Review
Semrush review: who it is overkill for
The most complete SEO toolkit on the market, priced for agencies and in-house teams, and routinely bought by people who needed about a tenth of it.
Best for: Agencies and marketing teams tracking several sites, where the subscription is a cost of doing the work
From $139 a month, or $117.33 a month billed yearly See Semrush pricing
There is no real argument about whether Semrush is good. It is the broadest SEO platform you can buy, and for people who use it daily it earns its keep. The argument worth having is about who should be paying for it. The entry plan is $139 a month — more than most people spend on every other tool combined — and the pricing assumes you are managing multiple sites, tracking hundreds of keywords, and billing someone for the work. If that describes you, skip the rest of this and go and look at the feature list. If it does not, the interesting question is which cheaper thing does the one job you actually came for.
Who this is for
- Agencies and consultants managing several client sites, where 5 to 40 monitored websites is a real requirement rather than a nice number
- In-house marketing teams who will use position tracking and site audits weekly and can justify the line item
- Anyone running a single site casually — this is almost certainly the wrong tool, and the free plan plus a cheaper alternative will cover it
Pricing
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 1 demo project, 10 reports a day, basic AI visibility features. No card required. Enough to look up a handful of keywords, not enough to run a site on. |
| SEO — monthly | $139 | 5 websites monitored, 500 keywords tracked daily, keyword research and competitor analysis, position tracking, site audit, AI search performance tracking and sentiment monitoring. |
| SEO — yearly | $117.33 | Same as monthly SEO, billed yearly — about $260 a year less than paying monthly. |
| Starter — monthly | $199 | 5 websites, 500 keywords daily, keyword research and optimisation tools, MCP access. AI visibility: 50 prompts tracked daily, 1 domain for brand performance, 300 AI visibility reports a day. |
| Pro+ — monthly | $299 | 15 websites, 1,500 keywords daily, historical data, content optimisation, keyword cannibalisation analysis. AI visibility: 100 prompts tracked daily. Yearly works out at $248.17 a month. |
| Advanced — monthly | $549 | 40 websites, 5,000 keywords daily, SEO share of voice, API data integration. AI visibility: 200 prompts tracked daily. Yearly works out at $455.67 a month. |
| Add-ons | From $45 | Additional users from $45 a month. Lead generation $90 a month. Base report $10, Pro report $20. These sit on top of the plan price, not inside it. |
Pricing checked October 2026 on the vendor's own page. Prices change — verify before you buy.
What is good, and what is not
Good
- The data set is the deepest available, and for competitive research there is not really a like-for-like substitute at any price.
- A genuinely free plan with no card, which is enough to check a few keywords before deciding anything.
- Yearly billing takes roughly $260 a year off the entry plan.
- Site audit and position tracking are on the cheapest paid tier rather than held back for upsell.
Not so good
- $139 a month is the floor, and that is a serious number for a single site.
- Extra users cost from $45 a month each. A two-person team is paying $184 before anything else.
- Reports are metered as add-ons at $10 and $20 a month, so the advertised plan price is not the whole bill.
- The jump from SEO at $139 to Pro+ at $299 is where historical data and content optimisation live, which is a steep step for features many people assume are standard.
- Most people use a small corner of it. Paying for 40 monitored websites when you have one is the most common way this becomes bad value.
- The free plan's 10 reports a day runs out quickly in a single research session.
The verdict
Be honest about which single job you are hiring this for. If it is competitive research across several sites and someone is paying you for the work, Semrush at $117.33 a month billed yearly is a defensible business cost and the depth is real. If it is content briefs, a tool at a third of the price does that specific job. If it is rank tracking for one site, cheaper tools do it well. The free plan is worth using first — not as a trial of the paid product, but as a way of finding out how often you actually reach for this kind of data. People who open it twice a month should not be paying monthly for it.
If it is not the right fit
No single product suits everyone. If the drawbacks above rule it out for you, these are where we would look next — including options that earn us nothing:
| Option | From | Better if |
|---|---|---|
| Mangools | — | One person on one site who wants keyword research and rank tracking without the agency price tag |
| Frase | From $39 a month | People whose real need is content briefs and on-page optimisation rather than competitive intelligence |
| Ahrefs | — | Teams who mainly care about backlink data, where it is the closest direct comparison |
Questions people ask
Is the free plan useful?
For occasional lookups, yes — one demo project and 10 reports a day, no card required. For running a site it runs out within one session.
How much does a second user cost?
Additional users start at $45 a month on top of the plan price.
What is the real difference between the SEO plan and Pro+?
Pro+ at $299 adds historical data, content optimisation and keyword cannibalisation analysis, and raises the limits to 15 websites and 1,500 keywords. The entry plan covers 5 websites and 500 keywords.
Does the advertised price include everything?
No. Extra users and some reports are add-ons billed separately, so budget above the plan price if more than one person needs access.