Semrush Pricing (2026): Every Plan, the Real Limits, and Whether It’s Worth It
The short answer
Semrush is expensive, and its 2026 pricing is more confusing than it used to be. Here's the quick version:
| Plan | Monthly | Annual (per month) | Who it's for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | Tire-kickers only — 10 keywords, 10 reports/day |
| SEO | $139 | $117.33 | Solo site owners, freelancers |
| Starter | $199 | $165.17 | SEO + AI search visibility in one plan |
| Pro+ | $299 | $248.17 | Growing sites, content teams |
| Advanced | $549 | $455.67 | Agencies, API users |
Prices checked on semrush.com/pricing, October 2026 — verify at checkout. Semrush restructured its plans in 2026: the classic Pro/Guru/Business names no longer appear on the pricing page. New buyers choose from SEO, Starter, Pro+, and Advanced (the "Semrush One" lineup), with AI search-visibility tracking bundled into every paid tier.
Every paid plan includes exactly one user seat. Annual billing saves roughly 17% but is prepaid in one lump sum. There's a free plan ($0, no card required) and a 7-day free trial (card required — the page doesn't spell out auto-conversion explicitly, so check the trial terms at signup and set a reminder).
→ Check Semrush’s current pricing — plans and prices change often, so verify at checkout.
What happened to Pro, Guru, and Business?
If you've read older Semrush articles, you'll remember the classic three-tier ladder: Pro ($139.95/mo), Guru ($249.95/mo), Business ($499.95/mo). In 2026 Semrush replaced it with a new lineup, and the old names no longer appear on the pricing page — what new buyers see is SEO, Starter, Pro+, and Advanced. If you're an existing subscriber on a legacy plan, check what your account shows.
For readers of older content, here's how the names map:
| Old (legacy) plan | Old price | New equivalent | New price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pro | $139.95/mo | SEO — same 5 projects / 500 keywords | $139/mo |
| Guru | $249.95/mo | Pro+ — same 15 projects / 1,500 keywords + AI visibility | $299/mo |
| Business | $499.95/mo | Advanced — same 40 projects / 5,000 keywords + AI visibility | $549/mo |
| — | — | Starter — genuinely new: SEO toolkit + 50 AI prompts/day | $199/mo |
Three things worth knowing plainly:
- The entry tier survived almost untouched. If an old article told you to buy Pro, buy SEO. Same limits, essentially the same price.
- The middle and top tiers got more expensive. Guru → Pro+ and Business → Advanced each cost about $50/mo more than before. You get AI-visibility prompt tracking bundled in — but if you don't want it, there's no longer a cheaper AI-free option at those limit levels.
- "Pro+" is a misleading name. It sounds like "Pro, slightly better." It's not — it's Guru-level limits plus AI visibility. Don't buy it thinking it's the entry tier.
Each plan explained
Free — $0
The free plan is a demo, not a tool: 1 demo project, 10 tracked keywords, 10 reports per day, 100 audit pages a month. Enough to see what the interface looks like; not enough to run SEO for a real site. Useful for exactly one thing: confirming the tool covers your keywords before you start a trial.
SEO — $139/mo ($117.33/mo annual)
The entry tier: 5 projects (websites), 500 tracked keywords, 3,000 reports per day, 10,000 results per report, 100,000 audit crawl pages per month. You get keyword research, competitor analysis, position tracking, backlink analysis, and site audit.
Who it's for: a solopreneur with one main site (or a couple of small ones), or a freelancer managing a handful of clients. Five projects and 500 keywords cover a focused SEO strategy — if you're trying to track everything, you're tracking nothing anyway.
What you don't get: historical data and API access start higher up (Pro+ and Advanced).
Starter — $199/mo ($165.17/mo annual)
The only genuinely new rung: the full SEO toolkit plus AI-visibility features (300 AI visibility reports/day, 50 tracked AI prompts/day) in one subscription. Same 5 projects / 500 keywords as the SEO plan.
Who it's for: buyers who care about how AI search answers mention their brand. If AI visibility isn't on your radar yet, skip it — it's $60/mo more than the SEO plan for features you won't open.
Pro+ — $299/mo ($248.17/mo annual)
15 projects, 1,500 keywords, 5,000 reports/day, 30,000 results/report, 300,000 audit pages, plus AI visibility (100 prompts/day). This is where historical data unlocks.
Who it's for: growing content sites, small teams, freelancers scaling past ~5 clients. Historical data is the sleeper feature here — it's what lets you diagnose traffic drops and study old SERPs, and it's genuinely useful once you have a year of content behind you.
Advanced — $549/mo ($455.67/mo annual)
40 projects, 5,000 keywords, 10,000 reports/day, 50,000 results/report, 1,000,000 audit pages, plus AI visibility (200 prompts/day), API access, and the biggest everything.
Who it's for: agencies and data-heavy operations. A solopreneur has no business here — if you're reading this section wondering whether you need it, you don't.
The #1 trap: the limits that actually bite
Semrush's sticker price is only half the story. These are the constraints that surprise buyers:
1. Projects (websites). The entry plan covers 5 projects. A "project" is a website you're actively tracking — and most solopreneurs burn through them faster than expected (your main site, a side project, a client's site, a test domain…). Once you're at the cap, every new site means upgrading or deleting an old one.
2. Tracked keywords. 500 keywords on the entry plan sounds like plenty until you track 50 keywords across 10 pages with daily updates. This is the limit most buyers hit first — it's the reason people move from SEO to Pro+.
3. Seats. Every plan includes exactly one user. Adding a teammate costs ~$45/mo extra on the entry plans, ~$80/mo on Pro+, ~$100/mo on Advanced. A "small team of three on Pro+" isn't $299/mo — it's closer to $460/mo.
4. Add-ons stack up. The pricing page lists paid add-ons separately from the plans: extra users from $45/mo, Lead Generation $90/mo, Base Report $10/mo, Pro Report $20/mo. And note the sidebar: AI Visibility, Local, Content, Social, and Advertising are now separate product categories with their own pricing — not included extras. The base plan is the floor, not the ceiling.
5. Annual is prepaid. The ~17% annual discount is real, but you pay the full year upfront — ~$1,408 for the SEO plan. Buy monthly while you're still evaluating; switch to annual once you're sure.
Free trial and free account options
- Free plan ($0): permanent, but barely functional — 10 keywords, 10 reports/day. Good for a look around; not for real work.
- Standard free trial: 7 days, card required (Semrush runs a nominal validity charge and refunds it). The pricing page doesn't spell out auto-conversion explicitly — assume the trial converts unless you cancel, and set a calendar reminder.
- Extended 14-day trials: partner links commonly advertise 14-day trials. The old 30-day trial is gone.
- Trial limits: some users report exports are restricted during the trial. Don't plan your big data pull for day 6.
Practical advice: start the trial when you have a concrete project ready (a keyword list to build, a site audit to run), not "sometime next week." Seven days evaporates fast.
→ Check Semrush’s current pricing — plans and prices change often, so verify at checkout.
Is Semrush worth it for a solopreneur?
Honest answer: usually not at first — and that's fine.
Semrush is priced for people who make money from SEO: agencies billing clients, affiliate sites doing real revenue, content businesses where rankings are the pipeline. At ~$139/mo entry, the tool needs to either save you ~5+ hours a month of manual research or directly drive revenue that covers it. For a brand-new site with no traffic, it does neither — you're paying agency prices for hobby-stage problems.
Buy Semrush when: your site earns enough that $139/mo is a rounding error; you're doing client SEO work and can pass the cost through; or you're publishing at a volume where manual keyword research genuinely bottlenecks you.
Don't buy Semrush when:
- You're pre-revenue. Google Search Console (free) plus Google's Keyword Planner (free) cover 80% of what a new site needs: what you rank for, what to write next, whether it's working.
- You only need keyword research. Mangools' KWFinder (~$30–50/mo) or Ubersuggest's cheaper tiers handle keyword difficulty and ideas at a fraction of the price. (We'll be reviewing KWFinder separately — it's the budget pick for this exact job.)
- You need rank tracking only. Dedicated rank trackers cost far less than a full Semrush seat.
- You want it "to learn SEO." Learning on a $139/mo tool is an expensive classroom. Learn on free tools; buy Semrush when you have a site worth optimizing.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Semrush cost per month?
At the time of writing (October 2026) — verify at checkout — Semrush's entry SEO plan costs $139/mo billed monthly or $117.33/mo billed annually (prepaid). The ladder runs $199/mo (Starter), $299/mo (Pro+), and $549/mo (Advanced) monthly, with ~17% off on annual billing. Every plan includes one user seat; extra seats cost $45/mo on SEO and Starter, $80/mo on Pro+, $100/mo on Advanced.
Is there a free version of Semrush?
Yes, but it's a demo: $0 gets you 1 project, 10 tracked keywords, and 10 reports per day. There's also a 7-day free trial of paid plans (card required — auto-conversion isn't spelled out on the pricing page, so assume it converts and set a reminder) and commonly advertised 14-day extended trials via partner links.
What's the difference between Semrush Classic and Semrush One?
Classic is the retired ladder (Pro/Guru/Business); Semrush One is the 2026 lineup (SEO/Starter/Pro+/Advanced) that bundles AI search-visibility tracking with the SEO toolkit. As of October 2026, the pricing page shows only the Semrush One names — the Classic names are legacy. The SEO plan is essentially the old Pro at the same price; Pro+ and Advanced cost ~$50/mo more than their Guru/Business predecessors but include AI prompt tracking. If you're reading an older article that references Pro/Guru/Business, use the mapping table above.
Can I get Semrush cheaper?
Annual billing saves ~17% across plans (prepaid). Beyond that: start with the trial, buy monthly until you're sure, and don't pay for add-ons until you've maxed out the base plan. Be wary of "lifetime deal" resellers and shared accounts — they violate Semrush's terms.
What happens after the free trial ends?
The pricing page doesn't spell out auto-conversion explicitly — but a trial that takes your card will almost certainly bill you when it ends. Check the trial terms at signup, confirm which plan and billing cycle you're on, and set a reminder before day seven (or day fourteen on extended trials).
Final verdict
Semrush pricing in 2026 runs on the Semrush One lineup — SEO, Starter, Pro+, and Advanced at $139/$199/$299/$549/mo monthly ($117.33/$165.17/$248.17/$455.67/mo on annual billing) — with AI visibility bundled into every paid tier. The legacy Pro/Guru/Business names are gone from the pricing page; if an older article references them, map Pro→SEO, Guru→Pro+, Business→Advanced. The entry point hasn't moved — $139/mo — but the mid and top tiers got ~$50/mo pricier than their predecessors.
For solopreneurs, the verdict is simple: Semrush is worth it when SEO pays for it, and not before. If your site or client work generates real revenue from search, the SEO plan at ~$117/mo annual is a justifiable business expense — the keyword data, competitor intel, and audit tooling genuinely save hours. If you're pre-revenue, start free (Search Console + Keyword Planner), graduate to a budget tool like KWFinder when you need real keyword data, and buy Semrush when the revenue justifies the seat.
Either way: trial it with a real project ready, watch the auto-convert date like a hawk, and verify every price at checkout — Semrush changes pricing and plan names more often than most tools.
→ Check Semrush’s current pricing — plans and prices change often, so verify at checkout.