Semrush Pricing Plans For 2023: Which Is Best For You?

As a full-time blogger, Semrush is one of the SEO tools I use for keyword research, competitor analysis, and content optimization. I started with the Semrush free account before I moved to a paid plan. I know you want to learn about Semrush pricing and possibly subscribe to any that suits your needs. That’s exactly what we will cover in this guide. 

Apart from the free plan, Semrush has four pricing plans:

• Pro Plan – $119.95/month
• Guru Plan – $229.95/month 
• Business Plan – $ 449.95/month
• Custom Plan – Contact the sales team

For each of the pricing plans apart from the Custom Plan, you get up to a 17% discount when you subscribe to annual plans. 

When you slide the ash button( pay annually) and it turns orange, you will notice a change in price.

Like this:

If you want to subscribe to the monthly plan, you have the option to try it for 30 days for free. But it requires you to enter your credit card details.

Before exploring Semrush Pricing Plans, let’s look at Semrush’s free account which many beginners use.

Semrush Free Account 

Just like I mentioned earlier, I started with the Semrush free account in my early days as a blogger. It costs nothing. Just enter your email to create an account and you are good to go. 

Here are key things you could do with the free account:

Keyword Research 

You can run keyword research 10 times per day using the Keyword Overview or Keyword Magic Tool. But the downside is that it shows a report limited to 10 results. So you don’t see more reports on a particular keyword until you upgrade to a paid plan.

Analyze Competitors Domain

The free account allows you to analyze up to 10 domains per day using domain overview. Here you see the monthly organic traffic, domain authority, number of referring backlinks, and other domain overview reports of a competitor’s site.

Keyword Tracking

You can use the position tracking tool to track 10 keywords only. This is quite small for a blogger not to talk of a small business. 

While Semrush’s free account doesn’t cost a dime, there are major limitations that make it impossible for you to scale your SEO. 

For example, you can only track 10 keywords, and this is insufficient to know how many keywords a single page ranks for on search engines. It also limits the frequency at which you can do competitive research for keywords.

Another is the daily keyword research limit of 10. This puts you in a tight corner, meaning you can’t get enough ideas on a single topic.

These are just a few limitations as there are many more that make the Semrush free account practically useless if you want to scale the SEO of your site or that of your client.

Social Media

You can use it for basic social media marketing like managing your social media accounts, analyzing your performance on social media, etc.

Is Semrush’s free account right for me?

You can give it a try if:

• You don’t have any SEO projects you manage
• You don’t want to track keywords 
• You have only one site to manage 
• You don’t plan to rank for many keywords
• You are new to digital marketing and don’t have a budget for SEO software 

If that sounds like you, then start your free trial by clicking on the button below.

Otherwise, what you need is any of the Semrush paid plans which we will explore next.

Semrush Pro – $ 119.95/month ( For Beginners & Small Businesses)

I upgraded from the free plan to the Pro Plan after I felt that I needed access to advanced features to scale the SEO of my blog. 

Key Features:

Keyword Research Tool

 You use it to see how users search for a particular keyword on Google and other search engines – Keyword ideas and suggestions 

It also shows the number of searches a keyword gets a month – Search volume; how hard it will be to rank for it – Keyword difficulty 

To try this, go to your dashboard, navigate to the Keyword Magic Tool and enter a keyword, use the filter option to refine your search, and click Apply. 

Domain Analytics

See how authoritative your domain is based on the links it has acquired and access the tools you need for backlink analysis. You can also do the same for your competitors’ domains. The higher the score, the more domain authority you have, and vice versa. 

Site Auditing Tools

Analyze your site or that of your client to identify technical issues it has and fix it. This is to improve the performance of your pages on search results. Technical SEOs don’t joke with this feature because it makes site audit easier.

On-Page SEO Checker

Use this to assess the content you have written and tick all the on-page SEO boxes to optimize it for search engines. 

It’s similar to Surfer SEO – a complete content SEO intelligence tool. Get suggestions on word count, influential keywords that should be in your content, number of images, H2, H3, paragraphs, etc. 

Impressed with the features discussed above? 

Don’t celebrate yet because there are essential things to know about Semrush Pro Plan and other pricing plans we will discuss here. 

There are various limits and restrictions as to how you can access the above data including how often you can access them. 

These are the limitations of Semrush Pro Plan you should keep in mind:

How Often Your Keyword Metrics Are Refreshed

For the Pro Plan, the number of times you can get fresh metrics for a particular keyword in the Keyword Manager every month is limited to 250. 

Number Of Reports You Can Pull

You get only 3000 reports daily for keyword analytics of a domain. You may complain that it’s low but trust me Semrush is generous compared to its close competitor Ahrefs which limits its users to a maximum of 500 reports per month irrespective of the plan.

Number Of Keywords You Can Track At A Go

On Semrush Pro Plan, you can track up to 500 different keywords simultaneously. This is sufficient if you track keywords for one website. But if you manage multiple sites and want to track keywords for all of them, this might not be enough.

Number Of SEO Projects You Can Run

If you do client SEO, running a project is a must and unfortunately, Semrush limits you to creating only five website projects. 

Creating a project simply means adding a domain to Semrush to access additional data and functionality relating to that domain only such as:

• Backlink auditing 
• Link building
• On-page SEO auditing
• Technical SEO
• Position tracking 
• PPC keyword analysis 
• Number Of Web Pages You Can Crawl

As a technical SEO, you crawl all the web pages on a site when you want to identify pages with technical issues and fix them. On the Pro Plan, you are limited to crawling 20,000 pages per project and 100,000 pages in a month. This number should be okay if you are working on a site without excessive pages.

Now you know the features of Semrush Pro Plan and its limitations, the big question now is: Is Semrush Pro right for me?

Semrush Pro Plan is suitable for you if: 

• You are a newbie to SEO or small business
• You don’t plan to track thousands of keywords 
• You don’t have to run and manage multiple SEO projects 
• You have a low budget for SEO tools
• You just need a basic keyword research and domain analysis tool

If that sounds like you, then start your Semrush Pro free trial.

Otherwise, we move to the next Semrush Plan – Semrush Guru Plan

Semrush Guru – $229.95/month ( Best For Agencies & Mid-size businesses)

The Guru plan costs $229.95/month and the major differences between it and Semrush Pro are Content Marketing Tool, Device Tracking, and Looker Studio Integration.

The Content Marketing Tool is designed to help you develop a competitive content strategy based on what your competitors are up to. 

You can use it for the following:

• Do topic research to uncover topic ideas to write about which has higher chances of ranking on SERPs
• Check the SEO potential of the content you are working on
• Launch and manage SEO content creation campaign using the task management system
• Fish out lazy content writers that plagiarize your content
• Track and measure the effectiveness of your content within a specific period of time
• Write quality content using Semrush SEO writing assistant

So while you use Semrush Pro to discover and generate keyword ideas, Guru Plan gives you advanced features to double down on content creation and management.

Historical Data is another major difference between Semrush Pro and Semrush Guru. 

You unlock this valuable feature on the Semrush Guru which allows you to gain insight into the historical data of your competitor’s website.

Let’s say you have an online marketing blog and Search Engine Journal is your competitor. You can use Historical Data to gain insight into the performance of Search Engine Journal even as far back as 2010. 

Semrush Guru integrations with Google Looker Studio. If you do client SEO, this feature should amaze you because you can use Semrush data in Google data studio to create custom SEO reports and dashboards for multiple clients.

Device Tracking allows you to view your website’s visibility across multiple devices ( Desktop, Tablet, and Phone), plus locations down to cities. This feature is suitable for businesses that sell products and services on their site. You can use it to monitor the devices and locations the target audience that visits your site. It also informs you on the changes to make to create the best user experience.

Talking of the limitations of Semrush Guru, it has lesser limitations compared to Semrush Pro.

• You get a higher monthly crawl limit of 300,000 pages
• Higher domain report of 5000 per day
• More SEO projects  – 15 per month 
• More keywords to track  – 15000 per month 

So, Semrush Guru is right for you if:

• You want to analyze data outside Semrush using Google Looker Studio 
• You want to create multiple SEO projects 
• You want to develop a content strategy 
• You won’t gain insight into the historical data of your competitors 

Start Semrush Guru Free Trial 

And if Semrush Guru doesn’t meet your requirements, then you need Semrush Business which we will explore next.

Semrush Business – $449.95/month ( Best For Large Agencies & Enterprises)

A major takeaway from the Semrush Pro and Guru plans is that individuals and small businesses can get all they need in them. But if you are a large agency or enterprise, Semrush Business which costs $449.95/month is your best bet. 

Its features outshine whatever you get on Pro and Guru Plan. A tip of the iceberg is the API Access and Shared Voice which are missing in the previously discussed plans. 

Let’s explore the features that distinguish Semrush Business from Semrush Guru and Pro.

API Access  – You have access to Semrush API ( Application Programming APIs). This means you can integrate Semrush into your own application, dashboard, and widgets plus visualize Semrush data via your custom interface. 

Surfer SEO is one of the large enterprises that use Semrush API to boost the services it offers to its customers. Surfer customers that use Surfer Grow Flow can get competitors’ backlink insight through Semrush integration.

Semrush PLA ( Product Listing Ads) – If you have a large ecommerce site, and you want to spy on your competitors, this feature will help do that. You can analyze shopping ad performance of a competitor on Google. 

Share Of Voice – Measure the level of organic traffic and impression that goes to your website in comparison to your competitors in the same market. 

Coming to the limits of what you can do with any Semrush pricing plan, the Business Plan is far more generous than the Pro and Guru Plan. 

You can create and manage 40 projects simultaneously with it; track up to 5000 keywords and perform up to 10,000 queries in a day and above all can crawl up to 1 million pages in a month. 

Semrush Business is right for you if:

• You want to run numerous queries in a day
• If you do client SEO for multi-million dollar brands 
• You need to integrate Semrush into your web applications

Start Your Semrush Business Free Trial 

Read this article where I compared Semrush Pro, Semrush Guru, and Semrush Business in detail.

Semrush Business has sophisticated features your large businesses need to scale your SEO. 

However, it is possible you may want Semrush features tailored to your business for specific reasons. In that case, you would need the Custom Version of Semrush. 

What is Semrush Custom Plan and what does it offer?

That’s next in this guide. But before that, let’s look at Semrush User Management 

User Management On Semrush 

If you are the only one accessing your Semrush account to do SEO tasks, you are good to go with the pricing plans discussed above. 

But if you have a team of SEOs that serve as your backbone, and you want them to access your Semrush account, then user management on Semrush is a must.

It’s like adding more seats to your SEO roundtable conference. 

The pricing goes this way:

Pro Plan – $45 for an additional user

Guru Plan – $80 for an additional user

Business Plan – $100 for an additional user

Custom Plan – Contact sales team for pricing 

Semrush isn’t the only SEO tool that charges a fee for an additional tool. Rival SEO tools like Moz ( Moz Pro) and Ahrefs do the same.

Add-ons For Semrush 

Semrush has add-ons that provide you with more functionalities you need in SEO. This is different from the Semrush features available to you on any of the paid plans. Think of it as Shopify add-ons that ecommerce merchants need to make more sales. 

You can decide to ignore them, but I bring your attention to them since you want to get your SEO right with Semrush:

Local SEO Add-ons

If you specialize in local SEO, this add-on is a Semrush subscription that will be helpful. It has the Basic Location which costs $20 per month and the Premium Location which costs $40 per month.

With both, you can do the following:

• Track local rankings 
• Monitor reviews and user suggestions 
• Eliminate duplicate listing 
• Distribute business information to different directories 
• Manage Facebook listing and Google My Business 

The Premium Plan comes with additional features like Local Heatmap – to see how your target customers can find you versus your competitors on Google maps. Also, you can respond to reviews about your business within the Semrush interface. 

If you run a brick-and-mortar business, this Semrush add-on will boost your visibility on Google. You have all features to optimize your shop so that a potential customer within your locality can find you easily.

Trends Add-on

Semrush trends add-on gives you an insight into how your competitors are performing SEO-wise. It costs $200 per user and offers the following features:

Traffic Analytics: Get insight into your competitor’s traffic source, top-ranking pages, user behavior metrics, and engagement. This is like stealing their website data on Google Analytics and Google Search Console.

Market Explorer: Identify market trends, top players, seasonal peaks, audience behavior, etc.

While these metrics are useful to a business that wants to stay on top of marketing trends, keep in mind they are just estimations. 

Semrush Agency Growth Kit

You will need this add-on if you are an SEO agency that wants to white-label your SEO services to clients. It’s a way of empowering you to brand your services while using Semrush. Semrush Agency Growth Kit costs $150 per month irrespective of the plan you are in. 

You can do the following:

• Product PDF SEO reports that have no Semrush branding but rather your own brand name
• List your business in the directory of Semrush SEO-certified agencies. That’s like Semrush recommending your services to businesses that need them

Impact Hero Add-on

With this add-on, you leverage artificial intelligence ( AI) to design and optimize the content on your site based on the stage a customer is in the journey to make a purchase. The standard cost is $200 but the number of campaigns you use it for will determine the exact amount you pay.

You can use Impact Hero add-on to achieve the following:

• Identify important areas of your funnel that you need to improve
• Analyze your content based on length and type 
• Discover your best traffic source and see how to consolidate and dominate
• Visualize your conversion funnel to see the behavior of the target audience throughout the customer journey

Semrush App Center 

Apart from add-ons which we have discussed above, you can also invest in third-party apps that are available on Semrush app center. This is to add more functionalities to your Semrush account. 

At the time of writing this guide, 17 apps are on the Semrush app center. Just pick any that suit your needs and integrate them into your account. The prices range from $15 – $169 per user per month and some have free trials.

 So you can see they aren’t as expensive as Semrush add-ons. 

For example, you can buy the AdClarity app, connect it to Semrush and uncover your competitors’ strategies for Google ad or other forms of digital advertising.

Semrush Custom Version 

This is for large businesses that aren’t satisfied with what Semrush Business Plan offers. You can contact the sales team and discuss with them the features you want and how they can be tailored to your operations. 

Of course, there is no fixed amount but keep in mind it will be higher than Semrush Business because you now want a personalized plan. 

You will get the best features and services anyone could think of in an SEO tool. Some of them are:

• Dedicated account manager
• Premium support 
• Frequent training with your SEO team
• Access to BETA features 
• Bespoke customization 

Final thoughts on Semrush Pricing 

Semrush is your to-go SEO tool that offers a lot of advanced features in each of the pricing plans to scale the SEO of your site. It’s just for you to decide which pricing plan:  Semrush Pro, Semrush Guru, or Semrush Business suits you. Otherwise, you ask for custom pricing.

If you will be the only user, you don’t have to waste money on adding multiple seats. But add-ons and third-party apps are important for you to have more functionalities to your Semrush account, though it means an additional cost. 

Alternatives To Semrush 

In the event Semrush plans fell short of your expectation, there are Semrush alternatives you can consider. The SEO tool is a competitive industry and there are other big players like:

• Ahrefs 
• Moz
• Growth Bar
• Ubersuggest
• SE Ranking 
• SpyFu
• Surfer SEO – read Surfer SEO review
• Google Keyword Planner ( for keyword research only). Read this article where I compared Semrush to Google Keyword Planner

FAQs On Semrush Pricing 

Is Semrush free or paid?

Semrush has free and paid plans

The free plan allows you to perform keyword research 10 times a day. This plan limits you to having access to basic features of Semrush not to talk of advanced features. 

The paid plans include:

• Semrush Pro 
• Semrush Guru 
• Semrush Business 
• Semrush Custom Plan 

Each of the plans has different features and limitations. But the higher the plan, the lesser the limitations.

Is Semrush free worth it?

It depends on your needs. If you are just a beginner with no budget for SEO tools, Semrush free is worth it. At least you can do keyword research 10 times a day to get keyword ideas to write about. Even though its limitations are many, you still have an idea of how people search for a topic.

Should I use Semrush Pro and Guru?

It depends on your needs. The major differences between Semrush Pro and Guru are the Content Marketing Tool, Google Looker Studio, and Device Tracking. All these advanced features are missing on Semrush Pro and are must have if you do client SEO and manage multiple SEO projects.

Does Semrush have any cons?

Every SEO tool has pros and cons. Semrush isn’t an exception. A major con is that the paid plans are expensive and aren’t affordable for users with no budget. Another is that there are additional costs you incur when you use a Semrush add-on to get more functionality.