integrate with Google Docs and WordPress so writers can access Content Reports in the tools they already use) and employ optimization strategies as you build content.
Keyword Discovery
You can use Keyword Discovery for a variety of tasks:
Look up topics (brand names, products/services, current events, questions, etc.) to see all related keyword opportunities.
Review keyword metrics (we display average monthly search volume, keyword difficulty score, and CPC).
Hone in on trending topics or access the “Questions” tab (to see which questions relate to primary keywords and target these in content or FAQs).
Identify long-tail keywords to include in content plans.
Learn more: Why is Keyword Research Important?
Content Reports
Clearscope Content Reports provide various resources and recommendations to support writers as they create SEO-optimized content. We organize the data so it’s easy to understand and apply through each stage of writing, and reports focus on the most important criteria to achieve top rankings so they don’t include hundreds of boxes to check.
Here’s a look at what Reports cover:
Competitor analysis, to review what’s already ranking in search engines and develop strategies to produce better-performing content.
Competitor outlines, to identify commonalities across posts and key topics to cover.
SERP research, to see themes, FAQs, and citations related to the search query. You can use takeaways from the competitor and SERP analysis to develop your content angle and determine positioning.
Terms to include in content, we show suggested headings and provide more background about recommendations so you know what’s important to cover and how to discuss relevant topics.
Our reports are free of repetitive recommendations or long keyword phrases, and we also use natural language processing (NLP) to detect and accept variations of keywords, so it’s easier to weave in recommendations and write high-quality content.
It’s also worth noting that Clearscope doesn’t offer AI writers like Frase. However, our platform uses AI technology to gather keyword data, analyze SERPs, and provide relevant recommendations to write competitive content.
Writers can work directly in the Content Editor or use the Clearscope add-on to reference reports in Google Docs. We show your progress and SEO score as you work through report recommendations. Reports highlight all of the suggested terms and phrases you use in content, and they show word count and readability to help during edits.
Content marketers can write and optimize content for search engines in one workflow; the editing process is smoother, and content can perform better for you sooner (without heavy updates or troubleshooting later).
Over time, teams pick up on the best practices to write high-quality SEO content so they can follow on-page strategies as they draft and produce optimized content more easily.
See how Optimizely used Clearscope Content Reports to optimize blog and glossary content, achieve page-one rankings, and increase organic traffic by 52%.
Content Inventory
You can build a Content Inventory in Clearscope to track all your site content — you can add an unlimited number of URLs to this dashboard (re: custom plans) to track website landing pages, product pages, blog content, and more. You can also track other information about web pages here, like published dates and author names, to improve content management.
Then, this dashboard helps you perform content audits more easily: you can see all of the web pages on your site and how well they’re optimized for target keywords, so you can strategically plan new content ideas (and avoid keyword cannibalization) and collaborate with writers to update content (and prevent content decay).
Read more: How to Create a Content Inventory & Perform a Content Audit (2023 Guide)
Packages & Pricing
Clearscope has user-friendly, intuitive features, so anyone (even content creators without an SEO background) can start using our platform without training. Of course, we’re always around to help. The Essentials Plan offers access to all of our platform’s SEO tools so you can explore Reports and begin building your Content Inventory.
If you’re interested in custom plans, our customer support team can design a package to suit your requirements. We offer plans for small businesses and enterprise packages for growing teams. Schedule a free demo to talk about solutions and onboarding.
Alternative content optimization software: Dashword & Surfer SEO
In addition to Clearscope, you might consider Dashword or Surfer if you’re looking for a solution to help your content writing team produce original (high-ranking) content more easily.
Dashword: For small & growing teams
Dashword is a recommended Frase alternative for growing teams because they offer similar features, but the packages allow for more user seats. Plus, they offer a free trial, so you can see how it works for your teams before buying.
The platform offers:
An automated content brief builder that provides ideas and outline recommendations for writers to use as a foundation for content.
Content reports with SEO recommendations to guide writing; these include terms and phrases to use in content and deliver real-time feedback.
Content monitoring so you can track published content’s SEO scores, build rank trackers, and review traffic.
In addition, Dashword offers an AI writer to generate content for you. You can use these to write certain types of content (you may want to try it for product descriptions or other “repeat” content), but it has limitations.
Dashword also appeals to smaller teams because it’s inexpensive, fairly easy to use, and the features don’t require SEO knowledge to understand. Most writers can learn the ropes without downtime. The features and recommendations may feel too simple for teams with more SEO know-how.
Overall, Dashword receives good user feedback; the only warning is that reports sometimes contain repeat recommendations or terms that don’t feel super relevant to the content. You have to use your best judgment when writing to avoid unnatural or robotic copy.
Dashword has two packages:
Startup, with 5 user seats for $99/month.
Business, with 10 user seats for $349/month.
The Business Plan includes a few features Startup does not, but you can learn about both packages on their site. Plus, both options include Dashword’s free trial.
Surfer: For mid-size & enterprise teams
Surfer is a nice option for mid-size and large teams because it has Grow Flow dashboard to help you manage existing site content and improve performance — you can keep published content working for you and plan new content creation.
Surfer offers tiered plans (all packages include Content Reports to guide content creation) and custom packages for enterprise teams.
The platform includes:
Keyword research tools that let you find content ideas and create keyword clusters.
Content reports with AI-generated outlines, heading suggestions, and terms and phrases to include in content. It also has a plagiarism checker to avoid duplicate content and search engine penalties.
Grow Flow Dashboard with personalized insights to build your content plan, re-optimize existing content, improve search rankings, and increase organic traffic.
Surfer also offers an AI Writer add-on and integrations with Jasper (mentioned below) for teams interested in using AI content writing tools.
We recommend Surfer for teams that want to learn SEO strategies or are interested in tips to improve existing content performance. You’ll notice Surfer has many of the same functionality as the tools previously listed — but they differentiate themselves with weekly SEO insights for users.
However, Surfer doesn’t get the best feedback regarding its content reports (which also plays into our recommendation above).
Reports provide writers with a lot of ideas about what to cover in content, but working through them can feel challenging: they contain hundreds of suggestions, and most of the recommended “terms” are long phrases that are hard to use in content without “clunking it up.” So if you follow report recommendations to a T, it becomes nearly impossible to write optimized content that doesn’t sound overly optimized — like Dashword, you have to make judgment calls on what’s important and what isn’t.
Surfer’s business plans include all features and add-ons, so growing teams can get started in the platform and explore the offerings. As mentioned, Surfer also offers starter plans and add-ons so small teams can build their solution (though these are not as budget-friendly as Dashword).
Learn more about Surfer in our guide: Best Surfer SEO Alternatives: Clearscope + 3 Runners Up
Honorable Mention: Semrush
We wanted to include Semrush in our review because it’s a comprehensive solution that many growing teams already use to guide certain aspects of their digital marketing strategy. Semrush offers features to build backlinks, plan social media posts, manage paid ads, improve local SEO, and more.
Semrush is a commonly-suggested Frase alternative because they have an SEO Writing Assistant (included with most plans) that offers insights to guide topic research and content creation. If you already use Semrush, it’s worth exploring the Writing Assistant.
The Writing Assistant is similar to other content optimization software in the insights it provides — takeaways from SERP analysis (themes to cover, questions to answer), suggestions to build outlines, and recommendations to weave in content.
However, the chief complaint is that insights aren’t super helpful (i.e., somewhat obvious or surface-level), and reports aren’t very thorough. They might simplify your workflows a bit, but they aren’t going to transform your content writing processes.
With those details in mind, we don’t recommend investing in Semrush for the content optimization tool alone — it’s a much stronger solution in other areas of SEO strategy and marketing management. The Writing Assistant is more or less a perk worth checking out if you’re already a Semrush user.
You can research additional content optimization tools in our guides below:
5 SEO Content Writing Tools (to Outline, Draft & Update Content)
Enterprise Content Optimization: Tips & Top-Rated Tools (2023)
Alternative AI content writing solutions: Rytr, Jasper, & Copy.ai
Now let’s talk about a few AI copywriting solutions for teams interested in an alternative to Frase’s AI writer.
Not to sound biased — but we don’t normally recommend these tools because they can’t produce unique, engaging content. However, if you understand their strengths and weaknesses, you can leverage AI content generation strategically.
For example, even though AI writers can’t generate fresh ideas or new insights, they can…
Produce (mostly) well-written, long-form content on popular or well-known topics — if you want to build brand awareness or write about viral topics to “join the conversation,” these tools can help.
Save teams time and allow writers to focus on more involved content creation.
Write social posts, basic website content, marketing emails, and more.
The only caveat is that you can’t bank on content quality. A real human should double-check anything AI produces to ensure it’s accurate, logical, and easy to read. So they “automate” processes to a degree, but you should always plan to review (and clean up) AI content.
Read more: 8+ AI Content Generation Tools Plus Strategies on How To Use Them
Each AI writing tool below is inexpensive — but keep in mind that Rytr only has packages for individual users while Copy.ai and Jasper are better at supporting growing teams.
Rytr: For individuals
Rytr is an AI writing solution that uses its artificial intelligence technology to write content “magically.”
Rytr can generate content for 40+ use cases — write blog content, call to actions, product descriptions, emails, social media captions, Google ads, SMS copy, and more — in over 35 languages. You can use it for virtually any content creation; you just have to be mindful of what you’re asking from AI.
Rytr earns positive feedback on software review sites, and the platform is easy to use — they even provide instructions to show you each step. You can get started in Rytr for free and upgrade as needed. The free plan offers up to 10K characters/month.
However, as mentioned, Rytr does not have packages for teams; even the top-tier plan only accommodates one user seat. That’s why we recommend teams check out Copy.ai or Jasper.
Copy.ai: For small and growing teams
Copy.ai works well for small teams because they offer a Pro plan (with five user seats and unlimited words) and custom packages. The platform supports 25 languages and is designed for marketers that need to create website copy, blog content, sales materials, emails, eCommerce content, and digital ad copy.
The platform provides dozens of content templates to kickstart writing, but the process is easy: plug in the project information, give AI extra details to guide content creation, and then sift through the results. Copy.ai generates a few options for each content piece so you can choose the one that works best for you.
You can try Copy.ai for free (up to 2K words/month) and access all of the platform’s available features and templates.
Jasper: For mid-size and large brands
Jasper’s AI writing platform is designed for digital marketing teams that need to create brand content at scale.
It has features to automatically produce new content or edit and revamp content writers’ work: it can guide landing page creation, blog writing, social media campaigns, and more. The technology learns from your style guide and existing content to promote a cohesive brand identity.
Jasper leverages OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4, Anthropic, and Google language models to generate high-quality, optimized content (though Jasper’s solution is still not 100% perfect and requires human intervention).
The platform supports 30+ languages and includes:
Jasper’s AI writing tools
Live chat to bounce ideas off AI and assist with research
Content templates
A knowledge base to train AI on your brand voice
AI art (to create branded imagery for content)
Training resources
Jasper has packages to support individual creators, small teams (up to 3 seats), and custom plans for growing businesses. They also offer a 7-day free trial to demo the platform features.
Getting started
Clearscope offers essential features to support writers in creating high-quality content that not only ranks well and drives traffic but actually engages readers and draws in conversions.
Our tools support unique content creation so writers can work more productively (and produce content that performs better) without worrying about SEO best practices or trying to become an SEO expert from day one. Our platform meshes with your current workflows to improve what’s already working for you.
We design packages to support your team's requirements; anyone can learn how to use our features without long onboarding times.
Bernard Huang
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