Semrush pricing: the free plan, the paid tiers and the AI add-on

What does the Semrush free plan include?

The Free plan opens without a credit card and gives you 1 demo project plus 10 reports per day across the core tools. That is enough to check a few keywords, pull up a competitor profile and decide whether the interface works for you. It is not enough to run ongoing monitoring. Ten reports a day disappear quickly: one keyword research pass, one look at a competitor domain, and most of the day’s allowance is spent. The project you get is a demo project, not your own site, so position tracking on your domain and the full site audit both sit behind the paid plans. On our free plan criterion, Semrush scores 3 out of 5.

How long is the free trial, and what does it cover?

Seven days, on the SEO, Starter and Pro+ plans. The AI Visibility Toolkit sold on its own carries no trial at all. In our reading, that is the real catch in this grid for anyone shopping specifically for AI visibility tracking: the cheapest dedicated module, at $99 per month per domain, bills from the first day, while the plans that bundle that tracking (Starter at $199, Pro+ at $299) can be run for a week without paying. So if your goal is to see prompt tracking in action before you commit, the cheapest path is the Starter trial, not the standalone module.

How much do the paid Semrush plans cost?

The self-serve grid holds four plans, plus one add-on module and a custom-quote tier. The older Pro, Guru and Business plans have disappeared from the pricing page.

All prices are displayed in US dollars, and the page advertises savings of up to 17% on annual billing. Each plan includes 1 user.

Does AI visibility tracking cost extra?

Yes, and that is the main reason Semrush only scores 2 out of 5 on our price criterion. The $139 SEO plan carries no prompt tracking, no AI sentiment and no AI reports: it is classic Google work, with Position Tracking, Site Audit, basic competitor analysis, 5 websites and 500 keywords. The first tier that opens the door is Starter, at $199 per month: 50 prompts tracked daily, 1 domain for AI brand performance, 300 AI visibility reports per day and an AI-ready Site Audit. Pro+ raises that to 100 prompts a day and Advanced to 200, adding SEO share of voice and API data integration. If you want to understand the mechanics of getting cited by AI search before you argue for a budget, start there.

Is the $99 AI Visibility Toolkit enough?

It depends on your scope. For $99 per month per domain, sold alone or as an add-on, you get 25 tracked prompts with daily AI rankings, 1 domain for brand performance analysis, mentions from ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini and Perplexity, 300 AI analysis reports per day, AI competitor analysis, prompt research and a site audit for AI readiness. The extensions are billed separately: $99 for each additional domain, $60 per month for 50 more prompts, and $99 per month for each extra team member on top of the user cost. In our reading, the module holds up for a single-domain brand that wants to measure without touching its SEO stack. For lighter citation tracking on its own, Otterly.AI lists a Lite plan at $29 per month ($25 billed yearly) with 15 prompts, daily tracking of 4 engines and unlimited members, though it has no verified permanent free plan either.

What do extra users cost?

Every plan in the SEO and AI Search grid includes 1 user, and an additional user starts at $45 per month. The exact figure per plan is not published: the page says only “from”. That is worth asking about before you sign if three or four people will share the account, because the potential spread is wider than the gap between two subscription tiers. On the AI module the logic is different: $99 per month for each extra team member, on top of the user cost. An agency running several consultants across several domains therefore stacks two billing lines.

Where is the data hosted, and what does GDPR look like?

In the United States. According to the vendor security page, service data sits in US data centers (Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform and Digital Reality DC), and no EU hosting option is mentioned. Semrush states GDPR compliance since May 2018, offers a DPA with the EU Standard Contractual Clauses plus the UK IDTA, and publishes a sub-processor list. On certifications, the security page cites PCI DSS Level 1, but neither ISO 27001 nor SOC 2. SAML SSO and two-factor authentication are available. Hence our 2 out of 5 on the GDPR criterion.

Who is Semrush worth the price for?

For a marketing team, an SEO consultant or an agency that wants to steer Google rankings and brand presence in AI answers from one tool: on features, Semrush scores 5 out of 5, and the overall score is 3.1 out of 5 (verified September 26, 2026).

• You just want to look around: the Free plan plus the 7-day Starter trial will do, and the first needs no card.
• You do Google SEO only: the $139 SEO plan covers the scope (5 sites, 500 keywords), but expect zero AI tracking.
• You want both: Starter at $199 per month is the genuine entry point, with 50 prompts tracked every day.
• You monitor one brand in AI answers: the AI Visibility Toolkit at $99 per month per domain avoids paying for a full SEO subscription.
• You have a European hosting requirement: the missing EU option is a blocker, and it needs settling before price.

The tool is dense, which explains our 3 out of 5 on ease of use: budget setup time, not just dollars. The full plan breakdown and our per-criterion scores sit on our Semrush profile.