Semrush Alternatives in 2026: Cheaper, Independent and Free Options
Semrush now starts at $139.95 a month, refunds only a first annual purchase and has belonged to Adobe since 28 April 2026. SE Ranking and Mangools cost less; Ahrefs suits link research.
Quick verdict: SE Ranking Core is the closest swap for most small teams: $129 a month, 2,000 keywords tracked daily, AI search tracking and a 14-day no-card trial. On a tight budget, SEO-only Mangools Basic costs $29.90 a month billed yearly, with weekly rank updates. Stay with Semrush if you need PPC, local and traffic data in one account.
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What changed at Semrush in 2026
Adobe completed its purchase of Semrush on 28 April 2026. Around the same time the pricing page got a new ladder: the Pro, Guru and Business names disappeared, and AI search tracking now starts at the Starter tier. An independent blog dates the switch to 28 April; we found no official announcement.
Prices checked on 7 October 2026, in US dollars. The plan page shows the SEO plan as “$139”; the help center and the page’s own price data say $139.95.
| Plan | Monthly | Billed yearly, per month | Keywords tracked | AI prompts tracked daily |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | – | 10 | – |
| SEO | $139.95 | $117.33 | 500, daily | None |
| Starter | $199 | $165.17 | 500, daily | 50 |
| Pro+ | $299 | $248.17 | 1,500, daily | 100 |
| Advanced | $549 | $455.67 | 5,000, daily | 200 |
The SEO plan covers 5 websites but has no prompt-tracking quota and no AI-ready site audit. Historical data starts on Pro+, and API access only on Advanced. The AI Visibility Toolkit is also sold on its own for $99 a month, with no free trial.
Three terms matter before you renew or leave. The 7-day trial needs a card and is given once per account; a second attempt buys a monthly plan. The refund policy offers a one-time 7-day guarantee on a first annual purchase and says “refunds are not available for month-to-month subscriptions”. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the paid term.
Review sites are split. Trustpilot shows 1.7 out of 5 from 1,411 reviews, 44% of them one-star; recent ones describe charges after a cancelled trial and a refused refund. On Capterra the product scores 4.6 from 2,329 reviews, with praise for its keyword database and complaints about price.
Prices, trials and limits side by side
The first table covers cost, trials and refunds; the second, what each plan tracks. Prices checked on 7 October 2026, in US dollars.
| Tool and plan | Monthly | Billed yearly, per month | Free trial | Refunds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Semrush SEO | $139.95 | $117.33 | 7 days, card needed | First annual purchase, 7 days |
| SE Ranking Core | $129 | $103.20 | 14 days, no card | Only if the service isn’t delivered |
| Mangools Basic | $49 SEO only, $61 with AI | $29.90 SEO only, $37.70 with AI | No; free plan instead | Within 48 hours |
| Ahrefs Lite | $129 | $107.50 | No | Unused monthly plans only |
| Moz Pro Standard | $99 | $79, first year | Medium plan only | None |
| SpyFu Basic | $39 | $29 | No | 30-day guarantee |
| Ubersuggest Individual | US$29 | €16, shown in euros | 7 days, monthly plans | Lifetime plans: none |
| Serpstat Individual | $69 | $50 | 7 days, card and $1 check | Not on pricing page |
| Similarweb, plan with SEO data | $399 | $333 | 7 days | Not on pricing page |
| Writesonic Starter | $99 | $79 | 7 days, no card | First payment, 7 days |
| NeuronWriter Bronze | $23 | $19 | 7 days, no card | First plan, 30 days |
Semrush and SE Ranking show euros to our European connection, so their dollar prices come from US copies archived on 5–6 October 2026. Mangools’ dollar prices come from its own US-dollar price list; its pricing page may open on the SEO + AI bundle. SpyFu’s page blocked our checker; its prices come from an archived copy of 27 September. Ubersuggest showed our European connection its yearly price in euros on 7 October 2026: Individual €16 a month, billed €192 a year; the US$29 monthly price is from the dollar price strip on the same page.
| Tool and plan | Rank tracking | Backlink data | AI search tracking | Trustpilot, 7 Oct 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Semrush SEO | 500 keywords, daily | Yes | Not on this plan | 1.7 (1,411 reviews) |
| SE Ranking Core | 2,000 keywords, daily | Yes | 100 prompts a day, 4 AI engines (21 Oct) | 4.2 (712) |
| Mangools Basic | 200 keywords, weekly; daily on Agency ($129) | Yes, Majestic data | 5 prompts; 500 in the SEO + AI bundle | 4.5 (167) |
| Ahrefs Lite | 750 keywords, weekly on every plan | Yes | 5 prompts | 2.2 (323) |
| Moz Pro Standard | 300 keywords, weekly | Yes | 150 prompts, weekly | 2.4 (242) |
| SpyFu Basic | 5,000 keywords, weekly | Yes, capped on Basic | None on Basic | 3.4 (152) |
| Ubersuggest Individual | 125 per project, weekly | Up to 2,000 links | 10 prompts, monthly | 4.2 (576) |
| Serpstat Individual | 10,000 checks a month, daily | Yes | Separate product | 3.0 (19) |
| Similarweb, plan with SEO data | Included | Yes | 150 prompts | 4.4 (790) |
Cheaper Semrush alternatives for everyday SEO
These four handle keyword research, rank tracking and backlink checks for less than the SEO plan, and three of them audit your site too. Mangools lists no audit tool.
SE Ranking: the closest all-round swap
SE Ranking has run since 2013; its terms name SER Acquisition Inc. of Delaware as the provider. Core bundles rank tracking, audits, local listings and AI search tracking, while Semrush sells local tools separately and AI tracking in its $199 Starter plan or as a $99-a-month toolkit. Two Trustpilot reviews from August 2026 praise it as better value than pricier suites.
- Price and trial: Core costs $129 a month, or $103.20 billed yearly, for 10 projects, 2,000 keywords and 100 AI prompts tracked daily, 250,000 audit pages a month and API credits. The 14-day trial needs no card but caps tracking at 750 keywords and 20 prompts a day.
- You give up: index size. By its own count, SE Ranking holds 2.7 trillion backlinks and 5.4 billion keywords; Semrush claims 43 trillion and 28.8 billion. A login also allows one active session at a time.
- Catch: Core replaced the $65 Essential plan in February 2026, so the entry price roughly doubled. Two one-star reviews from April and June 2026 complain about being moved to a pricier plan without consent. Payments are non-refundable unless the service wasn’t delivered.
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Mangools: low-cost keyword research
Mangools is made by CodeCat s.r.o. in Bratislava; its KWFinder launched in 2014. The tools come only as a bundle, including a backlink checker built on Majestic’s index. Basic, aimed at solopreneurs and freelancers, allows 100 keyword lookups a day and 200 tracked keywords.
- Price and trial: SEO-only Basic is $49 a month or $358.80 a year, about $29.90 a month. There is no trial; a free plan without a card allows 5 lookups per 24 hours, and refunds are possible within 48 hours of payment.
- You give up: a site audit, daily rank updates (weekly below the $129 Agency plan) and extra seats on Basic. Desktop and mobile tracking of one keyword count as two.
- Catch: the pricing page may open on the $61 SEO + AI bundle; pick SEO-only if you don’t need AI Search Watcher. The terms also let Mangools limit the entry plan to new users.
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Serpstat: daily rank checks on a small budget
Serpstat began at Netpeak in 2013 and has belonged to the Fractal group since 2015. Its Individual plan is the cheapest on this list with daily rank updates, on monthly or yearly billing.
- Price and trial: $69 a month or $50 billed yearly, for 5 projects, 100 searches a day, 30,000 audit pages and backlink analysis. The 7-day trial needs a card and a $1 check that is returned.
- You give up: extra users. Individual has no team access; Semrush sells extra seats from $45 a month. AI tools, API access and seats start on Serpstat’s $129 Team plan; tracking AI answers is a separate product, LLM Brand Monitor.
- Catch: rank tracking counts checks, not keywords: 10,000 checks a month is roughly 330 keywords a day over 30 days. Auto-renewal starts with the trial, and the full price is charged after 7 days unless you cancel.
Its Trustpilot score of 3.0 rests on just 19 reviews, too few to judge.
Ubersuggest: low entry price, lifetime-plan catch
Ubersuggest belongs to Neil Patel’s NP Digital. Plans are sized by websites: Individual covers 1, Business 2–7 and Enterprise 8–15. Individual costs US$29 a month; billed yearly, the pricing page showed us €16 a month (€192 a year) on 7 October 2026.
- Price and trial: a one-time 7-day trial applies to monthly plans only. Individual includes 150 reports a day, 125 tracked keywords per project and a 1,000-page site audit, both updated weekly.
- You give up: daily tracking and depth: backlink reports stop at 2,000 links, and there is no API on any plan (Semrush has one on Advanced). AI tracking covers 10 prompts updated monthly, with Gemini and AI Overview data on Enterprise only.
- Catch: a “Save 90%” lifetime banner with a countdown sits on the pricing page. Lifetime purchases are final, and switching to one “keeps only your oldest project”; the others are removed.
Specialist tools for links, PPC and traffic data
Ahrefs and Moz Pro are full suites built around link data; SpyFu and Similarweb replace one part of the job. Look here if backlinks, ad research or traffic data drove your subscription.
Ahrefs: built around backlink data
Ahrefs Pte. Ltd. is based in Singapore and describes itself as bootstrapped. It says its live backlink index refreshes every 15–30 minutes and its history holds 35 trillion backlink records. There is no Ahrefs affiliate program, so we earn nothing if you choose it.
- Price and trial: Lite is $129 a month; a year costs $1,290, the price of 10 months. There is no trial, and the pricing FAQ says “We never run discounts.” A credit-based Starter plan costs $29 a month, with limits that can change without notice.
- You give up: daily rankings. Lite tracks more than the SEO plan, 750 keywords and 5 AI prompts, but its pricing page shows weekly updates on every plan. A $100-a-month daily add-on for Lite appears only in Ahrefs’ plan data, not on the page (checked 7 October 2026). Content Explorer starts on the $249 Standard plan.
- Catch: refunds are not issued in general, and any pay-as-you-go credits you enable are charged automatically once you pass the plan’s limits.
Moz Pro: links and AI prompts on a modest plan
Moz, founded in 2004 as SEOmoz, now belongs to Ziff Davis, worth knowing if a corporate owner is why you’re leaving. It developed Domain Authority, a 1–100 score that predicts ranking chances and is not a Google ranking factor. Standard tracks 150 AI prompts weekly across GPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode and Perplexity.
- Price and trial: Standard is $99 a month or $79 billed yearly ($950 for the first year); Starter is $49 for a single site. The free trial covers only the Medium plan ($179) on monthly billing, needs a card and renews as a paid plan; the pricing page doesn’t state its length.
- You give up: research volume. Standard allows 150 keyword queries a month, 300 tracked keywords and 3 sites, and rankings update weekly.
- Catch: “Moz does not offer refunds of any kind,” and yearly prices are labelled first-year only, with no renewal price shown. Cancel at least 24 hours before a trial or term ends.
SpyFu: competitors’ Google Ads history
SpyFu’s strength is paid search. It shows a competitor’s full Google Ads campaign history, including past ad tests, and claims 18+ years of data. It also claims 20 times more paid keywords and ads than Semrush and Ahrefs; that is the vendor’s own comparison.
- Price and trial: Basic is $39 a month or $29 billed yearly, with unlimited searches and 5,000 keywords tracked weekly. There’s no trial, but there is a 30-day money-back guarantee.
- You give up: daily rankings; Basic’s 5,000 keywords update weekly. Like Semrush’s SEO plan, it has no historical data, AI tracking or API, and search results stop at 10,000 rows.
- Catch: Pro + AI is advertised at $59, but that covers the first month; then it costs $119 a month. Cancelling in settings does not trigger a refund: you have to ask support.
Similarweb: traffic and market data
Similarweb is the swap for Semrush’s Traffic & Market toolkit, the former .Trends, which the pricing page’s own data lists at $289 a month. It estimates sites’ traffic, channels and audiences.
- Price and trial: the entry Competitive Intelligence plan is $199 a month or $125 billed yearly, with a 7-day trial. Keyword research, rank tracking, audits, backlinks and 150 AI prompts need the $399 plan ($333 billed yearly).
- You give up: on the entry plan, SEO data, country filters (worldwide view only) and history beyond 3 months.
- Catch: switching to annual billing takes a support ticket, and no self-serve plan includes the API.
Add-ons, not replacements: AI search and content
On Semrush’s ladder, AI answer tracking starts at Starter ($199) and content optimization at Pro+ ($299). A cheaper SEO suite plus one of these tools fills those gaps for less.
Writesonic: AI search tracking next to your SEO tool
Writesonic now sells itself as an AI visibility platform. Its plans list prompt tracking, AI articles and site audits but no keyword database or backlink index, so it sits beside an SEO suite. It says it reads AI answers through the platforms’ web interfaces, not their APIs.
- Price and trial: Starter is $99 a month or $79 billed yearly, with a 7-day trial and no card. It tracks 50 prompts a day in ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews and includes 15 AI articles a month.
- Catch: the “8 platforms” on its homepage apply to Enterprise; Starter, Basic and Growth track three. Refunds cover the first payment if you ask by email within 7 days.
More detail in our Writesonic review.
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NeuronWriter: content optimization for less
NeuronWriter, made by Conti sp. z o.o. in Poland, optimizes content and has an AI visibility module (its feature page dates from November 2025). It covers the content work Semrush keeps for Pro+ and lightly checks Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT and Perplexity.
- Price and trial: Bronze is $23 a month or $19 billed yearly, for 2 projects, 25 content analyses and 5 monitored AI questions. The 7-day trial runs on Gold terms, needs no card and does not turn into a paid plan by itself.
- Catch: the Search Console integration and MCP access start on Gold ($69, or $57 billed yearly). Refunds cover the first plan within 30 days.
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Free Semrush alternatives and their limits
No free tool replaces a paid suite, but free plans cover your own site well. The limits below come from each vendor’s pages on 7 October 2026.
| Free tool | What you get | Main limit |
|---|---|---|
| Google Search Console | Clicks, impressions and index status for your site | Own sites only; AI Overviews and AI Mode traffic sits inside “Web” totals |
| Bing Webmaster Tools | Search data and an AI Performance report, in public preview from February 2026 | Counts citations in Copilot and Bing AI answers, not positions inside them |
| Ahrefs Free | Site Explorer and Site Audit for sites you verify | 5,000 crawl credits per project a month; 1,000 rows at a time |
| Mangools free plan | KWFinder keyword lookups, no card | 5 lookups per 24 hours |
| Semrush Free | 1 demo project, 10 reports a day | 1 site, 10 tracked keywords |
| Moz Community account | Link Explorer | 10 queries a month |
| Screaming Frog SEO Spider | Technical site crawl | 500 URLs |
| Ubersuggest free plan | Limited tools for 1 website | Limits not stated |
A workable free stack: Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools for your own search data, plus Ahrefs Free for audits and links to a verified site. Competitor research is where free plans stop. The cheapest paid plans here built for it cost $29 a month: SpyFu Basic billed yearly, or Ahrefs Starter, monthly and credit-based.
What you lose when you leave Semrush
Switching saves money, but check four things before you go.
- Daily rankings. The SEO plan tracks 500 keywords daily; Ahrefs, Moz Pro, SpyFu and Ubersuggest update weekly, and Mangools daily only on Agency. The chart shows the cheapest daily option at each vendor that has one.
- Data breadth. By its own count, Semrush holds 43 trillion backlinks, 28.8 billion keywords and 142 geographic databases. Ahrefs reports 35 trillion records of backlink history and 28.7 billion keywords; Moz, 45.5 trillion links. These are vendors’ own figures, counted in different ways.
- AI search reports. Starter tracks 50 prompts a day and measures brand visibility across Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini. SE Ranking Core and Moz Pro Standard include prompt tracking for less; Ahrefs Lite tracks 5 prompts and SpyFu Basic none.
- One account for everything. Local listing tools ($30 or $60 a month per location), traffic data and PPC research are toolkits on the same login. Replacing them means a second subscription, such as Similarweb or SpyFu.
Who should stay: agencies that run SEO, PPC and local work for clients from one account, and teams already paying for the AI or traffic toolkits. On an annual plan, time the switch for renewal: cancelling only takes effect at the end of the term.
How we picked and checked
We started from the tools in Google’s results for “Semrush alternatives” and in common head-to-head searches. We kept those with a public, self-serve plan for at least one core job: keyword research, rank tracking, backlinks, audits or competitor data. Where a vendor’s own pages say who runs the tool, the card names that company, so you can see which are independent.
On 7 October 2026 we read each vendor’s pricing page and Trustpilot profile, plus terms and refund policies where published, with archived US copies where the table notes say so. We did not buy these plans for this comparison, so there are no screenshots from paid accounts; our testing methods explain when we do.
Left out: AI-only trackers such as Peec and Profound, which don’t replace an SEO suite. We may earn commissions through the SE Ranking, Mangools, NeuronWriter and Writesonic links. We have no affiliate deal with Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz, SpyFu, Serpstat, Similarweb or Ubersuggest.
FAQ
For most small teams, SE Ranking: its entry plan tracks 2,000 keywords daily and includes AI search tracking. For keyword research on a small budget, Mangools. For backlink work, Ahrefs; for competitors’ Google Ads history, SpyFu. None of them matches Semrush’s full set of toolkits in one account.
Not a complete one. Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools cover your own site’s search data, and Ahrefs Free audits a verified site and shows its links. The Mangools free plan adds 5 keyword lookups a day. Competitor research is the gap: free accounts, including Semrush’s own, allow only a few reports.
Its closest all-in-one rivals are SE Ranking, Ahrefs, Moz Pro and Serpstat; Mangools covers keywords, rankings and links but has no site audit. In single areas, SpyFu competes on PPC research, Similarweb on traffic and market data, and Writesonic on AI search tracking. Ubersuggest competes mainly on price for one-site owners.
Ubersuggest is cheaper but thinner. Individual costs US$29 a month, or €16 a month billed yearly as shown to us on 7 October 2026, against $139.95 for the SEO plan. It tracks 125 keywords per project weekly instead of 500 daily, and neither plan includes an API. If you choose it, skip the lifetime offer unless you run a single project, because switching keeps only your oldest one.
Among entry plans, SE Ranking Core and Serpstat Individual update daily; Serpstat’s 10,000 monthly checks cover roughly 330 keywords a day. Mangools offers daily updates only on its Agency plan; Ahrefs shows weekly updates on every plan and lists a daily add-on only in its plan data. Moz Pro, SpyFu and Ubersuggest update weekly on every plan we checked.
SpyFu offers 30 days, NeuronWriter 30 days on the first plan, Writesonic 7 days on the first payment and Mangools 48 hours. Semrush refunds only a first annual purchase, within 7 days. SE Ranking refunds only when the service wasn’t delivered, Ahrefs only unused monthly plans, and Moz not at all.
Adobe completed the purchase on 28 April 2026. Around then, the public plans were reorganized into SEO, Starter, Pro+ and Advanced, with AI tracking from Starter ($199). We found no official statement linking the two. If you are on an older plan, check what it includes before renewing, because Guru and Business are no longer listed.
Related guides
- Full SE Ranking review
- Ahrefs alternatives compared
- Best SEO tools for small businesses
- Best AI SEO tools
- Best AI visibility tools
- All our SEO and GEO software reviews
- How we test software
Sources
- Pricing pages read on 7 October 2026: Semrush (US prices from the copy archived on 6 October), SE Ranking, Mangools, Ahrefs, Moz Pro, SpyFu (archived 27 September), Ubersuggest, Serpstat, Similarweb, Writesonic, NeuronWriter.
- Refund and cancellation terms: Semrush (updated 20 August 2025), SE Ranking, Ahrefs, Moz, Writesonic.
- Adobe’s announcement of the completed acquisition, 28 April 2026, and the help center pages on plans and data.
- Trustpilot profiles of each tool, read on 7 October 2026, and Capterra for Semrush’s second rating.