The free version of Screaming Frog is the same desktop SEO Spider the paid users run, capped at 500 URLs per crawl. It finds broken links, redirects, missing titles and duplicate pages exactly as the licensed version does. What you lose is scale and configuration, not the core audit.
That distinction matters, because most people either assume the free tier is useless or assume it covers everything. Neither is true. The useful question is whether the 500 URLs you can crawl are the 500 URLs you need to see.
What the free version of Screaming Frog includes
Screaming Frog’s own SEO Spider page sets out the split plainly. The free version allows “crawling up to 500 URLs in a single crawl”, and it states that “crawl configuration, saving of crawls, and advanced features such as JavaScript rendering, custom extraction, and API integrations are also restricted.” The licence, at the time of writing (October 2026), costs “£199 per year” and “removes the 500 URL crawl limit”.
| Feature | Free version | Paid licence |
|---|---|---|
| URLs per crawl | Up to 500 | Limit removed |
| Broken links and server errors | Yes | Yes |
| Redirect chains and loops | Yes | Yes |
| Page titles and meta descriptions | Yes | Yes |
| Exact duplicate pages | Yes | Yes |
| XML sitemap generation | Yes | Yes |
| Crawl configuration and saving crawls | Restricted | Yes |
| JavaScript rendering | No | Yes |
| Custom extraction | No | Yes |
| Google Analytics, Search Console and PageSpeed Insights APIs | No | Yes |
| Price at the time of writing | Free | £199 per year |
The tool runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, and Screaming Frog says it “audits your site for over 300 SEO issues to help improve both SEO, and UX”. The free tier sees the same issue list. It simply stops counting at 500.
What 500 URLs covers in practice
Five hundred URLs is not five hundred pages. The crawler counts every address it requests, which includes images, CSS, JavaScript files and redirecting URLs as well as HTML. A blog with two hundred posts can hit the ceiling once you add category archives, tag pages, pagination and assets.
Before you blame the cap, check what is filling it. If a few hundred of your 500 URLs are images and scripts, the crawl tells you little more about your pages than a shorter one would. If they are parameter URLs or endless archive pages, the cap has just shown you a crawl waste problem worth fixing for its own sake.
Even so, the limit covers more ground than its reputation suggests. Three ways to use it well:
- Small sites whole. A brochure site, a local business, a new niche site in its first months. If the full crawl finishes under the cap, you have a complete audit for nothing.
- One section at a time. Start the crawl from a subfolder rather than the homepage and the spider will work within that section, so a large site can be checked a slice at a time.
- List mode. Paste or upload a list of URLs instead of crawling by links. This is the cleanest way to check a set of priority pages, a batch of redirects after a migration, or the URLs in a sitemap.
The section approach has an obvious weakness. You see each slice in isolation, so problems that only appear across the whole site, such as pages with no internal links pointing to them, stay hidden. Our guide to finding all the pages on a website covers other sources you can combine with a capped crawl.
The audits worth running inside the limit
The free tier is strongest on the checks that need no configuration. Start with response codes. Filter for 4XX and 5XX and you have a list of broken internal links and the pages linking to them, which is the raw material for the fixes described in our post on broken links and SEO.
Next, redirects. The spider reports redirect chains and loops, which are easy to create during a redesign and rarely noticed afterwards. Each hop costs a request and a little time, and long chains are worth flattening. We cover the reasoning in our redirect chains guide.
Then titles and meta descriptions. Missing, duplicated, too long or too short: these come out of a default crawl with no extra setup, and they are the quickest wins on a small site. Exact duplicate pages show up in the same pass, which catches the classic problem of the same content served at two addresses.
Finally, if your CMS does not produce a sitemap, the free version can generate one from the crawl. For a static or hand-built site that alone can justify the download.
What the free tier cannot do
The restrictions bite hardest on modern sites. Without JavaScript rendering, the spider reads the HTML the server sends and nothing more. If your navigation, product listings or internal links are built in the browser, the free crawl will miss them and report a smaller, emptier site than Google eventually sees.
No saved crawls means no easy comparison over time. You can run the same crawl next month, but you cannot reopen last month’s inside the tool to compare. No custom extraction means you cannot pull structured data, prices, authors or any other element you define. No API connections means crawl data and performance data stay in separate windows, so you cannot see clicks or Core Web Vitals scores next to the pages that earned them.
Those gaps are the limitation to keep in mind. A free crawl tells you what is broken or missing on the pages it reached. It cannot tell you which of those pages matter, because it has no traffic data, and it cannot see what JavaScript adds.
Exporting a report and deciding when to pay
Exporting works in the free version. Every tab in the interface, from response codes to page titles, can be exported to a spreadsheet, and filtered views export as they are shown. The practical workflow is to filter to the issue you care about, export that view, and work through it as a task list rather than exporting everything and drowning in columns.
The licence pays for itself under three conditions. The first is size: if every useful crawl of your site runs past 500 URLs, crawling in slices costs more time than the licence costs money. The second is JavaScript: if your site relies on client-side rendering, a non-rendering crawl gives you a misleading picture. The third is client work: an agency or freelancer auditing other people’s sites will hit the cap and need saved crawls and API data almost immediately.
If none of those applies, stay on the free tier and spend the money elsewhere. If you are weighing a paid crawler anyway, note that Sitebulb has no permanent free version, only a trial. Our comparison of Sitebulb and Screaming Frog covers how the two differ once you are paying. For a wider list of checks to run with whichever tool you choose, see the technical SEO checklist.
Frequently asked questions
Is Screaming Frog free?
Yes, with limits. The free version crawls up to 500 URLs per crawl and restricts configuration, saved crawls, JavaScript rendering, custom extraction and API integrations.
How much does a Screaming Frog licence cost?
At the time of writing (October 2026), Screaming Frog lists the licence at £199 per year, which removes the 500 URL crawl limit.
Can you export reports from the free version?
Yes. Tabs and filtered views export to spreadsheets, so you can turn a crawl into a working list of issues without a licence.
Is there a free Screaming Frog alternative with no URL cap?
Not among the obvious paid rivals. Sitebulb, for example, offers a 14 day trial rather than a permanent free version.
The takeaway The free crawler is the real tool with a 500 URL cap. Use it whole on small sites, by section or list mode on larger ones, and pay only when size, JavaScript or client work makes the cap cost you time.
