Key Takeaways
What is Frase? Frase is an AI-powered content optimization and writing platform that analyzes top-ranking pages to help marketers create search-optimized content that competes effectively in search results.
- 🔍 Significantly reduces research time by automatically analyzing SERP results to build comprehensive briefs and outlines
- 📊 Provides real-time optimization scoring to guide content improvements based on competitor analysis
- 🤖 Offers AI writing capabilities from full articles to targeted sections, though quality varies and requires human editing
- 🔄 Creates an integrated workflow combining research, outlining, writing and optimization in one platform
- ⚙️ Integrates with WordPress, Google Docs, and Google Search Console for streamlined publishing
- 💰 Pricing structure requires most users to purchase both a base plan ($44.99/month) plus the $35/month Pro Add-on for unlimited AI words
- ⚠️ AI content can be generic and repetitive, requiring substantial human editing before publication
This review covers: features, integrations, customization, hosting, pricing, pros and cons, and real-world use cases.
What is Frase?
Frase is an AI-powered content optimization and writing platform that helps users research, write, and optimize content for search engines. It analyzes the top-ranking pages for any keyword to provide detailed guidance on creating competitive content that can rank higher in search results.
Use Cases
Frase serves multiple user types with specific applications tailored to their needs:
👩💻 For Content Marketers:
- Create data-driven content briefs in minutes rather than hours
- Identify topic gaps in existing content that prevent ranking
- Generate optimized drafts that address search intent
- Build comprehensive outlines based on competitor analysis
- Convert outlines to full drafts with AI assistance
🔍 For SEO Professionals:
- Analyze top-performing content for any target keyword
- Identify essential topics and keywords needed to compete in SERPs
- Compare client content against top-ranking competitors
- Monitor content performance and identify refresh opportunities
- Optimize existing content with targeted recommendations
🏢 For Marketing Agencies:
- Scale content production across multiple clients
- Standardize content quality with repeatable processes
- Create consistent content briefs for freelancers
- Track content performance across client portfolios
- Simplify collaboration with team members and clients
👥 For In-House Teams:
- Streamline content workflows from research to publication
- Maintain consistent content quality across departments
- Reduce dependence on specialized SEO knowledge
- Accelerate content creation process
- Organize content projects by topic clusters or campaigns
Core Content Optimization Features
🎯 Topic Score Functionality Frase’s proprietary topic modeling system analyzes top search results and provides real-time feedback on how well your content covers essential topics compared to competitors, using a percentage-based scale that updates as you write.
📋 Topic Coverage Approach Rather than focusing on simple keyword density, Frase organizes suggested keywords into topical clusters, helping writers understand concept relationships and ensure comprehensive subject coverage.
📊 Keyword Recommendation System The platform displays recommended usage frequency for each term based on competitor analysis, helping users prioritize important terms while avoiding unnatural over-optimization.
🔄 Content Reoptimization Frase offers a powerful feature for existing content, allowing you to import from a URL and receive immediate improvement suggestions—ideal for refreshing underperforming articles.
⚡ Integrated Workflow Value What sets Frase apart is placing optimization recommendations directly alongside the content editor, eliminating tool-switching and creating a seamless optimization workflow that saves significant time.
Content Research Capabilities
🔎 SERP Analysis Depth Frase instantly analyzes the top 20 Google results for any keyword, extracting competitive insights that would typically take hours to compile manually.
📑 Competitor Structure Analysis The SERP analysis breaks down each competitor’s content structure, including heading structure, word count, domain authority, meta elements, and common topics.
❓ Question Identification The “People Also Ask” feature pulls questions directly from Google’s search results, helping identify specific queries your audience is asking—invaluable for comprehensive content creation.
👀 Direct Competitor Visibility Frase allows you to directly view and compare the exact content structure of top-ranking pages, helping identify patterns that contribute to high rankings.
🔗 Link Suggestion Tool The platform analyzes common external links used by top-ranking pages, providing recommendations for authoritative sources to cite in your content.
📈 SERP Visualization Frase offers graph-format visualization tools that display key metrics across top-ranking content, making it easier to identify trends in factors like word count and topic coverage.
📱 Google Search Console Integration For connected users, Frase provides additional analytics that identify ranking opportunities, decaying content, and keyword gaps to address, helping prioritize content efforts.
AI Content Generation and Quality
🤖 AI Writing Options Available Frase offers multiple AI writing capabilities, leveraging OpenAI’s GPT-3 for content generation at various levels, from full articles to section-specific content.
📝 Generation Approaches Include:
- Full article generation through the AI Article Wizard (requires Pro Add-on)
- Section-by-section generation based on headings
- Paragraph expansion and enhancement
- Content rewriting at sentence or paragraph level
- Transition insertion between paragraphs
- Custom AI templates for specific content types
⚠️ Output Quality Assessment Quality varies considerably depending on the approach. Full articles tend to be comprehensive but often generic, while section-based generation performs better with specific guidance.
🔄 Rewriting Capabilities Frase’s rewriting functions help refresh existing content but maintain varying similarity to original text. Some users report plagiarism concerns, with testing showing potential rates up to 14% according to some detection tools.
📋 Template Variety The platform includes over 30 native AI templates for various content types (how-to posts, listicles, product descriptions), plus over 100 community-created templates for specialized use cases.
✍️ Content Continuation The “Continue Writing” feature has inconsistent results, sometimes producing content that doesn’t logically follow from preceding text or creates entirely new sections.
👨💻 Human Editing Requirement While Frase’s AI capabilities speed up content creation, output typically requires human editing before publication. The AI performs best as an assistant rather than a replacement for human writers.
User Interface and Ease of Use
🖥️ Interface Design Approach Frase’s interface is designed to streamline content creation with an intuitive layout that combines research, writing, and optimization in a single workspace, recently improved with a 2.0 update.
📝 Editor Familiarity The main content editor resembles Google Docs or Microsoft Word, featuring standard formatting options in a clean design that minimizes distractions.
🧩 Tool Organization The right sidebar houses core research and optimization tools in organized tabs: SERP (competitor analysis), Outline (structure building), Links (linking opportunities), and Optimize (scoring and recommendations).
🔄 Workflow Navigation Navigation follows a logical progression mirroring the content creation process, from selecting a target keyword through research, writing, and optimization—all within the same interface.
🏁 Starting Points Frase offers three content creation starting points: SEO Workflow (keyword analysis), Blank Document (writing from scratch), and AI Article Wizard (automated generation).
📋 Outline Building Process The outline building process is particularly user-friendly, with one-click addition of competitor headings and drag-and-drop reorganization functionality.
⚠️ Technical Limitations The platform occasionally experiences minor technical issues like screen flickering or AI tools becoming stuck in progress mode, which can interrupt workflow.
📚 Learning Curve Assessment Frase offers a relatively shallow learning curve for basic functionality, with a comprehensive crash course to help users quickly become proficient.
Collaboration and Workflow Management
🔄 Document Sharing Approach Frase enables straightforward collaboration through a share button that generates links to documents or content briefs that can be distributed to team members.
📁 Content Organization System The platform organizes projects in a document management system with folder categorization by client, campaign, or topic cluster, helping larger teams maintain order.
👥 Team Assignment Features For agencies with multiple clients, Frase enables content assignments to specific team members, with the Team plan supporting three user seats and options to purchase additional seats.
🔄 Workflow Design Philosophy Workflow management benefits from Frase’s process-oriented design, which guides users through a logical sequence from research to optimization and supports common content workflows.
📤 Export Options Available Export options include PDF, HTML, and clipboard copying, though the lack of DOCX export capability is a limitation for teams working with Microsoft Word.
📊 Content Analytics for Teams The Content Analytics feature helps teams prioritize efforts by identifying content needing refreshing, ranking opportunities, and keyword gaps to address.
🔌 Publishing Integration WordPress integration allows for direct publishing from Frase, streamlining the final workflow stage and eliminating copy-paste needs.
⚠️ Project Management Limitations While Frase offers solid collaboration features, they focus more on content creation than project management, potentially requiring supplementation with dedicated tools.
Customization and Flexibility
🛠️ Custom AI Tools Capability Frase’s most powerful customization feature allows users to build their own AI tools tailored to specific use cases, from simple generators to complex content creation systems.
📝 Template Saving and Reuse Organizations with established content standards can save and reuse custom AI prompts, ensuring consistency across writers and projects.
📋 Brief Customization Options Content brief customization allows users to select which elements to include: recommended titles, questions, meta elements, outlines, and topics.
📑 Outline Flexibility The outline builder offers drag-and-drop reorganization and heading level conversion, allowing easy restructuring to match preferred content flow.
🔍 SEO Customization Controls For SEO, users can select specific competitors to analyze, prioritize keywords, set custom optimization targets, and focus on specific content elements.
📁 Organization Structures The document organization system enables customized folder hierarchies arranged by client, project type, or topical clusters to match operational needs.
⚠️ Customization Limitations The AI writer’s tone and style options are more limited than some dedicated platforms, with no way to save multiple brand voices or style guides.
🔌 Workflow Integration For existing workflow integration, Frase connects with WordPress and Google Docs, though options beyond these platforms are currently limited.
Integration with Third-Party Tools
🔌 WordPress Connection Value The WordPress integration is particularly valuable, allowing users to publish content directly from Frase to WordPress sites with maintained formatting integrity.
📝 Google Docs Integration Google Docs integration brings Frase’s AI writing and optimization capabilities into the Google environment, allowing users to leverage features without platform switching.
🔍 Google Search Console Benefits GSC integration provides significant value by pulling performance data to provide analytics on content rankings, impressions, clicks, and opportunities.
🧩 Browser Extension Access Frase offers a browser extension making its research and writing capabilities available across the web, adding workflow flexibility.
⚡ API Availability For developers and larger organizations, an API Add-on ($40/month) enables access to SERP and URL processing for custom integration with other tools.
⚠️ Integration Ecosystem Gaps Notable limitations include no direct integration with major SEO tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush, limited CMS options beyond WordPress, and no connections to project management tools.
🔄 Comparative Integration Assessment Compared to competitors, Frase’s integration capabilities are adequate but not exceptional, focusing on core content workflow connections rather than comprehensive marketing tool integration.
Reporting and Analytics
📊 Google Search Console Analytics The GSC Content Analytics tool forms the cornerstone of Frase’s reporting capabilities, pulling data and organizing it into actionable insights about content performance.
📑 Content Status Categories What makes this integration particularly useful is how Frase categorizes pages by status—decaying content, opportunities, untapped potential, and top performers.
🎯 Real-time Optimization Scoring For individual content pieces, Frase provides real-time topic scoring that compares your content against top competitors, giving percentage-based assessment of topic coverage.
🔍 Topic Gap Visualization The Topic Explorer shows how frequently specific keywords appear in competitor content compared to yours, helping identify specific gaps to address.
📈 SERP Data Visualization Visualization tools display metrics like word count, topic score, and domain rating for top-ranking pages, helping identify patterns that contribute to rankings.
⚠️ Analytics Focus Limitation Frase’s analytics focus primarily on content optimization rather than broader marketing metrics, lacking conversion tracking, engagement metrics, or ROI calculations.
🔄 Practical Insight Orientation Overall, the reporting features provide targeted insights that directly support content optimization and strategy development rather than extensive general marketing analytics.
Support and Learning Resources
🎓 Frase Crash Course Value The flagship educational resource is a comprehensive pre-recorded video training that walks users through every feature in detail, efficiently onboarding new users.
📚 Self-service Learning Options Beyond the crash course, Frase offers Help Center documentation, tutorial videos, and blog posts explaining optimization strategies and platform updates.
🏆 Certification Program The Frase Certified Expert program provides official recognition of platform expertise and certain perks to certified users.
📧 Email Support Experience Direct support is provided through email, with mixed user feedback regarding responsiveness, particularly for billing-related inquiries.
👥 Team Support Differences Team and Enterprise plans likely offer enhanced support options, though specific details about these premium services aren’t clearly outlined.
⚠️ Support Channel Limitations The platform doesn’t appear to offer live chat or phone support options, which could be limiting for users experiencing urgent issues.
📖 Documentation Depth Issues Documentation quality appears comprehensive but sometimes lacks depth on advanced features like custom AI template creation.
Pricing and Value
💰 Tiered Pricing Structure Frase offers multiple plans from a free trial to team options:
- Free Trial: 1 document, 1 query, 5,000 AI words, no credit card
- Solo Plan: $14.99/month ($12.66 annually), 1 user, 10 articles/month, 4,000 AI words
- Basic Plan: $44.99/month ($38.25 annually), 1 user, 30 articles/month, 4,000 AI words
- Team Plan: $114.99/month, 3 users, unlimited articles, 4,000 AI words
- Pro Add-On: $35/month for unlimited AI words, keyword search volumes, SERP data, AI Article Wizard
⚠️ Pro Add-On Necessity The 4,000 AI word limit on all plans makes the Pro Add-On essential for users leveraging AI writing extensively, increasing the effective price significantly.
🔍 Competitive Price Positioning Frase is less expensive than MarketMuse ($149+/month) and Surfer SEO ($219+/month for AI), but costlier than entry-level AI writing tools without SEO capabilities.
👥 User-Specific Value Assessment Value varies by user type: content marketers focused on research may find the Basic plan sufficient, while agencies need the Team plan with Pro Add-On for optimal scaling.
👤 Small Business Value Concerns Solo bloggers or small businesses may find the Solo plan limiting with its 10-article cap and minimal AI word allowance.
⚠️ Pricing Structure Perception Some users report finding the pricing structure somewhat misleading regarding the Pro Add-On being presented as optional when it’s essentially required for AI writing functionality.
Summary
- 🔑 Frase excels primarily as a research and optimization platform, with AI writing best viewed as a helpful assistant rather than a complete content solution
- ⚙️ The platform’s most valuable feature is its ability to analyze top-ranking content and provide clear guidance on creating competitive content
- 💡 Content teams and agencies with established editing resources gain the most value by using Frase to scale production while maintaining SEO quality
- ✅ The integrated workflow combining research, writing, and optimization creates efficiencies that standalone tools cannot match
- ❌ The separation of unlimited AI words into a separate Pro Add-On effectively increases the entry price significantly above advertised rates
- ✅ Dramatically reduces research time through automated SERP analysis
- ✅ Combines research, writing, optimization, and analytics in a single interface
- ✅ Provides clean, familiar editor with integrated AI assistance
- ✅ Offers clear, actionable optimization guidance through topic scoring
- ✅ Includes flexible AI writing options for different content needs
- ✅ Features customizable templates and AI tool builder for specialized needs
- ✅ Integrates with WordPress, Google Docs, and Google Search Console
- ❌ AI content typically requires substantial editing to reach publication quality
- ❌ Pro Add-On requirement significantly increases effective pricing
- ❌ Lacks comprehensive keyword research tools in base plans
- ❌ Occasional UI glitches can interrupt workflow
- ❌ Customer support responsiveness issues reported by some users
- ❌ Limited integration options beyond core tools
- ❌ Generated content briefs often require manual refinement
Frequently Asked Questions
How accurate is Frase’s topic scoring system for SEO?
Frase’s topic scoring system analyzes top-ranking pages to identify common topics and keywords, providing data-driven optimization guidance. The system focuses on comprehensive topic coverage rather than keyword density, aligning with modern search algorithms. While no tool can guarantee rankings, this approach of analyzing actual ranking content creates a solid foundation. Remember that scores are relative to analyzed competitors and should be considered guidance rather than guarantees.
Can Frase completely replace human writers?
No, Frase cannot completely replace human writers. While its AI can generate drafts and assist with specific sections, the output typically requires human editing for tone, style, factual accuracy, and originality. Frase works best as a writing assistant that helps with research, generates starting points, and overcomes writer’s block—but human expertise and creativity remain essential for producing truly high-quality content that engages readers and builds brand authority.
How does Frase compare to other AI writing tools like Jasper or Copy.ai?
Frase differs from dedicated AI writing tools by combining writing capabilities with comprehensive SEO research and optimization. While some users report that tools like Jasper may produce more creative output, Frase integrates writing with SEO guidance in a single workflow. Frase excels at research-based content creation where search performance is a priority, while dedicated writing tools may offer more flexibility for creative writing, marketing copy, or non-SEO content. The choice depends on whether optimization or pure writing capability is your primary need.
Do I need technical SEO knowledge to use Frase effectively?
Basic SEO knowledge is helpful but not required to use Frase effectively. The platform makes SEO accessible by providing clear guidance based on competitor analysis and handling the technical aspects of analyzing top-ranking content. Frase presents recommendations in straightforward terms like “mention this term X times.” However, users with SEO experience will better understand how to interpret the data and make strategic decisions beyond the automated recommendations, potentially achieving better results.
Is Frase suitable for non-English content?
Yes, Frase supports multiple languages for content optimization and generation, including English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, and many others. The platform can analyze SERPs in various languages and provide topic recommendations based on those results. However, the quality and accuracy of AI-generated content may vary across languages, with English likely receiving the most development attention and providing the best results.
How frequently does Frase update its SERP analysis data?
Frase performs fresh SERP analysis each time you create a new document for a target keyword, ensuring you’re always working with current competitor data. For existing documents, you can manually refresh the SERP analysis to capture any changes in the search landscape. This approach ensures optimization recommendations reflect the current competitive environment rather than potentially outdated historical data.
What happens if I exceed my plan’s document or word limits?
If you reach your plan’s document limit, you won’t be able to create additional documents until the next billing cycle or until you upgrade. For AI word limits, once you’ve used your monthly allocation (4,000 words on standard plans), you’ll need to purchase the Pro Add-On ($35/month) for continued AI content generation. Frase doesn’t offer overage charges or one-time purchases for additional capacity, so planning usage or upgrading preemptively is important for teams with variable content needs.
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