Frase vs Machined in 2026: content operating system vs bring-your-own-key cluster automation
Frase runs research, writing, GEO scoring, and ranking decay monitoring in one subscription starting at $39/month. Machined automates full content clusters in under two hours using a bring-your-own-key model that keeps generation costs near $38 for 30 articles.
Frase
Machined- Machined generates a full cluster of 30-plus interlinked articles, including keyword research and internal linking, in under two hours. Frase is built around ongoing single-article and topic-cluster planning rather than one-shot cluster automation.
- Machined uses bring-your-own-key (BYOK) pricing: you connect your own AI API key and pay generation costs separately from the $19-to-$249/month platform subscription. Frase bundles generation cost into its plan price.
- Frase tracks AI visibility across ChatGPT, Google AI, and Perplexity depending on plan, and Content Guard monitors live pages for ranking decay. Machined has neither capability.
- Machined has a free plan (5 articles/month) and a 3-day trial with full Launch-plan access. Frase has no free plan, only a 7-day trial.
- Machined's anti-cannibalization clustering groups keywords by search intent automatically so multiple articles never compete for the same query. Frase's topic clusters are planning tools you build manually with AI-suggested subtopics.
- Machined supports 100-plus languages for generation. Frase does not publish a specific language count for its content generation.
- Both tools publish directly to WordPress and Webflow. Frase adds Sanity and Wix; Machined adds general webhook support for Zapier and Make.
Frase and Machined both aim to compress a multi-step content workflow into one platform, but they compress different workflows. Frase covers the whole lifecycle for a single team producing ongoing content: research, brand-voice drafting, SEO and GEO scoring, AI visibility tracking, and Content Guard, which catches ranking decay after publish. Machined is built specifically for cluster production: enter a topic, and it runs keyword research, anti-cannibalization clustering, article generation with citations, internal linking, and CMS publishing in under two hours. Machined's bring-your-own-key pricing means you connect your own AI API key and pay generation costs directly, which is why 30 articles can cost roughly $38 in API spend on top of a $19-per-month platform fee. Frase has no equivalent BYOK option and no cluster-specific workflow; Machined has no AI visibility tracking or ranking decay monitoring after publish.
The tools at a glance
Frase
Content operating system that runs the full SEO and GEO loop for in-house teams and agencies
Frase treats content as an ongoing loop rather than a batch job. Research, brand-voice drafting through an AI agent that learns your writing style, SEO and GEO scoring, and CMS publishing all happen inside one workflow, and Content Guard keeps watching after publish, flagging ranking decay and drafting a fix for your review.
AI visibility tracking is built in: Starter tracks ChatGPT and Google AI, Professional adds Perplexity, and Scale adds AI crawler monitoring on top. That makes Frase one of the few tools in this category actively measuring whether your content gets cited in AI answers, not just whether it ranks organically.
The trade-off against Machined is cost per article and batch speed. Frase's Starter plan caps you at 10 articles a month for $39, with no bring-your-own-key option to lower per-article cost. There is also no dedicated cluster-generation workflow; topic clusters in Frase are a planning and gap-identification tool, not a one-click batch generator.
| Feature | Starter $39/mo (annual) | Professional $103/mo (annual) | Scale $239/mo (annual) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Articles per month | 10 | 40 | 150 |
| Content Guard (pages watched) | 3 | 15 | 50 |
| AI visibility tracking | ChatGPT, Google AI | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI | All + AI crawler monitoring |
| Content calendar and internal linking | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
Machined
Automates the full SEO content cluster workflow from keyword research and clustering to article generation, internal linking, and CMS publishing in under two hours
Machined collapses the entire content cluster workflow, keyword research, intent-based clustering, article generation with citations, internal linking, and CMS publishing, into a single automated process. What typically takes a five-tool, multi-day workflow finishes in under two hours from a single topic and audience input.
The anti-cannibalization clustering is the technical core: keywords sharing the same search intent get grouped into one article instead of spread across competing pages, and every article in the resulting cluster is automatically interlinked with keyword-optimized anchor text.
Pricing runs on a bring-your-own-key model: you connect your own OpenAI or similar API key, pay your provider directly for generation (about $38 for 30 articles), and pay Machined separately for the workflow subscription starting at $19 per month. This keeps effective cost per article very low, though it does mean managing an API key yourself, and there is no AI visibility tracking or post-publish ranking monitoring built in.
| Feature | Free $0/mo | Launch $19/mo | Growth $49/mo | Pro $99/mo | Scale $249/mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Articles per month | 5 | 30 | 100 | 250 | 750 |
| Content clusters | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Projects (websites) | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Deep research | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Head-to-head feature comparison
| Feature | Frase | Machined |
|---|---|---|
| Core workflow | Ongoing research, writing, and monitoring loop | One-shot content cluster automation |
| Anti-cannibalization keyword clustering | No (manual topic cluster planning) | Yes |
| Automatic internal linking | Yes (Professional plan and up) | Yes (all paid tiers) |
| AI visibility / GEO tracking | Yes (ChatGPT, Google AI, adds Perplexity on Professional) | No |
| Ranking decay monitoring | Yes (Content Guard, 3 to 50 pages by plan) | No |
| Pricing model | Bundled subscription | BYOK, platform fee plus your own API cost |
| Free trial / free plan | 7-day trial, no free plan | Free plan (5 articles/mo) and 3-day trial |
| CMS publishing integrations | WordPress, Webflow, Sanity, Wix | WordPress, Webflow, webhook (Zapier, Make) |
| Languages supported | Not specified | 100+ |
| Projects / sites on entry paid plan | 1 site (Starter) | Unlimited (Launch plan and up) |
| Agency multi-client support | Yes (Scale plan, 8 seats, unlimited sites) | Yes (unlimited projects, no per-seat pricing) |
| Starting price | $39/mo | $19/mo |
Considering AI Peekaboo alongside Frase and Machined?
Frase bundles AI visibility tracking inside a much larger content platform, and Machined does not track AI search visibility at all. Neither offers white-label client reporting, and neither is built to report on AI citation performance as a standalone deliverable. AI Peekaboo ships a read and write API on every plan from $50 per month, plus white-label reports and a Looker Studio connector. It fits teams that already generate content through Frase or Machined and need a dedicated, programmatic way to track and report AI visibility separately from production.
Read the AI Peekaboo review →Which should you choose?
FraseMachinedMachinedFraseMachinedMachinedFrase and Machined solve adjacent but distinct problems. Frase is the tool you keep running indefinitely: it drafts, scores, publishes, and then keeps watching for decay and AI visibility shifts. Machined is the tool you point at a new topic and let finish a whole cluster in two hours, then move on. If your content operation needs continuous monitoring, Frase's subscription price is buying that ongoing layer. If you need volume and speed at the lowest possible cost per article, Machined's BYOK model and cluster automation get you there faster and cheaper, with the trade-off that nothing watches the content after it goes live.
Bottom line
Pick Frase if AI visibility tracking and ranking decay monitoring matter to your content strategy and you are running one primary site or a small portfolio. Pick Machined if you need to stand up topical-authority clusters across multiple sites quickly and cheaply, and do not mind managing your own API key to get there.
Frequently asked questions
Is Machined cheaper than Frase for producing content at volume?
Yes, for raw volume. Machined's bring-your-own-key model puts generation cost at roughly $38 for 30 articles on top of a $19-per-month Launch plan, while Frase's comparable Starter plan caps you at 10 articles for $39 per month with generation cost bundled in. Machined is the cheaper option per article at scale.
Does Machined track AI visibility the way Frase does?
No. Machined has no AI visibility tracking feature. Frase tracks ChatGPT and Google AI on its Starter plan and adds Perplexity on Professional, making it the only one of these two tools that monitors AI search citation.
What does bring-your-own-key (BYOK) mean for Machined pricing?
BYOK means you connect your own OpenAI or similar API key to Machined and pay your AI provider directly for generation costs, separate from the platform subscription. This keeps per-article cost very low but requires managing your own API key and billing relationship with the model provider.
Can Machined replace Frase's Content Guard feature?
No. Content Guard is specific to Frase and monitors live pages for Google ranking drops and AI answer changes, then drafts a fix for approval. Machined has no equivalent post-publish monitoring; once a cluster is generated and published, tracking its performance is left to a separate tool.
Which tool is better for a multilingual content program?
Machined is the stronger fit, supporting 100-plus languages for content generation. Frase does not publish a specific language count for its generation capability, so for a program producing content across many languages at volume, Machined is the safer choice.