SERP research and outline builder for SEO-focused blog posts.
Best for: Independent creators, software developers documenting technical products, and small business owners who need structured, search-focused articles without paying enterprise software rates. Skip if: Solo researchers or technical teams looking for an all-in-one SEO suite equipped with complete backlink audits, site crawling, and autonomous publishing.
Producing search-oriented technical guides, company tutorials, or educational explainers usually turns into an exhausting exercise in competitor analysis. Whether building developer documentation, writing guides for a small architectural practice, or curating indie product updates, identifying what readers want to see requires examining multiple ranking articles. Many modern writing utilities fall short here: they either act as thin wrappers around raw language models or present a chaotic wall of spreadsheet metrics that gets in the way of actual drafting.
Frase approaches content production from a practical middle ground. Rather than expecting writers to examine search listings manually, the platform extracts top-ranking headings, user queries, and vital subject entities directly into a dedicated editor side panel. It binds search result research, outline building, guided generative drafting, and topic scoring into a single focused environment.
Whether writing technical primers as a programmer or publishing product comparisons as a bootstrapped founder, understanding how the software performs under real daily deadlines is essential. Below is a detailed breakdown of Frase's capabilities, everyday workflow, subscription mechanics, and operational shortcomings.
At its core, Frase focuses on search-driven writing. You feed it a target search query, pick your target country, and the software pulls in the top 20 Google search results. From there, it slices up that search data so you can write something that matches search intent without spending two hours reading competitor blogs.
Once Frase scrapes the search results page, it pulls the text into a side panel right next to your blank document. It extracts all the subheadings (H2s and H3s) your competitors use. It also pulls out statistics, external sources they cite, and questions people ask about the topic.
The questions tab is useful. It pulls data directly from Google's "People Also Ask" boxes, Quora, and Reddit. That saves you from clicking around forums to see how real people phrase their problems. If you write for niche B2B or technical topics, seeing those exact phrases helps you catch pain points that a standard keyword tool completely misses.
Creating outlines is usually the most boring part of content marketing, but this is the bit I'd actually pay for. In Frase, you can browse competitor headings directly in the sidebar and click them into your own document to form a rough skeleton.
If you want to move faster, Frase has an automated outline generator. You click a button, and it analyzes common themes across the ranking pages. Then it puts together a full brief with an introduction, suggested sections, subheadings, and talking points. You will still need to prune it so you do not end up copying competitor mistakes, but it cuts down brief prep from forty minutes to about five.
Frase includes a native AI writer that connects directly to the research panel. Instead of spitting out generic text from a broad prompt, it uses the scraped SERP data to guide the draft.
You can use it in a few ways: - Full draft generation based on your outline. - Short templates like intro paragraphs, FAQ answers, meta descriptions, and product roundups. - Inline writing, where you write a sentence, hit a shortcut, and let the AI finish the paragraph.
The generated copy tends to stick to the topic better than raw ChatGPT outputs because it pulls context from the competitor outlines you selected. It still sounds like an AI drafted it, though. You will have to edit the rhythm, cut out fluffy filler, and add your own perspective.
The optimization panel is Frase's answer to Clearscope or Surfer. It gives you a list of related topics, entities, and keywords that rank in top results, alongside a 0 to 100 percent score.
As you write or paste text into the editor, the score updates in real time. The tool highlights which words you have used enough, which ones you missed, and which ones you have repeated too many times. You can filter this list by top topics, headers, and clusters. It helps you see blind spots where you forgot to cover an important subtopic.
Using Frase day in and day out usually follows a four-step loop.
You start by creating a new document and typing in your target keyword. You select your location and language. Frase takes about twenty to thirty seconds to scrape Google and process the results. You can uncheck competitors if they do not fit what you are doing, like dropping out an e-commerce product page when you want to write an informational guide.
Next, you click into the Outline tab. You look through the headings of the top pages. You can click an H2 from one site, an H3 from another, and drop them straight into your brief. Then you jump over to the Questions tab and pull in two or three common customer questions to answer at the end of the post.
Once your outline is ready, you can export it to share with a freelance writer, or write the piece inside the editor. If you write it yourself, you can use the AI write tool to expand each section. You highlight a heading, choose an instruction like "write an explanation of this concept," and let it generate a few paragraphs.
Once the draft is down, you check your Topic Score. Frase shows you a target score based on the average of top-ranking pages. If the average is 55 percent, your goal is to beat that without stuffing words where they do not belong. You scroll down the keyword list, spot relevant terms you left out, and weave them into your paragraphs.
Frase splits its pricing into three core plans, plus an optional add-on for heavier AI usage.
This plan only makes sense if you write one post a week for a personal site. Four queries run out fast, especially if you accidentally burn one testing a keyword you decide not to write about.
This is the standard tier for solo freelancers and single-site owners. Thirty queries per month give you room to write almost an article a day.
This is what small marketing teams and agencies need. The unlimited document limit means you do not have to stress about wasting credits when planning content calendars.
The core plans come with limited AI writing credits (around 4,000 words per month on basic tiers). If you want unlimited AI writing, you have to buy this add-on. It also adds keyword search volume data and backlink data into the research tab using data from Majestic. If you rely heavily on AI to draft long articles, this add-on is mandatory, which bumps the real monthly price of the Basic plan up to $80 per month.
First, the brief builder is fast. Digging through ten articles manually takes real time. Frase puts all competitor subheadings in one scrollable panel, which speeds up outline work by a mile.
Second, the editor feels clean. Some optimization tools pack so many charts, dials, and sidebars into the interface that writing inside them gives you a headache. Frase keeps the focus on the document.
Third, it costs noticeably less than Clearscope and MarketMuse. Those tools can easily run hundreds of dollars every month. For small agencies and bootstrapped sites, Frase provides eighty percent of that functionality at a fraction of the cost.
The AI writer still hallucinates facts, just like any other large language model. If you let it write about technical subjects or pricing comparisons, you must double-check every single claim. It loves confident-sounding filler phrases that add zero value to an article.
The keyword search volume metrics are also fairly bare. Even with the add-on, Frase is not a replacement for dedicated keyword tools like Ahrefs or Semrush. You cannot do deep backlink audits, rank tracking, or complex site architecture research here. You still need an external tool to find your targets before you bring them into Frase to write.
Another annoyance: the Solo plan is so limited that it is almost useless. Four documents a month gives you no room for trial and error.
Invest in Frase for Rapid Brief Hand-Offs and Budget-Friendly Scoring - You manage content for a blog and need to produce detailed outlines for freelancers quickly. - You want an on-page SEO content grader, but cannot afford the massive monthly price tag of Clearscope. - You like drafting articles right next to competitor research without constantly switching windows or digging through search results.
Look Beyond Frase for Comprehensive Audits or Fully Autonomous Articles - You need an all-in-one SEO suite with rank tracking, technical site audits, and deep backlink analysis. - You expect an AI tool to write complete, publish-ready articles with one click without any editing on your part. - You already pay for Surfer SEO and like their editor, because the workflows are very similar.
Frase is a practical, no-nonsense utility for writers and editors who care about Google rankings. It does not replace good editorial judgment or deep subject knowledge. But if you want to speed up outline production and make sure your articles do not miss obvious topical angles, it pays for itself quickly. Just keep an eye on the add-on costs if you plan to let the AI do heavy drafting.
paid — from $15/mo