Semrush Pricing, Plan by Plan: The Free Account, the Add-Ons and the Real First-Year Bill

Semrush's plans as the October 2026 price sheet lists them

Every figure on this page comes from Semrush's own pricing page, its toolkit pricing pages and its help center, checked on October 17, 2026. Semrush now sells one family of plans under an "SEO + AI Search" heading, so rank tracking and AI answer tracking arrive in the same subscription. Six tiers carry a name. Four carry a price, and one of those prices is zero.

The page promises savings of up to 17% on annual billing. Our arithmetic says Starter and Pro+ get the full 17% and the SEO plan about 16%. Semrush's billing FAQ adds the detail the banner leaves out: an annual plan is paid for the entire year upfront. That means one charge of $1,407.96 for the SEO plan instead of $1,668 spread over twelve months, $1,982.04 for Starter instead of $2,388, and $2,978.04 for Pro+ instead of $3,588.

If you are weighing Semrush against its nearest rival, our Ahrefs vs Semrush comparison sets the two side by side. This page stays on one question: what Semrush itself will cost you, and whether you need it.

SEO, Starter or Pro+: what each step up adds

The SEO plan and Starter share the same allowance of 5 websites and 500 daily keywords, so the $60 between them buys depth, not size. Pro+ is the first tier that grows the allowance itself. Here is what each plan lists, in Semrush's own terms.

The plan names changed faster than the help center did. Semrush's knowledge base still documents limits under its older SEO Toolkit tiers, Pro, Guru and Business, and its Site Audit article says the new tiers inherit them: Starter takes Pro's limits, Pro+ takes Guru's, Advanced takes Business's. On that mapping, Site Audit crawls 100,000 pages a month on Starter, 300,000 on Pro+ and 1,000,000 on Advanced, and the toolkit limits page lists 10,000, 30,000 and 50,000 results per report. The help center does not say where the $139 SEO plan sits. Ask before you count on a number.

The free Semrush account, and how far ten reports a day go

Semrush's subscriptions page describes the free plan as one demo project, 10 reports per day across what it calls the vital tools, and a limited set of AI Visibility features, with no credit card required. Site Audit without a paid SEO Toolkit is capped at 100 pages a month, and the allowance resets on the first day of each month.

Ten lookups a day is a light morning, not a research project. Used with a plan, it still answers real questions:

• Look up your own domain once a week and note which keywords Semrush believes you rank for.
• Check the handful of service phrases you are writing a page about this month.
• Run a 100-page audit, which covers every page on many local business sites.
• See which sites Semrush counts as your organic competitors, then look them up one at a time over several days.
• Try the interface before deciding whether any paid suite suits the way you work.

What the free account cannot do is replace Google's own reports. Semrush estimates your traffic and rankings from outside. Google Search Console shows the queries and clicks Google actually recorded, at no cost. Our guide to free SEO tools covers the rest of the no-cost stack, and Google's own Keyword Planner shows search demand without any Semrush account at all.

The seven-day trial, and the cancellation clock inside it

Semrush says most of its toolkits include a 7-day free trial, and each toolkit's trial can be used once per account. Exports are switched off during trials. Activating one means entering a card, which triggers a $1 authorization that the billing FAQ says is not a charge. Virtual cards are refused. Paid subscriptions cannot be paused, only canceled, and cancellation goes through a form or a request to support.

The detail most trial users miss sits in the cancellation and refund policy: for unpaid trials and free plans, a cancellation takes effect within three business days of Semrush receiving it. A request sent on day six leaves very little margin.

1. 1

   Write the questions first

   Before you start the clock, list the five things you want the tool to answer: competitor keywords, rankings by town, site faults, backlinks, ad copy. Every hour of the trial should serve one of them.

2. 2

   Set up tracking on day one

   Position Tracking and Site Audit need time to collect data. Start both in the first hour so there is something to read by day four.

3. 3

   Save findings by hand

   Exports are off during a trial. Copy the figures you need into your own notes or take screenshots as you go.

4. 4

   Decide by day four

   If the tool has not earned its place by then, send the cancellation request, so the three-business-day window closes before the first charge.

5. 5

   Keep the confirmation

   Semrush says it confirms cancellations within three business days. File that email with the date.

Toolkits and add-ons: the second half of the invoice

The main plans cover SEO and AI tracking. Local listings, content, ads research and market data are separate toolkits, which Semrush says can be added or removed at any time. Most toolkit pages quote the annual rate; a monthly toggle exists, but the toolkit pages we read showed only the annual figure.

Two of these deserve a pause before checkout. Local is priced per location, so a group with six offices multiplies it by six. And the AI tracking modules count prompts, not answers, so ask what the report shows when a rival is named and you are not. We compare the paid AI trackers in GEO tools compared, and our free AI visibility check shows today's answers for one customer question. For map rankings without a subscription, the map pack audit and our guide to local SEO tools go further.

Refunds, renewals and getting out of a Semrush plan

Semrush's refund policy, last updated August 20, 2025, offers a one-time money-back guarantee of seven days. It covers two things: a first subscription with a committed term of twelve months or more, and a first add-on bought for an existing subscription, both purchased on semrush.com with a credit card. Month-to-month subscriptions are excluded, and refunds attach only to initial orders, so renewals do not qualify.

• Canceling does not trigger a refund. The request must say so in writing, within seven calendar days of the initial annual order.
• A paid cancellation takes effect at the end of the committed term. Cancel mid-year without a qualifying refund and the prepaid months are gone.
• Approved refunds are processed within 30 calendar days and return to the original payment method.
• Agreements signed through an order form or an enterprise contract follow their own terms, not this policy.

Who should pay for Semrush, and who should keep the $1,668

Semrush is a serious instrument. Its value depends entirely on someone reading it weekly and acting on what it finds. Most of the waste we see is not a wrong plan. It is a right plan nobody opens.

If competitor research is the one gap, a one-time competitor analysis answers it without a subscription. For other ways to find what customers type, see keyword research tools. For neighborhood-level rankings, rank trackers covers grid tools. Readers leaning toward a link-heavy suite should read our Ahrefs review, and the SEO tools hub shows where Semrush fits in a stack at each budget.

Three hypothetical buyers, priced to the dollar

List prices only mean something once they are added up for a real shape of business. These are hypothetical buyers and plain arithmetic on the October 2026 annual rates, before tax. They are not quotes.

The subscription is the cheap part. The dental group's $4,862 buys data, and the reading, deciding and fixing still take someone's week. If that someone does not exist, the honest comparison is with having it done. DataCram's SEO programs run on tools we already pay for, start at $625 a month, and most local businesses land between $625 and $2,250, per our SEO pricing page. To see where you stand first, the free website audit and local visibility check cost nothing. Semrush is not a partner of ours; we pay the same price sheet you just read.