Semrush
An SEO, PPC, and competitive-research platform that now also tracks how your brand appears in AI-generated answers.
Independent overview by new Mantra · updated September 28, 2026
- Category
- Marketing
- Pricing
- SEO $117.33, Starter $165.17, Pro+ $248.17, Advanced $455.67 per mo billed annually ($139/$199/$299/$549 monthly)
- Implementation
- 1-2 weeks
- Adoption risk
- Low
- Integrates with
- Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google Ads, Looker Studio, Trello
If you run organic search and paid campaigns, Semrush puts keyword, backlink, competitor, ad and AI-visibility research in one suite. The free seven-day trial is long enough to audit your site and pull a competitor's keywords and ads.
Heads-up: this is an affiliate link — if you buy through it, new Mantra may earn a commission at no cost to you. It doesn’t change our take.
What Semrush does
Semrush is a marketing suite built around search data — keywords, backlinks, traffic estimates, and competitor analysis. Day to day, a marketing team might use it to find keyword opportunities, audit a website's technical health, research what a competitor is ranking for, or plan paid-search campaigns. It pulls data from a database that covers billions of keywords and trillions of backlinks across hundreds of geographic markets.
More recently, Semrush has added an AI Visibility Toolkit aimed at a newer problem: as more people get answers directly from AI tools like ChatGPT rather than clicking search results, brands want to know whether those AI systems are mentioning them and how. The toolkit lets you track visibility at the prompt level and compare your AI 'market share' against competitors. There is also an AI content scoring feature that evaluates and helps optimise content for both traditional search and AI-generated results.
The platform connects to tools many marketing teams already use, including Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google Ads, Looker Studio, and Trello, which reduces the need to switch between systems. Implementation is typically estimated at one to two weeks, and Semrush describes a free seven-day trial so teams can test it before committing to a paid plan.
Key capabilities
Keyword and SEO research
Access a large keyword database to find ranking opportunities, analyse backlink profiles, and run technical site audits to identify issues affecting search performance.
Competitive traffic analysis
Estimate traffic to any domain, benchmark your performance against competitors, and spot trends in your market before committing budget.
AI visibility tracking
Monitor how often and how favourably AI platforms surface your brand in their answers, and track how that compares to competitors over time.
Content scoring and optimisation
Score content against ranking and AI-readiness criteria in real time, giving writers specific guidance rather than general advice.
Paid advertising research
Analyse competitor ad strategies for Google and Meta campaigns to inform your own bidding and creative decisions.
Integrated data access
Connect Semrush data directly to Google Analytics, Search Console, Looker Studio, and Trello so your existing reporting and workflow tools stay in sync.
Best for
- Marketing teams that run both organic search and paid campaigns and want a single research platform for both
- Businesses actively tracking how competitors rank, advertise, or appear in AI-generated answers
- Content teams that produce search-optimised material at scale and need scoring guidance built into their workflow
- Organisations beginning to care about 'AI search' visibility — where AI tools cite or recommend brands — and want data on it
- Companies already using Google Analytics, Search Console, or Google Ads who want richer data without replacing those tools
Worth knowing
- Cost starts at $117.33 per month billed annually ($139 monthly) for the SEO plan and rises to $455.67 per month billed annually ($549 monthly) for Advanced — this is a recurring subscription, so evaluate whether your team will use enough of the feature set to justify the spend at your chosen tier.
- Many features overlap: SEO, content, advertising, social, and local tools are all bundled together. If you only need one narrow capability, a more focused tool may be better value.
- The AI Visibility Toolkit is a relatively new addition; if tracking AI-answer presence is your primary need, confirm the depth of coverage for the specific AI platforms and prompts relevant to your market before committing.
- Implementation is estimated at one to two weeks, which implies some onboarding and setup time — factor this in if your team is already stretched.
- Semrush has been acquired by Adobe; customers with concerns about platform continuity or roadmap changes should review the FAQ published by Semrush before signing a longer-term contract.
How Semrush compares
Semrush is a broad search suite: SEO research, site audits, competitor traffic, paid-search research and AI-answer tracking. The tools below each do one part of that job, and are often the better buy if that part is all you need.
vs Surfer SEO
Surfer SEO focuses on content optimisation, grading drafts against the pages ranking for a keyword, from $49 a month (annual). It does not cover technical audits, backlinks or ad research. Choose Surfer if writing pages that rank is the job; Semrush if you also need keyword, backlink, competitor and paid-search research.
vs Frase
Frase handles the content cycle — research, drafting in your brand voice, scoring for SEO and AI answers, decay monitoring and CMS publishing — from $39 a month (annual). Semrush is research-first, with backlink data, site audits and ad research. A content team may be better served by Frase; a broader marketing team by Semrush.
vs Profound
Profound specialises in tracking how ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini mention and cite your brand, on custom Enterprise pricing after a free trial. Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit covers similar ground inside a wider suite but is a newer addition. If AI-answer presence is your main concern, compare Profound directly; if it is one concern among many, Semrush.
vs Scalenut
Scalenut takes a keyword and produces a full SEO-optimised article draft in one guided workflow, from $59 a month for five articles. It is a writing tool, not a research suite. Choose Scalenut if article output is the bottleneck; Semrush if you first need to know which keywords, competitors and ads to go after.
Related tools
Ready to see Semrush in action?
The deciding question is breadth. Plans run from $117.33 a month on SEO to $455.67 on Advanced (annual; $139–$549 monthly), which pays off when your team uses several of the tools; if you need only one narrow capability, a specialist tool will usually be better value.
Heads-up: this is an affiliate link — if you buy through it, new Mantra may earn a commission at no cost to you. It doesn’t change our take.
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