Semrush review: the agency all-rounder

Semrush is the most complete SEO platform in this comparison, and for an agency or in-house team that works across keyword research, rank tracking, audits and competitor analysis every day, it earns its premium. Paid plans start at $139.95 a month. A solo user who only needs the odd keyword lookup should buy something cheaper and more focused.

What it costs in 2026

Pricing is metered by plan, and the gaps between tiers are real. These figures come from Semrush's own pricing page, as listed on 27 July 2026:

• SEO is $139.95 a month, or $117.33 a month billed annually. It covers up to 5 projects and 500 keywords to track with daily updates. This is the beginner and solo tier.
• Starter is $199 a month, or $165.17 billed annually. It keeps SEO's 5 projects and 500 tracked keywords and spells out a dedicated AI Visibility allowance: 50 prompts tracked daily, one domain for AI brand performance, and 300 AI visibility reports a day. It sits below Pro+, which is where the project and keyword limits actually rise.
• Pro+ is $299 a month, or $248.17 billed annually. It lifts you to 15 projects and 1,500 tracked keywords, and adds historical data and the content optimisation tools.
• Advanced is $549 a month, or $455.67 billed annually. You get 40 projects, 5,000 tracked keywords, Share of Voice and, importantly, API access, which the lower tiers do not include.

Semrush restructured this lineup in 2026, after Adobe completed its acquisition in April. The former Pro, Guru and Business plans became SEO, Pro+ and Advanced, and a new Starter tier was added. The entry price held at $139.95 a month while the two upper tiers rose, Pro+ to $299 and Advanced to $549. The naming can mislead, because the plan called Starter is not the cheapest one; SEO is, at $139.95.

Two costs catch people out. Extra seats start at $45 a month each, and the API only appears on the Advanced plan, so a small team that wants programmatic data pays around $549 a month before add-ons. There is a seven-day free trial, which is enough to judge the data but not a full reporting cycle.

What it is good at

Breadth is the headline. Where most tools do one or two jobs well, Semrush runs the whole workflow: keyword and topic research, daily rank tracking, site audits, backlink analysis, content optimisation and competitive intelligence. For an agency juggling several clients, having all of it under one login, with consistent data and exportable reports, removes a lot of tab-switching between separate subscriptions.

The data depth is the other reason to consider it. Semrush's keyword database reports search volume, cost per click and intent for millions of terms, and the Keyword Magic Tool, Position Tracking and Site Audit all draw on the same underlying data, so the numbers stay consistent as you move between them.

The 2026 addition worth noting is AI visibility. Semrush now tracks how a brand shows up in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews alongside the classic blue-link rankings, which matters more every quarter as those surfaces take citation share from traditional results.

Where it frustrates

The interface earns its learning curve. There is so much in the product that new users spend their first week unsure which of three overlapping tools to reach for. It rewards daily use and quietly punishes the occasional user who forgets where things live.

The metering is the other irritation. Tracked keywords jump from 500 to 1,500 to 5,000 across the tiers, historical data is a Pro+ feature, and the API sits behind Advanced. None of that is hidden, but it means the real cost of Semrush is usually a tier higher than the one you first reach for.

Who should buy it

Buy Semrush if SEO is a core part of how you or your clients make money and you will use more than the keyword tool. Agencies, consultants and in-house marketing teams get the most from it because they touch enough of the toolset to justify the cost and the ramp-up. If you only need occasional keyword ideas or a simple rank check, a cheaper, friendlier tool will serve you better, and we round up the budget options in our Semrush alternatives guide. Mangools is the cheapest of those, and our Semrush and Mangools on price weighs that six-times gap tool by tool. For an alternative that rivals Semrush on rank-tracking capacity, see how SE Ranking compares, and our SE Ranking and Semrush side by side runs the two on price and capacity. We rate Moz Pro as the better starting point for solo SEOs, and you can see how the two sit in our ranked guide to the best SEO tools and across our SEO tools reviews.

One more thing before you commit: Adobe completed its $1.9 billion acquisition of Semrush in April 2026. Know about it before you renew, not after. We go deeper on what that could mean in our Semrush vs Moz comparison.

How we score these reviews

We score every SEO tool on the same five-part rubric: data quality, feature depth, usability, value and support. This review is research-based, drawing on Semrush's official documentation and pricing and on publicly available user reviews, rather than first-hand testing. The score reflects our editorial judgement on that rubric, and it does not reflect first-hand testing by us. Pricing was checked against Semrush's pricing page on 27 July 2026. You can read the full methodology and who writes these on our about page.