Semrush is one of the biggest SEO suites, and its pricing page is clear about the headline numbers. Four paid plans, $139 to $549 a month. What it is less clear about is what those numbers buy, what they cost once a second person needs a login, and why the same plan has three different names depending on which Semrush page you are reading.
This post answers the first question in one box and then does the rest. Every price and limit below was read on Semrush’s own pricing page and knowledge base on October 3, 2026. Semrush shows prices in your local currency, and from here it showed pounds, so the dollar figures are its published US prices, cross-checked against the exchange rate the page itself applies.
- Semrush costs $139, $199, $299 or $549 a month for SEO, Starter, Pro+ and Advanced. Billed annually that is $117.33, $165.17, $248.17 and $455.67 a month. Enterprise is custom, and there is a free plan.
- The price includes one user. Extra seats are $45, $80 or $100 a month each depending on the plan, so a team of three on Pro+ pays $459, not $299.
- The $60 step from SEO to Starter adds no SEO capacity. Same 5 sites and 500 tracked keywords. It buys 50 daily AI prompts, the rest of the AI Visibility Toolkit and documented MCP access.
- API access is Advanced only, and MCP is murky. Semrush’s table ticks MCP on every plan, while its MCP docs name Starter and Pro+ and leave the $139 plan out.
- If you mostly want answers to SEO questions, ContextBolt SEO runs keyword, SERP, backlink and AI-answer research inside Claude or Cursor, free for 7 days and then $35 a month.
Semrush plans and prices in 2026
Here are the four paid plans as Semrush lists them on its SEO and AI Search pricing page. The annual column is the monthly equivalent when you pay for a year up front.
| Plan | Monthly | Billed annually | Yearly saving |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | n/a |
| SEO | $139 | $117.33/mo | $260.04 (15.6%) |
| Starter | $199 | $165.17/mo | $405.96 (17.0%) |
| Pro+ | $299 | $248.17/mo | $609.96 (17.0%) |
| Advanced | $549 | $455.67/mo | $1,119.96 (17.0%) |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | n/a |
Semrush advertises the annual discount as “save up to 17%”. That is true of three plans. The cheapest one saves a little less, which is the kind of thing you only see by multiplying it out.
Semrush’s subscription guide says every SEO and AI Search plan has a 7-day free trial, though the pricing page only shows the trial button on SEO, Starter and Pro+. You can cancel any time before the trial ends.
What each Semrush plan actually gets you
The price table tells you what you pay. This one tells you what you get. These rows come from the expanded plan comparison on the same pricing page.
| Limit | SEO | Starter | Pro+ | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Websites to monitor (projects) | 5 | 5 | 15 | 40 |
| Keywords tracked daily | 500 | 500 | 1,500 | 5,000 |
| Results per report | 10,000 | 10,000 | 30,000 | 50,000 |
| Reports per day | 3,000 | 3,000 | 5,000 | 10,000 |
| Keyword metric updates per month | 250 | 250 | 1,000 | 5,000 |
| Pages crawled per month | 100,000 | 100,000 | 300,000 | 1,000,000 |
| Historical data | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Daily AI prompts tracked | No | 50 | 100 | 200 |
| API access | No | No | No | Yes |
| Users included | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Each extra user | $45/mo | $45/mo | $80/mo | $100/mo |
Three things stand out once the rows sit side by side.
SEO and Starter have the same SEO limits: Same 5 sites, same 500 keywords, same 10,000 rows per report, same 3,000 reports a day. Starter’s extra $60 a month goes on AI search tracking and agent access. That is 50 prompts checked daily, one domain for AI brand performance, 300 AI visibility reports a day, an AI-ready site audit and MCP access, per Semrush’s subscription guide.
Pro+ is where the SEO limits move: Three times the sites and tracked keywords, three times the rows per report, plus historical data, keyword cannibalization reports and JavaScript rendering.
Results per report is the limit a big keyword report hits: A keyword report on a broad topic or a competitor’s ranking keywords can run well past 10,000 rows. On SEO and Starter you see the first 10,000 and nothing after.
What you actually pay per keyword, site and seat
Plan prices are hard to compare because the plans are different sizes. So here is the same data divided out. This is our arithmetic on Semrush’s published prices and limits, monthly billing, nothing else added.
| Plan | Per tracked keyword | Per website | Team of three | Per person in that team |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SEO | $0.28 | $27.80 | $229/mo | $76.33 |
| Starter | $0.40 | $39.80 | $289/mo | $96.33 |
| Pro+ | $0.20 | $19.93 | $459/mo | $153.00 |
| Advanced | $0.11 | $13.73 | $749/mo | $249.67 |
Per tracked keyword divides the monthly price by the keywords the plan tracks daily. Per website divides it by the sites it monitors. The team of three is the base plan plus two extra users at the plan’s seat price.
What the table says, plainly.
- Starter is the most expensive plan per keyword in the lineup. Fine if you want the AI tracking. Poor value if you were only after rank tracking.
- Advanced is the cheapest per keyword, but only if you fill it. Track 500 keywords on Advanced and you are paying $1.10 each.
- Seats move the bill as much as a tier does. Going from one person to three on Pro+ costs $160 a month, more than half the plan price again.
- Annual billing lowers the keyword and website columns by 15.6 to 17%. Pro+ billed annually is $0.17 per tracked keyword.
And one cost the table leaves out. Extra users get the SEO features but not AI search tracking. Semrush’s user management guide says the AI Visibility Toolkit costs $99 per extra user. A three-person Starter team where everyone needs AI tracking is $289 plus $198, so $487 a month.
SEO vs Semrush One vs SEO Classic
Semrush’s naming is the most confusing part of its pricing, and it matters when you read anything written before the rename.
Semrush One: The bundle of the SEO Toolkit and the AI Visibility Toolkit. Semrush’s Semrush One explainer says it comes in Starter, Pro+ and Advanced. The pricing page labels those three “SEO + AI Search”.
SEO: The $139 plan. It is the SEO side on its own, without daily prompt tracking, and Semrush says it lacks the full AI visibility feature set.
Pro, Guru and Business: The older SEO Toolkit lineup. Semrush’s knowledge base still lists it at $139.95, $249.95 and $499.95 a month, and its developer docs call these plans SEO Classic.
So when a review says “Semrush Guru is $249.95”, it is describing the old plan. The nearest current plan by limits is Pro+ at $299, which matches Guru’s 15 sites, 1,500 keywords and 30,000 results per report and adds AI tracking.
If you already pay for a Classic plan, read the MCP section below before switching. The two lineups are not treated the same.
The add-ons and costs people miss
The plan price is the floor. These are the lines that push the bill above it.
Extra users: $45, $80 or $100 a month each, as above. View-only access to folders is free.
AI tracking for extra users: $99 per user on top of the seat, because added users do not inherit the AI Visibility Toolkit.
API access: Only Advanced includes it. The SEO, Starter and Pro+ plans show “No” in the API row. Semrush’s API runs on units, and its MCP documentation says unit packages come in 2 million, 5 million, 10 million and 20 million. Semrush does not publish the package prices on those pages, so ask sales before you budget for it.
Specialist toolkits: Local, Content, Social, Advertising, AI PR and Traffic and Market are separate subscriptions, most with their own tiers. The pricing page you are looking at covers SEO and AI search only.
Reports: Semrush’s reporting add-on is $10 a month per report for Base and $20 per report for Pro, which adds white-labeling, per the subscription guide. Each plan includes three base reports.
Trial rules: Semrush disables exports during trials, so you cannot pull your data out until you pay.
Does Semrush pricing include MCP?
This is the one place Semrush’s own pages disagree, so here is each source as written.
The pricing page’s comparison table ticks “MCP Access” on all four plans, SEO included. The subscription guide lists MCP access in Starter’s description and not in the SEO plan’s. The MCP developer docs say the plans that include it are Semrush One Starter, Semrush One Pro+, SEO Classic Pro and SEO Classic Guru, each with 50,000 API units refreshed at renewal. Semrush One Advanced and SEO Classic Business can use it only with a separately bought units package.
So the safe reading for a new customer is Starter at $199 or Pro+ at $299. The $139 plan might work, and the docs do not promise it. If MCP is the reason you are buying, ask Semrush support which tier includes it before you pay. The full breakdown, including how far 50,000 units go, is in our Semrush MCP pricing guide.
The Semrush free plan and its limits
Semrush’s free plan is real and needs no card. The pricing page lists one demo project, 10 reports a day across the main tools and some AI visibility features.
The pricing FAQ adds the detail. A free account is limited to 10 analytics requests a day, one website and 10 keywords in Position Tracking. Paid plans start at 3,000 reports a day.
Ten requests is enough to see how Semrush works. It is not enough to research one article properly. A keyword idea search, a difficulty check and a competitor lookup are three reports already.
Which Semrush plan fits which job
There is no best plan, only the cheapest one that covers your job.
- You track rankings for one to five sites and want no AI tracking or MCP: SEO at $139. Starter costs $60 more for the same SEO limits.
- You need 50 AI prompts re-checked every day: Starter at $199, the cheapest plan with daily prompt tracking.
- You need history, more than 500 keywords or more than 10,000 rows per report: Pro+ at $299, which Semrush pitches at growing teams and agencies.
- You need the API, share of voice or more than 15 sites: Advanced at $549, plus a units package if you want MCP.
If none of those sounds like your job, Semrush may be the wrong shape of tool, and our Semrush alternatives guide compares the other options on price and fit. For the wider market, with every price’s billing basis attached, see SEO tool pricing in 2026.
Where ContextBolt SEO fits
ContextBolt SEO is ours, so weigh the bias.
It is an SEO MCP server, which means it plugs into the AI app you already use, Claude, Cursor or Codex, and answers SEO questions there. You ask “what should I write about next”, “who ranks for this and how strong are they”, “what links does this competitor have that I don’t” or “does ChatGPT name us for this”, and the agent runs the lookups and answers in plain English. Every lookup saves automatically to your SEO Dashboard.
It costs $35 a month for 1,000 credits. Keyword, SERP and domain research costs one credit a lookup and backlink lookups cost three. Connecting your own Google Search Console spends no credits. The 7-day free trial comes with 100 credits and needs a card.
Set that against the table above. If your Semrush use is mostly asking questions, keyword ideas, difficulty, who ranks, what a competitor ranks for, a $139 plan is a lot of suite for that, and $35 covers that kind of work. If you want to start there, the free trial is seven days.
A daily tracker across hundreds of keywords for a whole team is a different job, and that one is Semrush’s. ContextBolt checks a ranking when you ask. If daily tracking is your job, Semrush’s Pro+ is the plan built for it, and the full ContextBolt SEO vs Semrush comparison goes through the trade line by line. You can also run both, Semrush for the tracking and ContextBolt for the questions in between.
For a head-to-head on the agent side alone, see Semrush MCP vs ContextBolt SEO.
The bottom line
Semrush pricing is $139 to $549 a month for one person, and the real number depends on three things the headline skips. How many people need a login. Whether you need AI search tracking, which starts at Starter. And whether you need the API, which only Advanced includes.
Work those out first and the plan picks itself. If what you actually wanted was answers to SEO questions inside the AI app you already use, try ContextBolt SEO for a week first and see whether $35 covers it.
