Semrush vs SE Ranking in 2026: Pricing, AI, Agencies

Every figure below comes from Semrush's and SE Ranking's own pricing pages and help centers, checked on 4 October 2026, in US dollars before tax. Both companies change plans often, and Semrush is now an Adobe company: Adobe completed the acquisition on 28 April 2026. Treat the numbers as 'as of October 2026'.

Plans and prices side by side

Semrush says extra user pricing scales with the plan tier, so $45 is the floor. Annual billing saves up to 20% at SE Ranking and up to 17% at Semrush. Both offer free plans or trials: SE Ranking a 14-day trial without a card (10 projects, 750 keywords a day, 20 AI prompts a day), Semrush a 7-day trial (exports disabled) and a free plan.

What the same budget buys

Matching plans by price rather than by name shows the gap most clearly. At roughly $130 to $140 a month, SE Ranking Core tracks 2,000 keywords across 10 projects, while Semrush's SEO plan tracks 500 keywords across 5 websites. At roughly $280 to $300, SE Ranking Growth tracks 5,000 keywords across 30 projects with three manager seats, while Semrush Pro+ tracks 1,500 keywords across 15 websites with 100 AI prompts. Semrush's extra spend buys breadth rather than volume: the Semrush One plans include its AI Visibility Toolkit, and Semrush sells further toolkits such as Local (from $30 a month per location) and Content ($60 a month) on the same account. SE Ranking's add-ons are narrower: the Agency Pack, the AI Search add-on and an API add-on.

• Choose on volume if you track many keywords for many small clients: SE Ranking gives more of both at each price point.
• Choose on breadth if you also sell local, content or paid search work: Semrush covers more of those jobs in one account.
• Count seats before comparing: SE Ranking includes three manager seats on Growth, and Semrush's extra users start at $45 a month each.

AI search tracking

SE Ranking includes prompt tracking in its base plans: 100 prompts tracked daily on Core and 250 on Growth, across five assistants listed on its tracker page as AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, with brand mentions and links tracked separately. An AI Search add-on (from $89 a month, $71.20 annually) extends the limits; SE Ranking's pricing page calls its tiers 200, 450 and 1,000 prompts, while its help center describes them as checks, where one check is one prompt on one platform.

Semrush splits AI tracking by plan. The SEO plan includes AI search tracking and visibility reports but no dedicated prompt quota. Semrush One plans bundle the SEO Toolkit with the AI Visibility Toolkit: Starter tracks 50 prompts daily, Pro+ 100 and Advanced 200. Semrush says Semrush One measures visibility across Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini, with prompt tracking itself covering AI Overviews, AI Mode and ChatGPT. The AI Visibility Toolkit is also sold alone at $99 a month per domain billed annually, with 25 prompts.

White-label and reporting

SE Ranking's Report Builder includes 10 reports on Core and 30 on Growth. The Agency Pack ($69 a month, annual billing only) white-labels the platform and the reports: your colours, logo and domain, report emails from your own address or SMTP server, read-only client seats, unlimited scheduled reports and an embeddable lead generator. SE Ranking's pages disagree on the seat count (30 on the pricing page, 10 on the Agency Pack page).

Semrush charges per report. Base Report is $10 a month per report (Semrush data plus GA and Search Console, scheduling, PDF); Pro Report is $20 a month per report and adds branding and white-labeling, a custom domain, AI summaries, link sharing and 20+ external integrations. The first paid toolkit includes three Base reports.

Audits and API

SE Ranking audits 250,000 pages a month on Core and 2 million on Growth, with scheduled crawls. Semrush's Site Audit allows 100,000 pages a month on Starter, 300,000 on Pro+ and 1 million on Advanced, with 20,000 pages per audit on the first two and JavaScript rendering on Pro+ and up. For API work, SE Ranking includes 25,000 research API credits on Core and 100,000 on Growth, plus MCP access, with a $45 a month API add-on (annual only); Semrush lists API data integration on the Advanced plan.

Which to choose

Neither suite lists Claude or Grok among its tracked assistants. If those matter to your clients' buyers, add a tool that covers them; Fenn, for example, checks ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Grok on every plan, though it does not do keyword or rank tracking and is not a replacement for either suite.

FAQ

Is SE Ranking cheaper than Semrush?

At list prices as of October 2026, yes: SE Ranking Core is $129 a month for 10 projects against Semrush's SEO plan at $139 for 5, and white-label costs a flat $69 a month at SE Ranking versus $20 per report at Semrush. Semrush includes a broader set of toolkits for the extra cost.

Which has better AI search tracking?

Both report on AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, though Semrush's help center says its prompt tracking covers AI Overviews, AI Mode and ChatGPT. SE Ranking includes more prompts at entry (100 on Core); Semrush's prompt quotas start on Semrush One Starter at $199 with 50.

Did Adobe buy Semrush?

Yes. Adobe completed its acquisition of Semrush on 28 April 2026, according to both companies' announcements. Semrush is still sold under its own name and pricing page.

Can I try both for free?

SE Ranking offers a 14-day trial without a card; Semrush offers a 7-day trial, with exports disabled during it, and a free plan with limited reports.