Semrush vs Ahrefs: pricing, data, AI tracking and who each one suits

Choose Ahrefs if backlink and keyword research is most of your work and you want the lower entry price, from $29 a month on its pricing page. Choose Semrush if you also need PPC, local SEO and content tools in one account and can pay a higher entry price, as its pricing page shows.

All facts below come from each vendor's own pricing pages, help articles and comparison pages, checked 13 October 2026. Prices change, so confirm before you buy. We make XeoRank, a smaller tool, and mention it once at the end.

The short answer

Ahrefs is cheaper to try and suits teams whose work centres on backlink research. Semrush suits teams that run paid search and SEO from one account, manage local SEO, research many markets or would use the Content Toolkit. XeoRank is a smaller option for teams that find both suites more than they need.

Semrush vs Ahrefs side by side

Pricing

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 a custom Enterprise plan. They cover 5, 5, 15 and 40 websites and 500, 500, 1,500 and 5,000 tracked keywords. Extra users start at $45 a month. Semrush's SEO Toolkit help article lists different prices for Pro, Guru and Business ($139.95, $249.95 and $499.95), so the figure you see depends on the page.

Ahrefs' pricing page lists Starter at $29 a month (monthly only), Lite at $129, Standard at $249, Advanced at $449 and Enterprise at $1,499 a month billed annually; some pages show euros instead (Starter €27, Lite €119). Lite covers 5 projects, 750 tracked keywords, 5 AI prompts and 1 user, and extra users cost $40, $60 or $80 a month depending on plan, up to a cap. The Starter help page lists 200 credits, 50 tracked keywords, Site Explorer, Keywords Explorer, Site Audit and Rank Tracker.

In practice, Ahrefs is cheaper to try, and the first full plans, Ahrefs Lite and the Semrush SEO plan, are close in list price. Team size changes the sums, so price the seats you need on both pages.

Data: each vendor says it has more

Semrush's data page reports 28.8 billion keywords across 142 databases and 43 trillion backlinks. Ahrefs' data page reports 29 billion keywords, kept from 110 billion seen, and 35 trillion backlinks in its history.

Their comparison pages disagree, as you would expect. Semrush's Semrush vs Ahrefs page, using data as of May 2025, puts Semrush at 26.6 billion keywords and Ahrefs at 20.4 billion. Ahrefs' Ahrefs vs Semrush page puts Ahrefs at 28.7 billion and Semrush at 26.7 billion, and describes Semrush's 43 trillion backlinks as "live & dead" against its own 35 trillion "live".

Each page favours its author.

For an outside view, read Style Factory's comparison and the user reviews on G2. The more useful test is your own: look up a few domains and keywords you know well in both tools, and see which numbers come closer to what Search Console shows for your own site. Note the dates too: Semrush's comparison page uses May 2025 data, while both data pages give higher totals today.

Site audits and rank tracking

Semrush's Site Audit runs over 140 checks and covers 100,000 pages a month on the entry tier. Ahrefs includes Site Audit and Rank Tracker even on Starter, with 50 tracked keywords, and Lite raises tracking to 750 keywords against 500 on the Semrush SEO plan, according to the Ahrefs and Semrush pricing pages.

AI visibility

Semrush's pricing page shows no AI prompts on the SEO plan, then 50, 100 and 200 on Starter, Pro+ and Advanced. The separate AI Visibility Toolkit is $99 a month for 25 prompts, with no free trial. The engine list differs by page: the pricing page shows Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini, while the knowledge base names Google AI Mode and ChatGPT.

Ahrefs Lite includes 5 AI prompts. Brand Radar adds an AI Visibility Index from $199 a month, with custom prompt packs at $50, $100 or $250, covering AI Overviews, AI Mode, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity and ChatGPT, plus Claude, where each check counts as eight.

If AI tracking is the main reason you are buying, compare the AI products directly: Semrush's toolkit starts at $99 a month, Ahrefs' Brand Radar at $199. Check that the engines you care about are on the plan you pick, because Semrush's own pages list different engines.

Site changes, MCP and API

Semrush's Content Toolkit, $60 a month billed annually, has a WordPress plugin that publishes content live or as a draft. Its MCP server is read-only and consumes API units, and API access is on the Business and Advanced plans.

Ahrefs Patches change titles and meta descriptions only, through a JavaScript snippet or a Cloudflare Worker, and you publish them manually. Publishing patches needs the Project Boost Max add-on, $200 a month per project, on the pricing page. Its MCP server is on Lite and above.

Where they differ, going by each Semrush and Ahrefs plan page: Semrush's PPC research, local listings management and Content Toolkit are broader, while Ahrefs has Patches and Content Explorer. Ahrefs' pricing page also lists a local SEO tool for managing business profiles, in beta on Lite, and a Content Kit add-on for writing.

Choose Semrush if

• you run paid search and SEO from one account, or manage local SEO;
• you research many markets, since Semrush's data page reports 142 keyword databases;
• your writers would use the Content Toolkit and its WordPress plugin.

Best for teams that run paid search and SEO together. Skip it if the lower entry price matters most.

Choose Ahrefs if

• backlink research is the centre of your work;
• you want a low-cost start with Starter, or free data on your own sites through Ahrefs Free;
• you want title and meta fixes through Patches, which need the Project Boost Max add-on, or MCP access from the Lite plan.

Best for teams whose work centres on backlink research. Skip it if you need Semrush's PPC research, local listings management or Content Toolkit.

If you want something smaller

If both suites are more than you need, XeoRank is a smaller option. Starter is $19 a month with a 14-day free trial and no card; Pro is $49 a month and Growth $109. Its keyword and backlink databases are smaller than either suite's, and it has no PPC or local listings tools. What it adds is an MCP server on every plan, AI visibility per engine on ChatGPT, Gemini (grounded in Google Search) and Perplexity, and an AI agent that edits existing WordPress pages, including Elementor, plus Framer and code sites, with your AI assistant asking before each change.

Best for teams that want an MCP server on every plan and an agent that edits their pages. Skip it if database size or PPC tools decide the purchase.

See XeoRank vs Semrush for the detail.

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, keyword and backlink data, tracked keywords, AI visibility features, extra user costs, 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.