Semrush alternatives: 6 SEO tools compared on price, data and site edits

The main Semrush alternatives are Ahrefs for keyword and backlink research, SE Ranking for a lower-priced all-in-one suite, Screaming Frog for technical crawls, Surfer for content and ChatSEO for a chat assistant. If you want SEO, AI visibility per engine and an AI agent that edits your site in one plan, XeoRank starts at $19 a month on our pricing page.

We make XeoRank, so weigh our section with that in mind. Every competitor fact below comes from the vendor's own pages, checked 13 October 2026. Prices change often, so confirm before you buy.

The short answer

Semrush remains the better fit if you run paid search and SEO from one login, manage local listings, research many countries or have a team trained on its reports. Ahrefs suits backlink and keyword research, SE Ranking is a full suite for less with white label, Screaming Frog adds a deep crawl and Surfer is for writing. XeoRank fits if you want SEO, AI visibility and an agent that makes changes on WordPress, Framer or code sites through your own AI assistant.

The short list of Semrush alternatives

What Semrush costs, and cheaper ways to keep it

Semrush's pricing page lists the SEO plan at $139 a month ($117.33 billed annually), Starter at $199 ($165.17), Pro+ at $299 ($248.17), Advanced at $549 ($455.67) and Enterprise at a custom price. AI prompts start with 50 on Starter. There is a free plan with 1 demo project and 10 reports a day, and a 7-day free trial. Semrush's SEO Toolkit help article shows different figures, $139.95, $249.95 and $499.95 for Pro, Guru and Business, so check which page you are reading.

A smaller Semrush purchase may cover the gap. The AI Visibility Toolkit alone is $99 a month for 25 prompts, with no free trial; we compare it in Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit alternatives. The Content Toolkit is $60 a month billed annually and has a WordPress plugin that publishes live or as a draft. What none of these add is an assistant that acts on your site: Semrush's MCP server is read-only.

When to stay with Semrush

Semrush is the broader product. Its data page reports 28.8 billion keywords across 142 databases and 43 trillion backlinks, and its Site Audit runs over 140 checks, covering 100,000 pages a month on the entry tier. The pricing page puts PPC research, local SEO, content tools and market data in one account.

Stay if you run paid search and SEO from one login, manage local listings, research many countries, or have a team trained on Semrush reports. Nothing below replaces all of that, XeoRank included: it has smaller keyword and backlink databases, no PPC or ads research suite and no local listings management.

Best for teams that run paid search and SEO from one login. Skip it if you want your AI assistant to make changes for you.

1. Ahrefs, a like-for-like swap

Ahrefs Starter is $29 a month, monthly only, and its help page lists 200 credits, 50 tracked keywords, Site Explorer, Keywords Explorer, Site Audit and Rank Tracker. Lite is $129 with 5 projects, 750 tracked keywords and 5 AI prompts; Standard is $249, Advanced $449 and Enterprise $1,499 billed annually.

Its data page reports 29 billion keywords and 35 trillion backlinks in its history. Brand Radar adds AI answer tracking from $199 a month, and the MCP server is on Lite and above. More in Ahrefs alternatives and Semrush vs Ahrefs.

Best for teams whose work is backlinks and keyword research.

2. SE Ranking, an all-in-one suite for less

SE Ranking Core is $129 a month ($103.20 annually) and Growth $279 ($223.20). Core includes 10 projects, 1 seat, 2,000 tracked keywords, 250,000 audit pages, 100 GEO prompts a day across 5 LLMs and MCP access, with a 14-day free trial and no card. White label is the Agency Pack, $69 a month extra on annual billing.

A standalone AI tracker, SE Visible, costs $99, $189 or $355 a month for 200, 450 or 1,000 prompts. The Content Editor exports to WordPress with a choice of post status.

Best for teams that want a full suite and white label for less.

3. XeoRank, SEO and AI visibility with an agent that makes the changes

Starter is $19 a month with a 14-day free trial and no card. Pro is $49 a month and Growth $109 a month; pricing has the details.

You get a technical SEO crawler that understands page types and, in crawls started from the dashboard, renders JavaScript when needed, keyword research with real search volumes and clusters, content briefs, and Search Console and GA4 reports you can export (white-label on Growth). Pro and above add live rank checks by country, state or city and device, and backlinks with a disavow file. AI visibility asks ChatGPT, Gemini (grounded in Google Search) and Perplexity your buyer questions, each engine reported separately; see pricing for what each plan includes.

The XeoRank MCP server has more than 200 tools on every plan and works in Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, Cursor and VS Code. Through it, an AI agent can edit existing WordPress pages, including Elementor layouts, and Framer and code sites. Your AI assistant asks before each change, WordPress writes stay off for each site until you enable them, new pages are created as drafts, and edits to a WordPress page's content keep a snapshot you can restore.

Where it is weaker: smaller keyword and backlink databases than Semrush or Ahrefs, no PPC or ads research, no local listings management, and fewer AI engines than dedicated AI trackers.

Best for SEO and AI visibility with an agent that makes changes on WordPress, Framer or code sites through your own AI assistant. Skip it if PPC, local listings or database size decide the purchase.

4. Screaming Frog, a technical crawl on your own machine

The SEO Spider is a desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux, licensed per user per year. It is free for up to 500 URLs, and a paid licence removes the limit. The product page shows £199 a year and the pricing page shows $279. It connects to Google Analytics, Search Console and PageSpeed Insights, but it has no cloud version, no rank tracking, no AI visibility tracking and no public API, and it does not change your site.

Best for a deep technical crawl on your own machine. Skip it if you want crawls shared in the cloud alongside rank tracking.

5. Surfer, content optimisation for writers

Surfer bills yearly: Discovery $49 a month (120 documents, 1 seat, no AI prompts), Standard $99, Pro $182 and Peace of Mind $299. It centres on a content editor, an AI writer and a content audit; its pricing page does not clearly describe a technical crawler or backlink data. Its AI Tracker gives Standard 25 prompts, but Surfer's pages disagree on engines: one says Standard covers ChatGPT only, while the FAQ lists Gemini, AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT and Perplexity.

Best for writers who want a content editor and an AI writer. Skip it if you also need technical crawling and backlink data.

6. ChatSEO, a low-cost chat assistant

ChatSEO prices in euros excluding VAT: Starter €29 to €79 for 1 site with no MCP, Pro €49 to €99 for 3 sites with MCP, and Ranker €79 to €129 for 10 sites, with 1 credit per message. It publishes to WordPress, Shopify and Webflow "only if you ask", and its MCP server has 38 tools, including ones that publish, update and delete Shopify articles and one that removes a site and its data from ChatSEO, with no confirmation step described.

Best for anyone who wants a low-cost chat assistant. Skip it if you need a confirmation step, since none is described for its MCP tools.

How to choose

1. If you use Semrush for PPC, local or many markets, stay and try annual billing first.
2. For backlinks and keyword research, trial Ahrefs.
3. For a full suite for less, with white label, trial SE Ranking.
4. For a deep crawl, add Screaming Frog. For writing, look at Surfer.
5. For SEO, AI visibility and an agent that makes changes on WordPress, Framer or code sites through your own AI assistant, start XeoRank's free trial or try our free tools.

Sources and how we compared

We compared each tool using its own pricing page, feature pages and help documentation, all checked on 13 October 2026. For each one we recorded the lowest paid plan, the free option, the keyword, backlink and crawl data the vendor reports, its AI visibility features, whether it can change your website, and whether it offers an MCP server.

Where two of a vendor's own pages disagree, we show both figures. We did not buy every plan, so features behind a sales call are described from the vendor's documentation. XeoRank is our product, and its details come from our own pricing page and documentation.