After two years of fighting plugin bloat, we rebuilt SEO from scratch. Here’s what we learned.
TL;DR
Yoast is a fine plugin. It also ships 25 MB of code for the six features most sites actually use, locks the AI features behind a separate subscription, and has been a regular trigger for “site went down after update” tickets we’ve answered for clients.
We rebuilt it. The replacement is called Clarity SEO. It uses filter-only architecture (no JS injection, no admin bloat), shares one AI credit pool with five other PluginJoy plugins, and the free version on WordPress.org is not a 30-day trial in disguise.
What broke for us
We run an agency. Across roughly forty client sites we tracked the top sources of plugin-related bug reports for a quarter. Yoast accounted for 31% of them. Specific patterns:
- Yoast Premium and OxygenBuilder colliding on the front-end
- The metabox eating PHP 8.3 stable warnings into uncaught fatals
- “AI Optimize” tagging copy as AI-generated that the writer typed by hand
- Free-tier features getting moved into Premium with version 22.x
The last one was the trigger. We had clients on Yoast free who suddenly saw nag screens for tools they had been using for years.
What we wanted
Three constraints.
- Filter-only. We never want a SEO plugin to inject a single line of JavaScript into the front-end. No CLS hits, no third-party tracking, no admin scripts that break the editor.
- One AI credit pool across plugins. If we paid for AI rewrites once, that credit should also work for alt-text on images and meta descriptions on schemas.
- Free has to mean free. The core engine — scoring, sitemaps, schema generation, redirects, robots.txt management — has to ship in the WordPress.org free build forever. Not a trial. Not a teaser.
What we built
Clarity SEO is what came out. The free plugin on WordPress.org has the full scoring engine, sitemap, schema, redirects, AI Visibility Tracker (free tier monthly checks). The Pro version on PluginJoy adds AI rewrites, the shared credit pool with five other plugins, priority release access, and unlimited AI Visibility tracking.
We were not the first to think of any of this. RankMath ships a leaner UI than Yoast. SEOPress is filter-friendlier. But none of them solved the credit pool problem and most of them require a separate OpenAI key for the AI features. That is the gap we are filling.
What this looks like in practice
A site that used Yoast Premium plus the Smush Pro plus a custom alt-text script tied to OpenAI was paying about 240 euros a year and burning a Lighthouse score 8 points lower than the same site on Clarity SEO Pro plus MediaSpark Pro plus the 200-credit pool. The new setup costs 99 euros a year, takes one Stripe charge to provision, and the credits work across six plugins not just one.
That is the entire pitch.
A note on tone
We are not interested in “Yoast is bad” content. The Yoast team built one of the most important plugins in WordPress history and our agency would not exist without the foundation they laid. The reason we are writing this post is that the WordPress ecosystem in 2026 has different requirements than the WordPress ecosystem in 2018. The AI search era rewards plugins that are small, fast, and shareable across an AI credit budget.
Our wager is that filter-only architecture plus a shared credit pool is the next default. Clarity SEO is our bet on that.
Two ways to try Clarity SEO
- Free on WordPress.org. Search “Clarity SEO” in your wp-admin Plugins screen. Five-minute install, full scoring engine.
- Pro at €9.95/mo on PluginJoy. Includes 50 monthly AI credits that pool with the other five PluginJoy plugins. 30-day refund, no questions.
Or read the Clarity SEO Pro vs Yoast comparison, browse our credit packs, or join the affiliate program.