Semrush is the tool most SEO guides assume you own, and its price reflects that: the cheapest paid plan costs $1,408 a year even on annual billing. The good news is that the entry plan already covers the work a small business does most (keyword research, competitor checks, a site audit and daily rank tracking), and the more expensive tiers mostly add AI search tracking and higher limits.
Prices below are Semrush's list prices in US dollars, as shown on its pricing page at the time of our last update.
Semrush pricing at a glance
| Plan | Billed monthly | Billed annually | Websites | Keywords tracked daily | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | — | 1 project | 10 | Trying the tools before paying |
| SEO | $139 a month | $117.33 a month | 5 | 500 | Freelancers and small businesses doing their own SEO |
| Starter | $199 a month | $165.17 a month | 5 | 500 | Teams that also want to track visibility in AI answers |
| Pro+ | $299 a month | $248.17 a month | 15 | 1,500 | Agencies and teams with several sites or locations |
| Advanced | Custom | Custom | 40 | 5,000 | Larger organizations that need API access and share of voice |
Semrush says annual billing saves up to 17%. Every plan includes one user.
The SEO plan: enough for most small businesses
The SEO plan is Semrush's cheapest paid tier at $139 a month, or $117.33 a month billed annually. Its limits, from Semrush's plan comparison:
- 5 websites to monitor and 500 keywords tracked daily, with mobile data.
- 10,000 results per report and 3,000 reports a day in the domain and keyword tools.
- 100,000 pages a month in Site Audit, up to 20,000 per website.
- Backlink data, 250 keyword metric updates a month and three base reports.
Semrush's own FAQ points freelancers, bloggers and in-house marketers on a limited budget to this plan for SEO-only work. For a business with one website, 500 tracked keywords is plenty; most local businesses track far fewer.
Starter: the same SEO limits, plus AI visibility
Starter costs $199 a month ($165.17 billed annually), $60 a month more than the SEO plan, but its SEO limits are the same: 5 websites, 500 tracked keywords, 10,000 results per report and 3,000 reports a day. The extra money buys Semrush's AI visibility tools:
- 50 prompts tracked daily across AI answers, and 300 AI visibility reports a day.
- AI brand performance for one domain, share of voice and sentiment in AI answers.
- An AI-ready Site Audit.
If you mainly care about Google rankings, Starter adds little. It makes sense when customers find businesses like yours through ChatGPT-style answers and you want to see whether you are mentioned.
Pro+ and Advanced
Pro+ costs $299 a month ($248.17 billed annually) and is where the SEO limits rise: 15 websites, 1,500 tracked keywords, 30,000 results per report, 5,000 reports a day and 300,000 crawled pages a month. It also adds historical data, keyword cannibalization reports, JavaScript rendering in audits, multi-location tracking, a Looker Studio integration and 100 AI prompts a day.
Advanced has no public price. It raises the limits to 40+ websites and 5,000+ tracked keywords and adds API access and share of voice. A small business rarely needs either tier.
First-year cost for one user
- Billed monthly
- Billed annually
Show the numbers
| Billed monthly | Billed annually | |
|---|---|---|
| SEO | $1,668 | $1,408 |
| Starter | $2,388 | $1,982 |
| Pro+ | $3,588 | $2,978 |
Extra users and add-ons
Each plan includes one login. Extra users are priced per plan:
| Plan | Extra user |
|---|---|
| SEO | $45 a month |
| Starter | $45 a month |
| Pro+ | $80 a month |
| Advanced | $100 a month |
Example: two people on Starter, billed monthly. ($199 + $45) × 12 = $2,928 for the first year, before taxes.
Other add-ons on the pricing page: a Base Report at $10 a month, a Pro Report with white-labeling at $20 a month, and Lead Generation, a listing on Semrush's agency directory, at $90 a month.
Free account, trial and refunds
- Free account. No credit card needed. Semrush's FAQ says it allows 10 Analytics requests a day, one website and 10 keywords in Position Tracking. It is enough to look up a competitor now and then, not to run SEO.
- 7-day free trial. The SEO, Starter and Pro+ plans each offer one. The refund policy says the first payment is charged automatically at the end of the trial unless you cancel first.
- Refunds. Semrush offers a one-time 7-day money-back guarantee only on initial subscriptions of twelve months or longer, bought online by credit card. Month-to-month subscriptions are not refundable.
The practical route: take the trial on monthly billing, and switch to annual only once you know you will keep it for a year.
Cheaper Semrush alternatives
Prices are from each vendor's pricing page at the time of our last update.
| Tool | Cheapest full plan | Tracked keywords | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ahrefs Lite | $129 a month, or $1,290 a year | 750, updated weekly | 1,000 credits a month on Lite; free Ahrefs plan for your own verified sites |
| SE Ranking Core | $129 a month, or $103.20 a month billed annually | 2,000 | 10 projects; 14-day trial without a credit card |
| Moz Pro Standard | $99 a month, or $79 a month billed yearly | 300 | 3 tracked sites; a $49 entry plan for one website |
| Mangools Basic | $61 a month, or $452.40 a year billed annually | 200 | Rankings update weekly; 100 keyword lookups a day |
Ahrefs is Semrush's closest rival and costs $10 a month less on its entry plan, with more tracked keywords, though Ahrefs updates rankings weekly rather than daily. Its other catch is a monthly credit allowance on Lite. Our Ahrefs pricing guide covers how the plans compare.
SE Ranking costs the same as Ahrefs Lite but tracks 2,000 keywords across 10 projects, so it suits a freelancer handling several small clients.
Mangools is the budget pick: a fraction of the price, with smaller daily limits and weekly rather than daily rank updates. For one local business that checks rankings once a week, that is often enough.
Is Semrush worth it for a small business?
Start with the free account and the 7-day trial on the SEO plan. If you use it every week for keyword research and audits, $117.33 a month on annual billing is the cheapest way to keep it. If you mostly need to track rankings for one site, a cheaper tool from the table above will do the job for much less, and Google Search Console is free for the search data on your own site.