Semrush alternatives: which tool fits your budget and skill level

You’re looking for a Semrush alternative. Maybe the price stopped you. Maybe the dashboards did. Either way, the question isn’t “which tool is best”. It’s which tool fits you: your budget, and how much SEO you’re willing to learn.

How we sorted them: every fact comes from each tool’s official pages, read on 29 October 2026. We tested only one tool on a real account, SemChat, and its buttons on this page are affiliate links. The others are described from their own pages, strengths included. If you’d rather see what you can do without paying first, our guide to the best free seo tools sorts them by need.

We looked at four things a small business owner cares about: what you get for free, what the first paid plan costs, whether you can simply ask questions, and who the tool is built for. Ranking them from “best” to “worst” would make no sense: an agency and a baker don’t need the same tool.

Best Semrush alternative for your profile: the short verdict

• You’re not an SEO and want to ask in plain words: SemChat. Free plan, then €20 a month, the chat built in.
• Backlinks are your priority: Ahrefs, with its own link index.
• You’re an agency or an in-house team: SE Ranking, which says it’s built for you.
• Your budget is zero: Ubersuggest’s free plan, Ahrefs Free for your own sites, or SemChat Free.
• You mostly write content: Surfer, a writing companion.
• You need worldwide data and daily tracking: stay with Semrush.

Semrush alternatives compared side by side, as of 29 October 2026

Prices are the entry paid plan as read from France on each official page, in euros, monthly billing. “Not mentioned” never means “doesn’t offer”.

When to stick with Semrush: worldwide data and daily rank tracking

Be fair to Semrush. It claims 142 geographic databases, tracks 500 keywords every day from its SEO plan on Google, Bing and Baidu, and already measures how ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google’s AI answers mention you. If you follow clients or several countries, few tools on this list match that breadth.

Why small sites look elsewhere: the entry price and chat through an outside assistant

Two reasons come up. First, the entry price: €134 a month for the SEO plan, as read from France (data missing: the dollar price a US visitor sees; planned source: the pricing page read from the United States). Toolkits and users come on top.

Semrush’s pricing page as read from France, in euros, billed yearly by default; the Free plan is listed on the same page. Screenshot of https://www.semrush.com/pricing/seo-ai-search/, taken on 30 October 2026.

Second, the chat lives outside Semrush. Its MCP page reads: “Access Semrush’s full dataset right from Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and more.” That means a plan with MCP access (Starter and up) plus an account with the assistant. A chat built into Semrush isn’t documented on the pages we read.

Semrush’s MCP page: you connect an outside assistant to its data. Screenshot of https://www.semrush.com/mcp/, taken on 30 October 2026.

Free alternatives to Semrush: what you keep without paying

Semrush’s own Free plan or a free alternative: the difference

Semrush’s Free plan is real: “No credit card required”, “1 demo project”, “10 reports per day across all vital tools”. It’s built to let you try, and the daily counter reminds you every time. Rank tracking stops at 10 keywords on 1 site.

Free alternatives lock other doors instead: your own sites only (Ahrefs Free), a few searches a day (Ubersuggest), or a monthly quota with every feature (SemChat Free). Pick the lock that bothers you least.

Google Search Console and Keyword Planner: straight from Google

Google has its own tools. Its Search Console page describes them as tools and reports that “help you measure your site’s Search traffic and performance, fix issues, and make your site shine in Google Search results”. Keyword Planner is Google’s keyword tool. We have no dated fact sheet on either, so we don’t list their limits here.

The public page of Google Search Console, Google’s tool to follow your own site. Screenshot of https://search.google.com/search-console/about?hl=en, taken on 30 October 2026.

Ubersuggest and Ahrefs Free: free plans with no end date

Ubersuggest’s free plan has no time limit: 3 searches a day, 1 project, 25 tracked keywords and an audit of 150 pages a week (help article updated 26 July 2025). Paid plans start at €29 a month as read from France, with an AI Chat in the app and a 7-day trial that asks for a card. More in our Ubersuggest alternatives guide.

Ahrefs Free is “not a trial”, with no card. It covers your own verified sites, but “you can’t research competitors’ sites without paying”.

Semrush competitors and sites like Semrush: the full suites

Ahrefs: the backlink specialist with its own link index

Ahrefs runs its own link index, updated every 15 to 30 minutes, with data in 217 locations. Its built-in assistant, Ask Ahrefs, answers plain-English questions from Lite up, free during the beta. Paid plans start at €27 a month for Starter as read from France. There’s no trial (“We don’t provide any free trials”), but Ahrefs Free stays open for your own sites, and an official MCP server comes from Lite up. Options are sorted in our Ahrefs alternative guide.

SE Ranking: built for agencies and in-house teams

SE Ranking is direct about its audience: “built for agencies and in-house marketing teams”. Its small-business page adds “no technical experience needed”. It tracks 2,000 keywords a day from its Core plan, on Google, Bing, Yahoo and YouTube, with 188 country databases. Its MCP server is included in every plan, but no built-in chat is described on its pages. It offers a 14-day trial with no card. See our SE Ranking alternative guide.

Surfer: a writing companion more than a full suite

Surfer focuses on content: an editor that scores your text as you write. Its assistant, Surfy, helps you rewrite passages. Surfer itself says its AI is “Not a chatbot or a general-purpose AI assistant”. It also tracks your brand daily in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google’s AI answers with a separate AI Search Analytics plan. Its 7-day trial asks for a card and “does not cancel automatically”. Other options are in our Surfer SEO alternative guide.

SemChat: the Semrush alternative you simply talk to

SemChat doesn’t ask you to learn a dashboard. You type, it runs the tools, you get a plan. It’s published by ARCHI301 in Nice, France, the same company that publishes Haloscan. It uses Haloscan data in France and unnamed providers elsewhere, so check its numbers for US keywords.

The priority action plan SemChat returned after a single sentence (French interface). Screenshot of the SemChat app (Jérémy’s account, Free plan), 29 October 2026.

ChatSEO also works by conversation, with no free plan but a 7-day trial; we compare it in our ChatSEO alternative guide.

SemChat pricing: €0 to start, then €20 a month

“Every feature, in every plan. Just pick your monthly usage.” Free at €0 (“Try semchat with no credit card”), Starter at €20 a month, Pro 5x at €100, Pro 20x at €200. Every plan is on our SemChat pricing page.

SemChat’s pricing page: the Free plan at €0, then Starter at €20 a month. Screenshot of semchat.io/en/pricing, taken on 30 October 2026.

What our SemChat test showed on a real site

On 29 October 2026, we asked SemChat for a full audit of a real site in one sentence. About 3 minutes later: 8 key figures, a diagnosis and a plan by priority. We checked its findings: the missing contact page was real. The limit: that audit used 100% of the Free plan’s monthly quota. Everything is in our SemChat review.

What SemChat doesn’t do today, by its own pages: daily rank tracking isn’t mentioned, AI visibility tracking is announced as planned with no date, and its API has no public documentation. If you need those now, Semrush, Ahrefs or SE Ranking cover them.

Semrush vs SemChat: the global suite against the chat assistant

Semrush measures a lot: worldwide data, daily rank tracking, AI visibility. SemChat lets you ask and act, from €0, with no outside assistant.

Our Semrush vs SemChat duel puts the facts side by side: data sources, audits, rank tracking, chat, prices and guarantees (7 days on a first yearly Semrush plan, 30 days for new SemChat subscribers).

Semrush price: the plans, the paid add-ons and the real total

The plan is only the start: AI Visibility, Local and Content toolkits, extra users and reports come on top. Yearly billing saves up to 17%, paid upfront, and monthly plans get no refund.

Our Semrush price page adds it up for a small business site and for an online store, from the amounts read on 29 October 2026.

Semrush free: the Free plan, the trial and the no-account tools

Free Semrush comes in three forms, each with its own limit: a daily counter, a card and a deadline, or a sample of the data.

Our Semrush free page shows how far each one goes, how to plan a 7-day trial, and which free plans elsewhere last longer.

Whichever Semrush alternative you pick, start with its free option and keep the one you open every week.