Yoast SEO vs RankMath: Features and Comparison

Yoast and RankMath are two of the best and most used WordPress SEO tools. They both have an extensice list of features that help you manage how Search Engines see your webpages and also give you excellent tips on how to best create your content. Their list of features includes but is not limited to:

• Managing your meta titles and descriptions
• Webpage Schema
• Keywords and Keyphrases tips
• Facebook and Twitter Title, Description and Image

While both Yoast and RankMath offer similar features they do differ in many ways. They both offer a free and paid version of their plugins, however the price difference for the premium versions is quite significant.

In order to find out which one you should choose and use for your website and use case we first need to highligth some important features that they both offer with their Free and Paid versions and which is ultimately better.

Yoast SEO Free and Paid Versions

Yoast’ SEO WordPress plugin is one of the most installed plugins on the market and offers an easy to use section on every page that is easy to edit and understand for novices.

Free Version

The free version of Yoast is a fairly powerful tool that helps you edit your Meta titles and Descriptions as well as adds webpage schema automatically to your webpage. However the Schema generator is fairly basic and does not offer many customisation options as compared to RankMath’s free version.

Paid Version

The paid version of Yoast SEO features two plans that are both charged and renewed yearly: £99 for their Premium Yoast SEO plugin and £229 for all 5 of their plugins. While the premium version doe offer improved content analysis and many more features it does lack in some areas such as Schema and Keyword tracking that RankMath offers. The premium options however do offer full access to the Yoast SEO academy that provides excellent tips and guides on how to improve your SEO strategy.

Personally I would recommend sticking with the Free version of Yoast if you are only just starting out and want an easy to use and navigate tool to manage your Meta Titles and give you tips on your content and keywords.

RankMath Free and Paid Versions

RankMath is a very powerful SEO tool that offers similar features to Yoast, however with many more customisations especially with the Paid version.

Free version

The free version of RankMath offers similar Meta title and Description editor as well as content analysis and a Redirect tool (Yoast also has a similar feature in its free version). However, RankMath schema generator is much more advanced and customisable than the free Yoast SEO offering. While it only offers 8 Schema types, it also offers the ability to customise them and add relevant fields to them.

Paid version

The RankMath paid version expands its features to include quite a lot more customisations of its Schema, keyword tracking, Email reports and also the ability to use the plugin on unlimited personal websites witht the Pro version and up to 100 client websites (often increases to 200 when on Sale) with the Business version. The Pro version is listed at $129 a year and the Business at $429, however both of these are generally always reduced to $59 and $199 yearly, making it a cheaper alternative to Yoast especially on the Pro version. RankMath’s features are excellent and can all help to improve your SEO, however you need to be careful as it is a fairly extensive tool and you need to be familiar with how to use it in order to leverage most of the offerings.

Verdict and personal preference

While both Yoast and RankMath offer similar features that aim to improve the SEO of your website they do differ in their offering and in price. If you are not willing to spend money on an SEO plugin or you are just starting out I would personally recommend Yoast SEO as it is much easier to use and it does do a lot for a free to use plugin. If you want a bit more customisation and are more advanced with your website SEO I would then go with RankMath as it does feature more customisations than Yoast in its Free version, while still offering the same features. If you are willing to pay for an SEO plugin and are confident with your SEO I would suggest going with the Pro RankMath offering as it is failry inexpensive when on sale and offers and extensive list of features (way too long to be listed in a blog post).

In Summary, I would personally advise the free Yoast SEO for any novice webmasters and the RankMath Pro version for any advanced webmasters.

Other tools to consider

AIOSEO is another honorable mention that can also be considered for your WordPress website and I would recommend taking a look into it to see if it is more to your liking. It also has a Free and Paid version.