Frase vs. Surfer: Which Delivers Better Results for AI-Driven Content? (Complete Comparison with Examples)
If you’re exploring alternatives to Surfer SEO or want a clearer picture of how it stacks up against Frase.io, you’re in the right place!
In this comparison, we’ll explore how both perform in all content stages, from the topic research and AI generation, to SEO optimization. And most importantly, how to create content that converts in a SERP that’s flooded with mediocre AI content.
Let’s dive in!
TABLE OF CONTENTS 👇
Scaling Your Content with AI: Frase.io vs. Surfer SEO—Which Delivers Better Results?
If you’re unfamiliar with Surfer or Frase, the best place to start is to review your content workflow. Which part is the most time-consuming? And then, find which platform does a better job at managing both.
At Frase, we found that full-stack marketers that use AI tools deal with issues like:
- Spending most of their time on research
- Scattering content work across too many platforms
- Having to learn unessential topics because of SEO opportunities
- Repurposing content manually since most AI writers are long-form only
- Still struggling to drive results, like conversions or engagement even when the content ranks and brings traffic
In short, ranking blog posts isn’t the only issue. Surfer can be great if you’re a hardcore SEO expert. But if you’re trying to get results across all types of content, then Frase is a better fit for you. You can also test Frase risk-free with this trial.
Frase.io Overview
Frase helps content marketers, creators, and writers generate impactful AI content powered by deep, multi-source research. This powerful integration streamlines the entire content creation workflow to boost effectiveness before and after the writing. It covers the full marketing spectrum from long-form articles to generating short form content for email and social campaigns.
For example, below is how you generate article sections with the AI Content Editor:
It’s also possible to write entire posts within minutes with only a few clicks.
Unlike your typical AI writer, Frase goes out on the SERPs to find what content worked for top-ranking competitive articles. You can then review their outlines, add instructions, or use AI to write these prompts automatically.
And unlike Surfer, Frase allows you to set up AI content settings across all your articles. Instead of rewriting prompts for each one, you can create custom AI presets, templates, and brand tones for consistent use.
Surfer Overview
Surfer specializes in SEO optimization for articles with detailed SERP analysis, often at a higher price point. SEO analysts use it to discover keywords, optimize manual content, and audit existing content. It now also offers topic discovery, anti-AI detection, and AI generation, although in lower quantities than most tools (e.g. ChatGPT).
To actually generate AI content, we go to the Content Editor tab, type a keyword, and choose the credit (Manual or AI). This will generate an outline that you can review before creating articles like this one:
It’s worth noting that the highest plan offers up to 10 AI posts like this.
On the right, you can see the SEO recommendations based on the top 5 competitors for your main keyword. There’s an auto-optimize feature that we’ll go over later, which raises your Content Score at the risk of lower quality.
So, what do these platforms look like in action?
Frase vs Surfer: Use Case Comparison
Before a traditional feature comparison, let’s test both platforms with a real example.
Suppose you’re an agency content director or a content marketer. You want to educate potential clients as to how you could help them get more results. So you start writing a long-form post about “How to Increase Sign-ups” (On Your Website).
Your workflow might look something like this:
- Doing enough research to not just learn the topic but also outwork competitors
- Building an outline that’s easy to follow for beginners and SEO-friendly
- Write the actual content (or hand it off to a writer or let AI do it)
- Edit the content
- Optimize the article for SEO without losing quality
- And promote it on other platforms as repurposed content (let’s say Instagram)
So what is it like to do all of this on Surfer vs Frase?
#1 Research of Topics and Competitors
On Surfer we searched for ‘how to increase user sign ups’, and within minutes it reviewed the top competitors:
This also discovered the optimal length for the content as well as long-tail keywords (on Topics & Questions):
With all this data retrieved, Surfer generated the most important sections and headings in the sidebar:
While these may not be ready-to-publish sections, they give you a good idea of what should appear in the post.
It’s useful if you know very little about the topic: click to include the relevant sections, then highlight all the text, and use the rewrite command to create something more coherent.
The one limitation we see with Surfer is that it relies too much on the Top 5 results and not enough on the AI’s creativity, resulting in repetitive content.
Now when it comes to Frase, you have two options here: The first is fully automated and the second is a more manual approach, right inside of the editor. Let’s start with the automated approach, using Frase’s AI Article Wizard.
And instead of stopping at the top 5 pages, Frase looked up 19 competitors, keywords included:
And while it doesn’t track keyword metrics yet, using all the keywords from the top results should still be enough to outrank them.
The Frase research is a huge time saver once you get to the content instructions.
Normally, you’d still need to write a thorough prompt for the AI to work well. But Frase auto-writes the instructions too based on content that’s already getting results. Not only does this improve the generation, but it teaches you everything to know about the topic and write it like an expert.
But what if you don’t want the AI to take full control of your research? You can still use the Frase inline editor for very specific sections.
For example, below is a prompt we wrote and the result:
When you keep the toggle “Use search results,” Frase will research every page in real time to find the best content.
Want to be even more specific? You can turn off this option and enter specific urls to search for:
You have the freedom to make AI research as broad or narrow as needed inside your doc!
That’s why we think Frase is more effective than Surfer at saving research time.
#2 Create a Content Outline
Now that we have the essential knowledge, let’s see what content structure Surfer recommends. Before turning the main keyword into content, it generates an outline like this:
Above is one of the headings (~15 H2s in total) where each bullet point is text that appeared on other websites once. While insightful, it’s probably not enough to predict if that content will bring traffic.
And while it does cover most sign-up techniques, the outline lacks sections like the intro. It would also be more scannable if there were more subheadings.
So how does this outline compare to the articles already live? You would have to check every website to find out.
It’s not like that on Frase, however:
If you go to Outline from the content editor, you’ll see the structure of every post in the SERPs in real-time. No more scrolling on blog posts with pop-ups!
Instead, all of it is in one place to easily spot structure patterns, word counts, and SEO scores. If you decide to refresh old content one year from now, this will also show you the changes competitors made.
And if you want to go with the recommended outline by Frase, you can do so from the AI Wizard (instructions included):
In short, Frase offers more data than Surfer to build effective outlines.
#3 Generate a High Quality Blog Post Using AI
With the research and outlines generated, let’s see what type of content both come up with.
Here is the full Surfer article:
Surfer created a listicle article of 2,000 words with AI images and actionable bulleted lists. It also scored 75 out of 100, just 5 higher than the highest-ranking post. (After Auto-Optimizing, the word count increased to 3,000. More on this later)
And here is the full post generated on Frase:
It generated a 5,000-word in-depth article, including examples and statistics. Which one is more likely to resonate with readers?
You can see that Frase scored 100 out of 100 in the first generation, eliminating the need to optimize later. Below the score, you also see the average length, images, and links across all competitors, not just the top five.
Frase also tends to write longer than Surfer unless specified. This could be correlated with more backlinks, higher rankings, and more traffic retention time. You get more opportunities to increase your SEO authority without extra effort.
One difference is that Surfer also generates AI images. Now how impactful is this? The most effective images are those directly related to the content (infographics, screenshots and such). Generic images don’t add value and are often recommended against.
Also if you skim through the content, you’ll find that the Frase version is also easier to read:
We pasted the Surfer (left) and Frase (right) versions in Hemingway Editor to test primarily the grade and red sections (very hard to read). Even though it was 66% more text, Frase still had fewer very-hard sentences than Surfer and a far lower readability grade (the ideal one being 8).
If we could magically place both versions on page 1 right now, the Frase one would likely outrank Surfer’s.
#4 Optimize a Blog Post for SEO
Let’s say we want to achieve the maximum content score without sacrificing quality. Frase already had 100, but how can we boost Surfer from 75?
That’s where Auto-Optimize comes in handy. With one click, within minutes it generated a longer version that scored 81, most likely by just stuffing keywords into content.
That’s already 11 points higher than the best post. But it may still not be enough for competitive keywords. What if you want even higher quality?
After saving changes, we auto-optimized over and over to get the highest possible rating, which stopped around 88, cramming as many keywords in as possible (which isn’t a good thing). But this also lengthened the content by an extra 2,000 words.
(Note that the highest Surfer plan offers up to 80 Auto-Optimize uses)
You can still manually optimize more by adding a keyword list below the content and a prompt:
As you can see below, the new version includes these keywords.
This leads Surfer to write long, complex sentences.
By contrast on Frase, the optimization doesn’t affect the quality as much because, in our case it’s mostly optimized from the start:
And if you wanted to include even more keywords, you could use the same manual method:
Click on the sidebar keywords to paste them, select all the text, and Frase will rewrite sections to include them.
As you can see it’s not just about cramming keywords. Frase also scores your topics vs competitors’ so that your content is valuable to readers, not just the algorithm.
Overall, Frase required less SEO work than Surfer.
#5 Repurpose Articles for Social Media Posts
After a light revision, the content is ready to publish. But to maximize its impact, you also want to promote it on other channels. For example, “repurpose the blog post into a caption for an Instagram carousel post.”
To do this on Surfer, you would highlight the article and write that as a prompt. Within seconds, it generated this:
This description would be valid, but some elements are missing. It looks more like a post for Facebook or X (Twitter). For reference, here’s what Frase generated:
This is a broadly used and tested format that gets results (in this case, followers).
The way you achieve this is simple:
On AI tools, we created a custom preset for the Instagram format.
Then, if you go back to the article, you can access this preset from the AI inline editor:
Again, Surfer is made for long-form content. But Frase has ready-to-use AI Tools for every stage of the content funnel.
That means you can repurpose articles to create meta descriptions, scripts, and even email newsletters! Here are 12 ready-to-use tools you can try for free.
Frase vs Surfer: Feature Comparison
Still trying to decide? Below you’ll find a break-down with all the remaining factors to compare:
Versatility
Surfer promotes itself as an SEO tool that brings visibility and traffic. But is it the right kind of traffic? And can it convert readers to followers/leads/buyers?
For that, you’d need more content types besides long-form articles.
The platform only supports three long-form variants: Blog post, product roadmap, and single product review.
By contrast, Frase is versatile across every piece of content in your funnel:
This includes short-form copywriting such as CTA sections for landing pages, social media content, cold emails, and ads. All of these leverage SERP-based research just like with the articles—unlike ChatGPT and other AI writers.
Lastly, both tools support common languages for AI generation: 13 on Surfer and 20 on Frase.
Brand Alignment
By this, we refer to the degree that you can consistently align the content with your brand guidelines. Making AI content sound human-written is a great start, but what really gets results is to also make the content sound unique, in your tone of voice.
This is where Surfer could fall short:
There are a few tones to choose from but no custom tones supported. There’s an instruction text box similar to ChatGPT, but the AI rules will mostly depend on whatever the competitors are writing.
If you want to outrank page-one competitors, you need two things: model the content that worked for them, AND then add more value to outrank them. This comes down to AI creativity and engagement.
Surfer does a decent job at the former but falls short at the latter.
What if there are a dozen other websites using the same AI method? Even with a 100 SEO score, reaching the 1st page would be a challenge. Most AI plagiarism checkers are overrated and don’t help in this regard.
Why have tools like the “AI humanizer” when it still sounds like everyone else?
Meanwhile on Frase, you have a lot more room to differentiate to create more human content, even when using AI.
You can create AI tools based on format, custom tone, and prompts with unlimited characters. These are global settings that you can load for any article (whereas in Surfer you write a new prompt every time).
After using an AI preset, you can still use other prompts within the editor. So if your AI generated content sounds too robotic or formal, just highlight the text and change the tone. It’s that easy:
As you can see on the right, Frase also researches what top competitors are doing, NLP keywords included. This gets you the best of both worlds.
Ease Of Use
A big selling point of AI writing is saving time, but does that consider how long it takes to master the tool?
Take a look at Surfer. It’s complicated.
Especially if you’re not an SEO expert, this can be overwhelming at first. Where do you start writing articles? Where is the documents tab?
Instead, you’d want something like: Enter main keyword → Generate content → Optimize for SEO. And then everything else.
There’s a considerable learning curve for Surfer, which might still be worth it for a hardcore freelance SEO specialist.
On Frase, however, it’s straightforward and you don’t even need to know anything about SEO.
You can start with a blank page, a keyword query (SEO workflow), or the step-by-step AI generator. For example, the AI Wizard can still auto-generate most of the steps, from the headline instructions to the content:
You also get a lot of templates and AI tools if customizing is too much work:
Editing content is easy too. That’s one thing both tools do well (Surfer below):
But Frase goes the extra mile, allowing you to use the AI templates directly in the editor prompts:
Overall, Frase does a better job at making content creation and repurposing easy for any content creator, regardless of their SEO knowledge.
Accessibility
If you use SurferSEO, most likely you’ll find yourself copy-pasting content from one platform to another. Currently it has integrations for Contentful (a Content Management System), Jasper (AI assistant), and Google Docs—but the AI can’t write there directly.
Surfer also made a free KeywordSurfer extension to display search volumes on the SERPs.
Maybe they’re accurate, or maybe they haven’t been updated in months.
Frase has more integrations and extensions for WordPress, Google Docs, and Google Search Console.
It doesn’t need integrations for AI tools and such it already has this built-in. And if you want to bring the Frase AI to your own platform, there’s an API add-on as well.
After you sign-up for Frase.io, you can download the Chrome Extension to use it anywhere, anytime.
Pricing — Best Value?
For the prices below, both tools have reviews that score 4.8 on G2. So which one offers the most value?
SurferSEO goes from $89 to $219 per month with no free trials.
The minimal plan excludes AI articles, audits, and the SERP analyzer.
This comparison used the most “generous” plan (Scale AI). This gets you 100 manual articles to optimize, 10 AI articles, and still no SERP analyzer.
This means that—just to test Surfer and get the full experience—it takes $248 per month. You could stop at the $129 plan, but then you’d need to buy separate AI tools like Jasper or Rytr.
Instead, Frase offers almost every feature across all plans starting a $15/mo, and they’re all ready to try without a credit card:
Note that “search queries” stand for the number of articles that generate research-driven insights from the SERPs. You can keep creating AI articles above the plan’s query limit, whether it’s 10 or 30.
All plans have unlimited AI words except for Solo, capped at 20,000 (only applies to the AI editor). And for $25 per user seat, Frase supports as many as needed.
And if you want to make sure that your content gets results, this addon gets you 30 SERP-driven AI articles:
To get this on Surfer, it would cost $29/mo for the SERP add-on plus $19-$29 per article.
While the cheapest plan on Surfer ($89) gets you the bare minimum, paying less on Frase (e.g. Basic + Pro Add-On) gives you everything you’ll need to create impactful content.
The Verdict: Frase is the Best SurferSEO Alternative
Hopefully by now, you can see a better contrast between both platforms. Surfer puts more focus on technical SEO at the cost of more limited AI tools. Instead, Frase balances both of these with multi-channel AI content based on SERP research.
Both tools can rank your content on search, but will it actually stay on page 1 long term? This is only possible with research-based content that resonates with readers, which is what Frase does best.
Start your free trial here for research-based content that drives results!
