I paid £159 to begin a monthly subscription on the Standard package on July 25, which has a limit of 500 'Reports'. It never occurred to me - and nor should it have - that simply adding/removing filters from the same report or sorting that data will result in the use of credits. Yes, Ahrefs will effectively sanction you for reordering the same data! I used several dozen credits just manipulating a single search query, and inside two hours just looking around the Keyword Explorer tool I used 1/5 of my allocated monthly reports. According to Ahrefs it's necessary to take credits for sorting the data because it could show results outside of the scope of my package's 'max rows' allowance. Except none of the queries I ran returned more than a few hundred rows - and presumably their platform is unable to determine that and use credits accordingly. This information is linked to off the pricing page, which I missed, but calling these clicks 'Reports' is a total misrepresentation of what you're paying £159/mo for.This credit model as implemented by Ahrefs effectively charges you to click your mouse button and is anxiety inducing, because you soon begin to wonder where it's safe to click and whether you're going to have enough reports left to work on projects for other clients. I can imagine many opportunities are being missed because people are reluctant to interrogate the data that Ahrefs is supposedly offering access to. Apparently this model is better for "light users", but which "light user" pays close to £2000 a year for software that's so limited?I asked for a refund and was told that Ahrefs had a no-refund policy where the account showed evidence of use. Of course I used it, it was the only way I discovered that I was about to use my monthly allocation of reports inside a day! In the end they agreed a pro-rata refund as a "gesture of goodwill" because the "pay as you go pricing didn't work for [me]".You're right, it didn't work for me. It didn't work for me because it was the only time I've ever felt that I was being scammed by a SaaS platform, and it came as no surprise to see that many other people feel similarly deceived.
