SemChat review: tested for real, limits included

On October 29, 2026, I opened SemChat on the Free plan and typed a single sentence: “Run an SEO audit of my site plugkit-avis.com and give me a clear action plan, by priority” (typed in French). About three minutes later, I had a diagnosis and three actions for the week. This SemChat review rests on that test, plus 13 skills we tried the same day.

No score out of 10 here. You get what SemChat found, what was right, what was wrong and what it cost. This site earns affiliate commissions; that changes neither your price nor my findings.

The test: a full audit of a real site in one sentence

What SemChat did on its own, in about 3 minutes

I picked no menu. SemChat chose its “Full SEO Audit” skill by itself, then ran its tools in visible batches: page reading, a full site crawl, the domain’s rankings (89 results), top pages, the backlink profile, competitors (10), a gap analysis against 5 competitors, ranking history.

Every step has a “See details” button that opens the raw data, with a CSV export. So you can check where a number comes from.

What the audit found, and what turned out to be true

The output came in four blocks: a grid of 8 indicators, a five-point diagnosis, 3 actions for right away, and a 10-section “Full SEO audit” document you can copy or download. I checked the findings the same day:

• The missing contact page: /fr/contact/ did return a 404 error. Correct.
• Duplicate titles: true between the US and UK English versions, which shared the same title. Nuance: they are declared variants of each other (hreflang), so calling them “mirror pages” for Google overstates it. The flag was still useful.
• The tone: plain language, no jargon, as promised.

One number deserves caution: “manychat” at 9,000 searches a month, according to SemChat. I didn’t cross-check it.

What the audit cost: 100% of the Free quota

Here’s the limit to know before you sign up. That one audit used 100% of the Free plan’s monthly quota: 39.2% on documents, 32% on site analysis, 28.9% on SEO tools. The counter reset on November 28. On the Free plan, count on one full audit a month, no more.

Run in French on a French site: what we can’t tell you yet

Our test ran in French, on a French site, with French market data. Two things remain open for an American reader: the language of SemChat’s answers when you write in English, and the quality of its US data. Missing data on both, to be checked in the app (source planned: our language test, task T36). I won’t guess.

What SemChat is, exactly

An SEO assistant you talk to. You write your question as you would to a colleague; it runs its tools and hands back an action plan. Its home page sums it up: no complicated dashboard, nothing to learn.

The same company as Haloscan

SemChat and Haloscan, a French keyword research tool, belong to the same company: ARCHI301, based in Nice, France, with the same company number in SemChat’s terms and Haloscan’s legal notice (both read October 29, 2026).

Where the data comes from outside France

In France, keyword data comes from Haloscan’s database. Outside France, it comes from a mix of keyword data providers SemChat doesn’t name; SemChat isn’t focused on France only (email from Adrian Delmarre, of Haloscan, October 29, 2026). So for a US site, don’t read its numbers as Haloscan numbers.

SemChat and ChatGPT: not the same thing

A general chatbot answers from what it already knows. SemChat runs SEO tools on your actual site during the conversation (crawl, rankings, backlinks, competitors) and shows each step. Which AI model writes the answers isn’t published.

The connectors: Search Console, Analytics, Bing

SemChat connects to 8 tools: Google Search Console, Google Analytics 4, Bing Webmaster Tools, Yandex Metrica, WordPress, Webflow, Slack and Notion, plus any MCP server. Only reading the Search Console was tested. One trap we hit: a conversation linked to the site didn’t see the Search Console connected to the workspace, while a new chat could read it.

What SemChat does, job by job

An action plan sorted by priority

Its strong suit. Asked the vague question “How do I get more visitors?”, it read the Search Console (8 clicks, 533 impressions, both confirmed) and offered three levers, each number labeled as measured or estimated.

Your competitors, compared with your site

It found 5 topics covered by two real competitors, with each page’s address. Four were truly missing from the site. The fifth already existed: it had checked known keywords instead of the sitemap we asked for.

A content brief, tested on a real keyword

An 11-part document, the right search intent, 3 internal links to pages that exist. But a volume of 500 searches where Google Ads data says 590, and an unsourced claim in the FAQ that its own fact-check rule forbade.

Local SEO for a shop or a local service

On a consultant’s site, it spotted the legal pages and the sharing image. It missed the postal address in the structured data, and assumed there was no Google Business Profile without checking.

Four more skills, tested on October 30, 2026

We ran the last four of the 17 skills on October 30, 2026, on the Starter plan: SemChat picked the right skill on its own each time, and the four tests used 13.9 points of the monthly quota (Usage screen). The accessibility audit, covered on our accessibility testing software page, got page language right but gave WordPress advice to a site that doesn’t run WordPress; the site launch skill, on our SEO for a new website page, built its first two actions on false findings. The backlink audit, on our toxic backlink checker page, called a link agency’s link risk-free, and the semantic cocoon (“cocon sémantique”), on our internal linking tools page, called a link missing that already existed.

SemChat pricing in short: from €0 to Pro

Four plans, every feature in each, only monthly usage changes: Free at €0, Starter at €20, Pro 5x at €100 and Pro 20x at €200 a month, or 20% less billed yearly. Prices are in euros, even on the English page; no dollar price is published. The full breakdown, top-ups included, is on our SemChat pricing page.

10% off for life through our link

Sign up through my link and subscribe within 2 weeks: you pay 10% less, for life. The only source is an email from Adrian Delmarre dated October 29, 2026, and it doesn’t say which billing options are covered. The math is on our SemChat promo code page.

What we liked, and what we liked less

The strong points

• It goes straight to the action plan. No interface to learn, no table to decode.
• It says what it can’t see: no access to the Search Console, “to be confirmed by eye.”
• It corrects itself when you show it a mistake: “I was wrong on three points.”

The limits, mistakes included

• Volumes far from Google Ads: “statistiques instagram” at 655 searches a month according to SemChat, 210 according to DataForSEO.
• Suggested pages that already exist: 3 of 6 articles in one topic plan were already live.
• Wrong advice after a correction: on indexing, the three remaining actions were still wrong.
• The refund guarantee: a 30-day guarantee appears in terms dated May 21, 2026 that describe another service, and not on the English pricing page. I don’t count it until SemChat confirms it.

Check a SemChat suggestion before you act on it: your sitemap, your Search Console, a second tool for volumes.

Who SemChat is for, and who should skip it

Good for beginners who want to be seen online

That’s its target: the pricing page aims Starter at “solo founders who want to be visible online.” You ask in plain words, it answers without jargon. You only need the habit of checking a number before acting.

Skip it if you’d rather dig through the data yourself

If you enjoy sorting thousands of keywords and building your own tables, a classic SEO tool gives you more control. Keep in mind that Haloscan’s data covers the French market only.

Using SemChat alongside another SEO tool

The setup that worked best in our tests: SemChat for the diagnosis and the plan, a second source for the volumes. Its own raw data tables, with CSV export, make that cross-check quick. To pick that second source, our keyword research tool guide shows what each one gives you and what it hides.

SemChat review: our verdict, should you try it?

Yes, if you have a site nobody finds and no time to learn an SEO tool. My SemChat review fits in one sentence: it swaps the hour spent figuring out what to do for three minutes and a prioritized list. It doesn’t replace your judgment.

Start on the Free plan and save your one audit of the month for your main site. For the step-by-step, our SemChat tutorial walks you through it. If the test convinces you, subscribe through the link within 2 weeks to keep the 10% off. That’s my SemChat review after a real test: positive, as long as you check.