Yoast SEO vs RankMath on WordPress
Written by Jessica Freeman, Web Designer and SEO Strategist since 2011 • Post Last Updated September 2026
I ran Yoast on my own sites for about five years, then moved everything to Rank Math. Rank Math costs less per year, gives away features Yoast keeps behind Premium, and runs on roughly a third of the file size.
Here’s my personal account of why I moved from Yoast to Rank Math, and why you might consider doing the same. You can check out RankMath Pro here: https://rankmath.com/?ref=jess2 (affiliate link)
What does a WordPress SEO plugin actually do?
An SEO plugin handles your title tags, meta descriptions, sitemaps, schema, and redirects, then grades your content against a checklist. It does not put you in Google’s results.
That distinction matters more than it sounds, because a lot of people install one, see a row of green dots, and assume the work is done. The plugin sets the table. What you rank for still comes down to what you publish, who links to you, and whether the page answers the question somebody typed.
If you would rather hand that part off, I do keyword research and SEO for health and wellness practices, and I am happy to take a look at your site.
Side note: I can also give you the keywords and do your SEO for your site. So, if you want to start getting more leads, let’s work on your SEO.
Why did I switch from Yoast to Rank Math?
Three reasons: Rank Math ships features free that Yoast sells as Premium, it runs on a smaller codebase, and one PRO license covers every site I own instead of one site per license.
Yoast is not a bad plugin. I used it for five or six years without much complaint, and its readability analysis is still the better of the two if you want a plugin nudging you about passive voice and long paragraphs. Rank Math simply does more of what I need without an upgrade prompt attached.
How do Yoast SEO and Rank Math compare on price, size, schema, and keywords?
| Yoast SEO | Rank Math | |
|---|---|---|
| Free version | $0 | $0 |
| Paid, first year | $118.80/yr (ex VAT) | $95.88/yr (ex VAT), billed annually at $7.99/mo |
| Paid, at renewal | $118.80/yr | $107.88/yr |
| Sites per license | 1 site per subscription | Unlimited personal sites (client sites need the Business plan) |
| Focus keywords, free | 1 keyphrase per page | 5 per page |
| Focus keywords, paid | Up to 5 keyphrases per page | Unlimited |
| Plugin folder size | 32.4 MB | 11.8 MB |
| Lines of code | 97.1k | 61.1k |
| Memory added | +1.62 MB | +0.35 MB |
| Page load impact | +0.18s | +0.01s |
| Schema, free | Automatic schema graph covering article, page, organization, and breadcrumbs | 18 prebuilt types plus 193 local business types |
| Schema, paid | Schema aggregation into one deduplicated graph, plus AI bot blocking | Custom schema builder, 6 extra types, import schema from any URL, 840+ types supported |
| Redirect manager | Premium only | Free |
A caveat on the size and speed rows, because I would want one: those four figures are Rank Math’s own published benchmark, and they compare Rank Math Free plus PRO plus Content AI against Yoast Free plus Premium plus the Local, WooCommerce, Video, and News SEO add-ons. It is a vendor comparing itself to a competitor, so read it as directional. Independent testing at WP Hive landed in the same place, clocking Rank Math around 354 KB of average memory use against roughly 1,500 KB for Yoast.
How many focus keywords can you set on one post?
Rank Math free gives you five focus keywords per post and PRO removes the cap. Yoast free gives you one keyphrase, and Yoast Premium raises that to five.
For most practice websites, one keyword per page is too tight. A post about pelvic floor therapy after birth is also the post that should show up for postpartum physical therapy and for diastasis recti treatment near you. With Yoast free you pick one of those and hope the other two come along for the ride. With Rank Math you can check the page against all three before you hit publish.
Which costs more per year, Yoast Premium or Rank Math PRO?
Yoast SEO Premium is $118.80 per year, excluding tax, for one site. Rank Math PRO is $95.88 for the first year and $107.88 at renewal, and it covers unlimited sites you personally own.
At one site, the gap is about eleven dollars, which is not a reason to switch anything. The gap opens up when you own more than one domain. Three sites on Yoast Premium is $356.40 a year before bulk discounts, while Rank Math PRO stays at $107.88 no matter how many of your own sites you install it on.
Two things keep this fair. Yoast Premium now includes the Local SEO, Video SEO, and News SEO plugins that used to run $79 each, so the price bought you more than it did a year ago. And Rank Math’s personal license genuinely means personal: client sites need the Business plan at €24.99 a month, so if you build sites for other people, the cheap tier is not the one you are buying.
Does either plugin slow your site down?
Rank Math is the lighter of the two. Its plugin folder is 11.8 MB against Yoast’s 32.4 MB, and its published testing shows +0.01 seconds of page load impact versus +0.18 seconds for Yoast.
As a designer I care about this, but I want to keep it in proportion. A fifth of a second is real, and it compounds on cheap shared hosting where every plugin is fighting for the same memory. It is also smaller than what you would gain by moving off a bargain host or by fixing the 4 MB hero image on your homepage. Pick the lighter plugin, then go deal with your images.
What are the downsides of Rank Math?
Content AI is a separate credit-based subscription on top of PRO, and the settings that matter most sit behind module toggles that new users never find.
A correction to my earlier version of this post, since software moves: I used to say Rank Math would not create a redirect when you change a URL. That is no longer accurate. Rank Math has an Auto Post Redirect setting in the free Redirections module that covers posts, pages, taxonomies, and custom post types. The catch is that the module has to be switched on in Advanced Mode first, and the setting itself is not on out of the box, so plenty of people assume the feature does not exist. Changing your whole permalink structure still needs a regex rule you write yourself.
The dashboard is also busy. Rank Math is modular, which is why it stays light, but it means a wall of toggles on day one. Yoast’s setup wizard is kinder to somebody who has never touched SEO before.
Which plugin is nicer to use?
Rank Math’s interface looks more current to me, and that is a preference rather than a performance claim, so weight it accordingly.
Yoast’s editor sidebar is calmer and its writing feedback is more encouraging, which is a real advantage if the person maintaining the site is a practitioner who does not want a second job. Rank Math gives you more dials and expects you to know which ones you want.
How do you switch from Yoast to Rank Math without losing your SEO data?
Rank Math imports your Yoast data during its setup wizard in one click. Titles, meta descriptions, focus keywords, redirects, and robots settings all carry over, whether you have twelve posts or twelve hundred.
Back up the site first, run the import, then spot-check ten pages against what Google currently shows for them. Once the metadata looks right, deactivate Yoast and delete it. Leaving both plugins active is how you end up with duplicate meta tags in your source code.
Should you switch from Yoast to Rank Math?
Switch if you want redirects, schema, and multiple focus keywords without paying for them, or if you own more than one website. Stay on Yoast if the readability coaching is what keeps you writing, or if you are already paying for Premium and using the Local and Video add-ons that come with it.
For me it came down to owning several sites and not wanting to buy a license for each one. Five years in, I have not thought about Yoast since the import finished.
If you want the keyword research and the on-page work handled rather than the plugin choice agonized over, that is what I do for health and wellness practices. Get in touch and we will look at your site together.
