Semrush Alternatives Ranked by What You Actually Give Up
Affiliate disclosure: some links here are affiliate links and we may earn a commission at no cost to you. The order below follows the stated criterion and nothing else; no vendor paid for a position or saw this page before it went up.
The renewal is coming and $117.33/mo billed annually — $139 if you pay monthly — has stopped feeling proportionate to what you use. Here is the short answer. On published limits alone, SE Ranking’s Core plan at $103.20 /mo billed annually beats Semrush’s SEO plan on every published limit: 10 projects against 5 websites to monitor, 2k keywords tracked daily against 500, extra manager seats from $16 against extra users starting at $45/mo. If link data is why you pay, Ahrefs Lite at $129 /mo publishes 35.0 trillion external backlinks against Semrush’s over 43 trillion.
The longer answer is that most of the cheap options here are cheap because they cap you lower, and the cap is easy to miss when the price is the thing in bold. Ubersuggest’s entry tier tracks 125 keywords on one project. Mangools Basic tracks 200. Search Atlas Starter tracks 2,000, but on one project and one seat. So this page measures what a Semrush subscriber actually surrenders on the way out: the index each vendor publishes, the tracked keywords and projects the entry plan allows, and what a second login costs. Nobody installed or subscribed to anything — these are published pricing pages, read on 17 September 2026.
What this ranking measures
This ranks on three things, in order of consequence. First, whether the entry plan’s tracked keywords and projects sit at or above what Semrush’s SEO plan publishes — 5 websites to monitor, 500 keywords to track daily — because paying less to do less is not a saving. Second, the cost of a second seat, measured against Semrush’s extra users starting at $45/mo. Third, the index each vendor publishes: bigger is better, dated is better still, and a vendor that publishes both a keyword figure and a backlink figure outranks one publishing half of that at comparable caps. Deliberately not measured: data accuracy, interface, support, onboarding, or anything else that needs hands on the product. Nobody installed or subscribed to any of these. Where a vendor publishes no number the criterion needs, that silence costs it position rather than scoring as neutral.
The short answer
It is the only entry plan on this list where no published Semrush limit goes down: 10 projects against 5 websites to monitor, 2k keywords and 100 prompts tracked daily against 500, extra manager seats from $16 against extra users starting at $45/mo — at a lower price. The cost of that move is index depth: 2.7 trillion backlinks, undated and contradicted by a 2.9 trillion figure on the same page, against Semrush’s over 43 trillion dated 16 September 2026.
It publishes the index closest to the one you are leaving — 35.0 trillion external backlinks and 28.7 billion filtered keywords out of 110 billion discovered — and Lite matches Semrush’s 5 websites with 750 tracked keywords and 100,000 crawl credits. It ranks second because every plan below Enterprise includes exactly one seat, a second costs $40/mo on Lite, and no annual dollar price is published to set against Semrush’s $117.33.
It publishes 9.5 trillion backlinks via Majestic, counted since July 2013, and is the only vendor here stating that the annual discounted price holds until you cancel. But Basic tracks 200 keywords against Semrush’s 500 daily and allows no extra seats, so it is a saving only if you are genuinely under those caps. Premium at $26.35 / mo billed annually ($316.20 / yr) raises tracking to 700 keywords and includes 3 extra seats at no per-seat charge.
All 10 compared
| # | Product | Best for | Price from | What decides its place | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Keeping every limit you have now, for less | $103.20 /mo (Core, annual — Save 20%) or $129.00 /mo monthly | 2k keywords & 100 prompts tracked daily, 10 projects, seats from $16 | Visit | |
| 2 | Backlink work you cannot afford to shrink | $129 /mo (Lite); Starter $29 /mo — monthly rates only | 35.0 trillion backlinks; Lite = 5 projects, 750 keywords, 1 seat | Visit | |
| 3 | Five logins without a per-seat invoice | $249 /month billed annually ($2,990 billed annually) — $299 /month monthly (Business) | 5 sites and 500 keywords at $249/month billed annually ($299 monthly) | Visit | |
| 4 | One site, heavy keyword tracking | $79 /mo — $950 billed annually; $99 /mo billed monthly (Starter) | 2,000 tracked keywords but only 1 project and 1 seat on Starter | Visit | |
| 5 | Competitor keyword history on a small budget | $ 29 /month * Billed Annually, or $ 39 /month monthly (Basic) | 5k weekly tracked keywords, 1 project, no backlink index published | Visit | |
| 6 | Solo SEOs genuinely under 200 keywords | $18.85 / mo — $226.20 / yr, struck-through $366.00 (Basic, Annually) | 200 tracked keywords, weekly updates, no extra seats on Basic | Visit | |
| 7 | The cheapest seat you can buy one at a time | $12/month (Individual) as served 2026-09-17; page’s own strip: US$ 29 - US$ 99 | 125 tracked keywords per project, 1 project, no index published | Visit | |
| 8 | Replacing Semrush’s crawler, nothing else | £199 Per Year (1 to 4 Licences); $279 Per Year in the USD view | One named user at £199 Per Year; no tracked keywords, no index | Visit | |
| 9 | Traffic and market research, not SEO caps | $165 Per month billed annually or $199 per month (Competitive Intel & SEO & AEO) | No tracked-keyword, project or crawl limit published on any tier | Visit | |
| 10 | Content briefs, not a Semrush replacement | $ 23 /mo (Bronze) — $ 19 *12 / Yearly | No index, no tracked keywords, no crawl credits published | Visit |
1. SE Ranking
Why it sits at 1 2k keywords & 100 prompts tracked daily, 10 projects, seats from $16
Core is $103.20 /mo on the annual toggle, billed upfront, or $129.00 /mo monthly. It carries 10 projects and 1 manager seat, 2k keywords and 100 prompts tracked daily, 5 domains in GEO research, 250k audit pages a month and 25K API credits with MCP access. Extra manager seats start at $16.
Against Semrush’s 5 websites, 500 daily tracked keywords and extra users from $45/mo, no published limit goes down. The index does. SE Ranking states 2.7 trillion backlinks and 420 million domains with no date, and 2.9 trillion backlinks with 411 million referring domains elsewhere on the same page, against Semrush’s over 43 trillion dated 16 September 2026.
- Every published entry-plan cap sits above Semrush’s, and a second manager seat starts at $16.
- Its own backlink page gives two different totals, 2.7 trillion and 2.9 trillion, neither dated — and payments are stated to be non-refundable.
2. Ahrefs
Why it sits at 2 35.0 trillion backlinks; Lite = 5 projects, 750 keywords, 1 seat
Lite at $129 /mo is the plan that stands in for a Semrush subscription: 5 projects, 750 tracked keywords, 5 tracked AI prompts, 100,000 crawl credits, API and MCP access, one user included and two more at $40/mo each. Starter at $29 /mo is monthly-only, metered at 200 credits a month, and blocks every extra seat, credit and add-on.
The index is the closest match available: 35.0 trillion external backlinks and 28.7 billion filtered keywords out of 110 billion discovered, across 217 locations — none of it dated, where Semrush stamps 16 September 2026 on its claims. Lite beats Semrush’s 500 daily tracked keywords with 750 and matches its 5 websites, at $129 /mo, Ahrefs’ only published billing period, against Semrush’s $139 monthly or $117.33/mo billed annually.
- Publishes 100,000 crawl credits on Lite, where Semrush publishes no crawl allowance for any paid plan.
- Annual billing cannot be selected on the page — the FAQ routes you to email support — and Ahrefs states it does not issue refunds in general.
3. Alli AI
Why it sits at 3 5 sites and 500 keywords at $249/month billed annually ($299 monthly)
Business is $299/month monthly or $249/month on the annual toggle, billed as $2,990 a year with a stated saving of $598. It covers 5 sites, 5 team members, 500 keywords and 1,250 pages on weekly crawls; extra sites are $39.00 each, extra keywords $24.99 per 100 and extra pages $14.99 per 250. Agency is $599/month for 15 sites and 2,000 keywords.
On the first measure its caps land exactly on Semrush’s entry — 5 sites against 5 websites, 500 keywords against 500 tracked daily — so nothing is cut. On the second it wins outright: five team members are included and no per-user charge is published at any tier, against Semrush’s extra users from $45/mo. It fails the third completely — no keyword index size and no backlink index size are published anywhere — and that is what holds it below SE Ranking and Ahrefs, both of which clear the first measure by more and publish an index. What it does not do is save money: $249/month billed annually is more than double Semrush’s $117.33/mo billed annually, and this page ranks on published limits rather than cost.
- Five team members included at the entry tier, with no per-user charge published at any level.
- No index size, no refund window, and an entry price above Semrush’s own at $249/month billed annually.
4. Search Atlas
Why it sits at 4 2,000 tracked keywords but only 1 project and 1 seat on Starter
Starter is $79 /mo on the annual toggle, charged as a single $950 upfront, or $99 /mo monthly: 1 project, 1 seat, 2,000 tracked keywords, 50,000 site-audit pages and 50,000 Universal Credits a month, a single pool that audits, content generation and rank checks all draw down. AI visibility is set to zero on this tier and starts on Growth at $159 /mo annual.
It publishes the largest backlink figure on this list, 100 trillion links, plus more than 5 billion keyword terms across 200+ countries, both undated. It quadruples Semrush’s 500 daily tracked keywords. What it cuts is scope: one project against 5 websites, one seat, and no per-seat or per-project add-on rate published anywhere, so a colleague means a tier upgrade.
- 2,000 tracked keywords and a published 100 trillion backlink index at $79 /mo billed annually.
- Refunds run 48 hours monthly, 72 hours and half the money annually, and are void once any single tool shows over 10% quota use.
5. SpyFu
Why it sits at 5 5k weekly tracked keywords, 1 project, no backlink index published
Basic is $ 39 /month billed monthly or $ 29 /month billed annually, a gap the vendor states as $120 a year. It gives 1 Live Site tracking project, 5k weekly tracked keyword rankings, a 10k row limit on search results and exports, 10 automated reports and one user, with no AI tools and the 10+ years of historical data withheld until Pro + AI — whose monthly card carries the only first-term-to-renewal step-up any vendor here publishes, $ 59 /1st month then $119/month thereafter, where most publish no renewal rate at all.
SpyFu publishes 13.1 billion keywords, 7.2 trillion indexed search results and 152 million websites across 38 countries, all undated — and no backlink index size at all, which is half of what a Semrush subscriber is paying for. Its 5,000 rankings refresh weekly rather than daily, and a single project is a cut from 5 websites to monitor.
- A 30-day money-back guarantee with no cancellation process, matched on length only by NEURONwriter’s 30 days — and unlike NEURONwriter’s it is not restricted to an account’s first plan.
- SpyFu publishes a keyword count but no backlink index size at all, and its Basic tier gives 1 project with rankings refreshed weekly, not daily.
6. Mangools
Why it sits at 6 200 tracked keywords, weekly updates, no extra seats on Basic
The pricing page loads on the Annually toggle, so $18.85 / mo is an annual-equivalent rate billed as $226.20 / yr against a struck-through $366.00. Basic allows 100 keyword research requests per 24 hours, 100 SERP analyses, 20 site analyses, 200 tracked keywords across unlimited domains with weekly rank updates, 100k backlinks a month — and, marked on the page itself, no extra seats.
LinkMiner publishes 9.5 trillion backlinks and 2.5 trillion unique URLs crawled, sourced from Majestic and counted since July 2013, which is more provenance than most vendors offer. Mangools also publishes a renewal position: the annual discounted price holds until you cancel. The 200-keyword cap against Semrush’s 500 daily is what keeps it out of the top three.
- The only vendor here publishing that its annual rate holds at renewal, plus a permanent free plan at 5 lookups per 24 hours.
- Basic tracks 200 keywords on weekly updates and allows no extra seats; daily rank updates arrive only on Agency at $48.85 / mo.
7. Ubersuggest
Why it sits at 7 125 tracked keywords per project, 1 project, no index published
The plan card read $12/month for Individual on 17 September 2026, while the same page’s comparison strip states Ubersuggest’s range as US$ 29 - US$ 99 and the live figures are injected by JavaScript rather than served in the page. Treat $12/month as the price this session was shown. The entry tier holds 1 project (brand), 150 reports per day, 250 monthly credits and 125 tracked keywords per project.
Additional Users are +$5/month, the cheapest per-seat add-on here against Semrush’s from $45/mo — though Mangools Premium and Alli AI Business bundle extra seats at no charge at all — and six other add-ons carry that same flat rate. But 125 tracked keywords against 500, and one project against 5 websites, is the deepest cut among the vendors here that track rankings at all — and no keyword or backlink index size is published at all, the vendor disclosing instead that its figures are third-party estimates.
- Extra users, projects, keywords, competitors and credits all cost +$5/month each.
- No annual plan, no API, no published index size, and a lifetime offer advertised beside a countdown with no price shown anywhere.
8. Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Why it sits at 8 One named user at £199 Per Year; no tracked keywords, no index
A desktop crawler sold by the year: £199 Per Year for one to four licences, falling to £189, £179 and £169 per licence at 5, 10 and 20+. The USD view shows $279 Per Year and the EUR licence page €245. The free version crawls 500 URLs per crawl and cannot save crawls, reach the configuration, use custom extraction, connect Analytics or Search Console, or render JavaScript; a licence lifts crawling to unlimited, bounded only by allocated memory and storage.
It publishes nothing for the first and third measures — no tracked keywords, no projects, no keyword or backlink index — and that silence is what caps it here. It holds this position on the second: a licence is one named user at £199 Per Year, roughly £17 a month against Semrush’s extra users from $45/mo.
- Removes the one limit Semrush never publishes, at a price per year rather than per month.
- One licence is one person, a second is another £199 Per Year, and the vendor states existing users are not kept on old pricing after an increase.
9. Similarweb (Web Intelligence)
Why it sits at 9 No tracked-keyword, project or crawl limit published on any tier
The $65 Per month billed annually ($99 per month) entry package is Competitive Intelligence only: one user, three months of historical data, and no SEO, rank-tracking, site-audit or backlink tooling at all. The cheapest package that includes Keyword Research, Rank Tracker, Site Audit and Backlinks is $165 Per month billed annually or $199 per month, on one user with six months of history and 150 tracked prompts.
That sits above Semrush’s entry price, and what this ranking counts is absent: no tracked-keyword quota, no project count, no crawl or pages-per-audit limit, and no backlink index size — only a keyword index of over 7 billion from 50+ search engines across 190+ countries, undated. Every self-service package is fixed at one user, with no seat sold at any published price.
- Permanently free public tools, plus a published keyword index of over 7 billion across 190+ countries.
- The 7-day trial requires a card that is charged automatically when it ends, and no refund window is published anywhere.
10. NEURONwriter
Why it sits at 10 No index, no tracked keywords, no crawl credits published
Bronze is $ 23 /mo billed monthly, or $ 19 *12 / Yearly on the yearly toggle — twelve months paid at once, not a cheaper monthly charge. It buys 2 projects, 25 content writer analyses, 5 AI-monitored questions and 15,000 AI credits, with content sharing set to read-only until Gold at $ 69 /mo, which is where API access and the integrations begin.
It ranks last because it answers none of the three questions this page asks: no keyword index, no backlink index, no tracked keywords and no crawl credits are published, and the only scale figure on the site is a user count. That is a category difference rather than a defect — but swapping a Semrush subscription for this one loses rank tracking, site audit and link data outright.
- A 7-day trial on Gold terms with no card required, and a 30-day refund on an account’s first plan.
- Seats on Bronze and Silver are read-only, so a team that needs to edit starts at Gold, $ 69 /mo.
Which one fits your situation
SE Ranking Core: 2k keywords and 100 prompts tracked daily across 10 projects, at $103.20 /mo billed annually or $129.00 /mo monthly. It is the only entry plan here that raises every published cap while costing less.
Ahrefs Lite at $129 /mo — 35.0 trillion external backlinks published, 5 projects, 750 tracked keywords, 100,000 crawl credits. Budget for the seat: one user is included and each of two more is $40/mo.
Screaming Frog at £199 Per Year, shown as $279 Per Year in the USD view. Crawling becomes unlimited, bounded only by your machine’s memory and storage — and Semrush publishes no crawl allowance for any paid plan to compare it against.
Mangools Premium at $26.35 / mo billed annually: 700 tracked keywords and 3 extra seats at no per-seat charge. Semrush’s extra users start at $45/mo each, and Mangools Basic allows no extra seats at all.
Do not buy anything yet. Ahrefs Free is permanent, needs no card, and gives unlimited verified websites with 5K crawl credits a month per project; Screaming Frog’s free version crawls 500 URLs. For a single site, the free tier is enough until you need more than 1K backlinks and keywords visible at once.
What this market gets people for
- Reading “$X/mo billed annually” as a monthly bill. Semrush’s SEO plan is $117.33/mo billed annually and $139 monthly. SE Ranking’s Core is $103.20 annual against $129.00 monthly, billed upfront. Search Atlas Starter’s $79 /mo arrives as $950 at once. None of these are first-term promos — they are billing frequencies.
- Comparing a seat-inclusive price to a seat-extra price. Semrush prices extra users from $45/mo. Ahrefs includes one user on every plan below Enterprise and charges $40, $60 or $80 for more. Mangools Basic allows none at all. Alli AI Business includes five. The sticker price is not the team price.
- Assuming the index you leave is the index you land on. Semrush publishes 28.9 billion keywords and over 43 trillion links, dated 16 September 2026. SE Ranking publishes 2.7 trillion backlinks with no date, and 2.9 trillion elsewhere on the same page. Ubersuggest, Alli AI and NEURONwriter publish no index size at all.
- Treating a free trial as a refund policy. SpyFu has no trial but a 30-day guarantee. Ahrefs states it does not issue refunds in general. SE Ranking states payments are non-refundable. Semrush’s 7-day guarantee never covers month-to-month subscriptions, so a monthly switcher has no way out at all.
Questions buyers ask
What am I actually comparing against — what does Semrush’s entry plan give me?
The SEO plan is $117.33/mo billed annually, instead of $139 monthly. It monitors 5 websites and tracks 500 keywords daily. Semrush publishes 28.9 billion keywords, 808 million domain profiles and over 43 trillion links, all dated 16 September 2026. Extra users start at $45/mo. It does not publish crawl credits, a project count, or how many seats a plan includes.
Is there anything cheaper that does not cut my limits?
SE Ranking’s Core plan, at $103.20 /mo billed annually or $129.00 /mo monthly, publishes 10 projects, 2k keywords and 100 prompts tracked daily, 250k audit pages a month and 25K API credits, with extra manager seats from $16. On the three limits Semrush publishes — websites, daily tracked keywords and the price of a second seat — every SE Ranking number is better; the audit-page and API-credit allowances have no Semrush figure to compare against. The index behind them is far smaller.
Which alternative publishes an index closest to Semrush’s?
Ahrefs: 35.0 trillion external backlinks and 28.7 billion filtered keywords out of 110 billion discovered, across 217 locations. Search Atlas publishes a larger backlink number, 100 trillion. Neither vendor dates its figures; Semrush dates its claim 16 September 2026, which is the difference between a number you can check and a number you cannot.
Will the price go up when the term ends?
Almost nobody says. SpyFu is the only vendor here publishing a step-up: monthly Pro + AI is $ 59 /1st month, then $119/month thereafter. Mangools is the only one publishing a lock, stating the annual discounted price holds until you cancel. Semrush, Ahrefs, SE Ranking, Ubersuggest, Search Atlas, Similarweb, Alli AI and NEURONwriter publish no renewal rate at all. Screaming Frog states existing users are not kept on old pricing after an increase.
Can I try any of these without paying?
Ahrefs Free is permanent and needs no card. Mangools runs a permanent free plan at 5 lookups per 24 hours plus a 10-day Free+ trial. Screaming Frog’s free version crawls 500 URLs. SE Ranking gives 14 days with no card, NEURONwriter 7 days on Gold terms with no card, Alli AI 10 days, Search Atlas 7 days with the card requirement unstated. Similarweb’s 7-day trial requires a card that is charged automatically. Ubersuggest runs a one-time 7-day trial on monthly subscriptions plus a free account whose limits it never publishes; Semrush has a 7-day trial on all plans but Advanced, and a free plan capped at 1 demo project and 10 reports a day. SpyFu offers no trial.
If I switch and regret it, can I get my money back?
SpyFu publishes 30 days and NEURONwriter 30 days on an account’s first plan. Screaming Frog publishes 14 days, Mangools 48 hours. Semrush’s 7-day guarantee applies only to initial purchases on annual or longer terms, never month-to-month. SE Ranking states payments are non-refundable, Ahrefs states it does not issue refunds in general, and Search Atlas allows 48 hours monthly or 72 hours annually at half the money, void above 10% quota use. Similarweb and Alli AI publish no window.
What none of them publish
These are the questions a buyer would want settled that no vendor on this page answers in public. If one of them decides your purchase, ask the vendor and hold them to the answer.
- What Semrush’s own crawl allowance is. No crawl-credit or pages-per-month figure is published for any paid plan, so the capability you would be replacing has no number attached to it.
- How many projects and seats a Semrush plan includes. The pricing page counts websites to monitor and sells extra users from $45/mo, but never states a project count or a starting seat count.
- What anything renews at. Only SpyFu publishes a step-up ($ 59 /1st month, then $119/month thereafter on monthly Pro + AI) and only Mangools publishes a lock. Semrush, Ahrefs, SE Ranking, Ubersuggest, Search Atlas, Similarweb, Alli AI and NEURONwriter publish no renewal rate.
- Ahrefs’ annual prices in dollars. Only a save-up-to-17% ceiling is shown for any tier, and annual billing is arranged by emailing support rather than selected on the page.
- When the index figures were measured. Semrush dates its claims 16 September 2026; Ahrefs, SE Ranking, SpyFu, Search Atlas, Mangools and Similarweb publish undated numbers, so none can be checked for staleness.
- Similarweb’s quotas at $165 Per month billed annually: no tracked-keyword limit, project count, crawl allowance or backlink index size is published, and no second seat is purchasable at any published price.
- Search Atlas per-seat, per-project and Universal Credit overage rates — plus what its Agency card means by unlimited keyword tracking while the same page caps tracked keywords at 50,000.
- Ubersuggest’s real list price and its free-account limits. Plan prices are injected by JavaScript, the page’s own strip says US$ 29 - US$ 99, the lifetime price is never shown, and no free-tier cap is published at all.
- Whether the Search Atlas and Alli AI trials require a card, and what either trial allows. Similarweb states its card is charged automatically; the other two state nothing.
Reading this from the other direction? Cheap SEO Tools Under $50 a Month: What the Entry Price Really Buys covers the same market against a different rule.