Most rank trackers operate on a freemium or trial model. You can find free versions, but they come with serious limitations that matter once you're tracking more than a handful of keywords. Free plans typically restrict you to 10–25 keywords, daily or weekly update frequencies instead of on-demand checks, and minimal historical data. Tools like Google Search Console are completely free and show your actual rankings, but only for your own site and without competitor comparison. Paid rank trackers start around $30–$50 CAD monthly for solo consultants tracking 100–500 keywords. Mid-tier plans run $100–$300 monthly for agencies monitoring multiple clients with 1,000–5,000 keywords. Enterprise tools can exceed $500 monthly when you need API access, white-label reports, or tens of thousands of tracked terms. The pricing scales with keyword count, update frequency, and number of competitors tracked. Free tools worth considering include Google Search Console for owned properties, limited free tiers from SEMrush or Ahrefs during trials, and open-source scrapers if you're technical. The tradeoff is manual work, data gaps, or feature restrictions that make client reporting impractical. At Ottawa SEO, we run paid subscriptions because client deliverables require reliable daily tracking, historical trend charts, and local versus national ranking splits that free tools simply don't provide consistently. Decide based on scale. If you're tracking your own site with under 20 focus keywords, a free tool or Search Console might suffice. Once you're managing multiple domains, need competitor benchmarking, or require automated reporting for clients, budget for a paid platform. Free tools cost you time in manual checks and incomplete data, which quickly outweighs the subscription fee if SEO is central to your revenue.