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

You typed “Semrush free” because you want to know one thing: how far can you go without paying? Further than you might think, but not as far as the word “free” suggests.

Here is the straight answer, from Semrush’s official pages read on October 29, 2026. We did not test Semrush on an account. The only tool we tested for real is SemChat, on October 29, 2026, and its buttons on this page are affiliate links.

Is Semrush free? Three ways to use free Semrush

Yes, in three different ways. Each one has its own lock.

The Free plan is a real account at $0. You sign in, you open the tools, but every report counts against a small daily allowance.

The free trial opens a paid plan for 7 days. It’s the full tool, with your card on file and a bill waiting at the end.

The free tools need no account at all. You paste a domain or a keyword and get a preview of what Semrush knows.

Which one fits you depends on what you want to learn. A quick look at your site? The free tools. A few questions a day for weeks? The Free plan. A serious test before you buy? The trial.

Semrush free plan: no card, but counted every day

The pricing page says it in three short lines: “No credit card required”, “1 demo project”, “10 reports per day across all vital tools”. Its FAQ adds the rest: 10 requests a day in the analytics reports, and 1 site with 10 keywords in Position Tracking. The Free plan also lists AI visibility features.

The price shows as $0 a month, even on the page version that shows the paid plans in euros.

Semrush’s pricing page as read from France: the paid plans at the top, 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 October 30, 2026.

Opening a free Semrush account

Every Semrush page we captured has a “Start for free” button in the top corner. That’s the door to the Free plan. No card is asked for this plan, according to the pricing page.

Don’t confuse it with “Try for free” on the paid plan cards. That button starts the trial, which does ask for a card.

The daily limits: reports, projects and tracked keywords

Here is what “free” means in numbers:

• 10 reports a day, shared across all the main tools. A keyword lookup is a report. A competitor overview is another.
• 1 demo project: one site to set up audits and tracking.
• 10 keywords in Position Tracking, on 1 site.

For scale, the paid SEO plan allows 3,000 requests a day and 500 keywords tracked daily. The Free plan is a window, not a workshop.

Two practical tips. First, decide your 10 reports before you log in: write them on a sticky note. Second, come back the next day rather than clicking around. The counter doesn’t care whether a report was useful.

Semrush free version: what it lets you do

With 10 reports a day, the trick is to choose them well. Here is how a small business can use them.

Keyword research with the free Semrush keyword tool

Keyword research is Semrush’s home turf: its homepage claims 29 billion keywords. On the Free plan, each keyword lookup uses one of your 10 daily reports.

Start with the 3 or 4 phrases a customer would type to find you. Look at the volume and the difficulty. Note the ones that a small site can realistically reach. Then stop for the day.

Think like your customer, not like your brochure. A plumber’s customer types “leaking water heater”, not “hydraulic solutions”. A local business can add the town name. Those longer phrases are often the ones a small site can win.

Semrush also has a free Keyword Tool that needs no account at all. It shows a sample of the data, so it’s handy before you even sign up.

A first site audit and a look at your competitors

Semrush’s Site Audit is listed in every paid plan. For the Free plan, the pages we read mention 1 demo project and 10 reports a day, but they don’t detail the audit limits. So don’t plan a deep audit on a free account.

For a first look, the free SEO Checker works with no account at all.

Competitors are easier. Type a rival’s domain and see the keywords it ranks for. Every report counts, so two rivals cost you two or more of your 10. Keep the rest for your own keywords.

Backlink overview and rank tracking on one project

Backlinks are the links other sites point at yours. Semrush runs its own backlink crawler, and its free Backlink Checker needs no account. Inside the Free plan, a backlink overview counts as a report, like the rest.

Rank tracking is where the Free plan is thinnest: 1 site, 10 keywords. Pick the 10 that bring customers, not the 10 that flatter you.

Where the free Semrush plan stops

You’ll feel the walls fast:

• The daily counter. Ten reports go in ten minutes of curious clicking.
• One project. A second site means a paid plan.
• Ten tracked keywords. Enough for a test, not for a business.
• No conversation. Semrush lets you chat with its data through ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity, via its MCP. Its MCP page is blunt: “No, Semrush MCP isn’t free.” It starts with paid plans.
• No team. Extra users are a paid add-on, from €43 a month each on the pricing page read from France.
• No branded reports. PDF export and white label come with paid report modules (€9.59 and €19.18 a month as read from France).

None of this is hidden. Semrush’s own pricing page presents the Free plan as a way to try the platform, and that’s exactly what it is.

When to consider a paid Semrush plan

When you open Semrush every week and hit the limit every time. Read from France on October 29, 2026, the English pricing page showed euros: €134 a month for the SEO plan (€112.52 billed yearly), €190 for Starter, €286 for Pro+, Advanced on quote. Data missing: the dollar prices a US visitor sees (planned source: the pricing page read from the United States).

Toolkits and extra users come on top. Our Semrush price page adds it all up.

The Semrush free trial: read this before you give your card

The trial is generous on features and strict on terms. It lasts 7 days on the SEO + AI Search plans and most toolkits, once per toolkit and per account.

“Once per toolkit” matters. You can trial the SEO plan this month and the Local toolkit later, but never the same toolkit twice on the same account. The AI Visibility toolkit has no trial at all; Semrush offers a free demo report instead.

Semrush’s free trial page, which offers 7 days. Screenshot of https://www.semrush.com/semrush-free-trial/, taken on October 30, 2026.

Card required, exports disabled, automatic charge at the end

Three things to know before you click:

1. Your card is required. A small amount is charged when you enter it, then refunded.
2. Exports are disabled during the trial. You can look, you can’t download.
3. Payment is automatic at the end of the 7 days, unless you cancel before.

And if you forget? The refund policy of August 20, 2025 says “refunds are not available for month-to-month subscriptions”. The only refund is a one-time 7-day guarantee on a first yearly plan.

Tools worth testing during the Semrush trial

Seven days go fast. Plan them:

• Day 1: set up your project and start Position Tracking on the keywords that matter to you.
• Day 2: run Site Audit and read the fix list. Semrush promises “a prioritized fix list in minutes”.
• Day 3: look at two competitors and the keywords they rank for that you don’t.
• Day 4: check your backlinks.
• Day 5: come back to Position Tracking and see what moved.
• Day 6: decide. Keep or cancel.

If you trial Starter, look at the AI visibility reports too: they show how often AI assistants mention your brand.

Cancelling the Semrush trial in time

Cancel before day 7 ends. The refund policy says you can cancel at any time and that it takes effect at the end of the period. The exact cancel clicks aren’t on the pages we read, so set a reminder on your phone for day 6.

A free month or longer: what the official pages actually offer

If you see a “30-day” or “60-day” Semrush trial somewhere, check it against Semrush’s own pages. The official pages we read on October 29, 2026 show 7 days, plus 14 days for a few modules (Reports, Lead generation, Agency Partners). We found no free month on those pages.

Also absent from the help center: a student plan or a lifetime plan. It says so directly.

Semrush free tools with no account: a sample of the data

Semrush lists free tools that need no sign-up: SEO Checker, AI Visibility Checker, Keyword Tool, Backlink Checker and Website Traffic Checker, among others. Its own description says they show “a sample of Semrush’s actual data”.

That’s the deal. You get a taste, not the full meal. For a one-off question (“Do I have backlinks?”, “Does ChatGPT mention my brand?”), a taste is often enough.

Use them as a checklist before you open any account:

• SEO Checker: a first technical look at your site.
• Keyword Tool: a few ideas around one keyword.
• Backlink Checker: who links to you, in part.
• Website Traffic Checker: a rough idea of a rival’s audience.
• AI Visibility Checker: whether AI assistants bring up your brand.

If the sample answers your question, stop there. If it raises more questions, that’s when the Free plan or the trial earns its place.

Semrush’s free tools page, which shows a sample of the data. Screenshot of https://www.semrush.com/free-tools/, taken on October 30, 2026.

Getting the most from a free Semrush account as a small business

You run a shop, a practice or a small service. You don’t need every report. You need to know what to fix first.

Watching your competitors’ top keywords

Pick your two closest rivals, the ones customers compare you with. Look up their top keywords once a week. That’s two reports.

Write down the keywords where they rank and you don’t. Those are your next pages. One page per topic, written for the customer, not for the tool.

A simple weekly routine fits in the Free plan: two competitor checks, three keyword lookups, one look at your 10 tracked keywords. That leaves a few reports for surprises.

Fixing your on-page basics first

Before chasing new keywords, fix what you already have. Each page should have its own title, its own main heading and a clear topic.

It sounds basic. It’s also where many sites slip. When we audited one of our own sites with SemChat on October 29, 2026, it flagged duplicate titles on part of the pages. We checked: it was partly right, on the English and British versions of the same pages. It also spotted that our French contact page returned an error 404. We checked that too: true.

None of that needed a paid plan or a technical background. It needed someone, or something, to read the pages with fresh eyes.

Free elsewhere: the free plans that last

Semrush’s Free plan isn’t the only free option. Some tools have free plans with no end date.

The first is from Google itself. Its Search Console page describes the tool like this: “Search Console tools and reports help you measure your site’s Search traffic and performance, fix issues, and make your site shine in Google Search results.” We have no dated fact sheet on it, so we won’t list its 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 October 30, 2026.

Ahrefs Free and Ubersuggest: what their free plans keep

Ahrefs Free is “not a trial”: no credit card, no end date. It covers your own verified sites with Site Explorer, Site Audit and Web Analytics. The catch, in Ahrefs’ own words: “you can’t research competitors’ sites without paying” (Ahrefs pages read October 29, 2026).

Ubersuggest’s free plan has no time limit either, but a tight one: 3 searches a day, 1 project, 25 tracked keywords and an audit of 150 pages a week (help article “Free Account: Key Features and Limits”, updated July 26, 2025).

For contrast, SE Ranking has no permanent free plan: “There’s no permanent free plan, but you can evaluate the platform with a free 14-day trial (no card required)” (SE Ranking FAQ, read October 29, 2026).

So each free plan locks a different door. Semrush counts your reports. Ahrefs keeps you on your own sites. Ubersuggest counts your searches.

SemChat’s Free plan: chat with your site data at no cost

SemChat locks a different door again: usage. Its pricing page says “Every feature, in every plan. Just pick your monthly usage.” The Free plan costs €0, and the page invites you to “Try semchat with no credit card”.

You don’t learn a dashboard. You type a question about your site, in everyday words, and SemChat runs the tools for you. It’s published by ARCHI301, the French company that also publishes Haloscan, and it relies on Haloscan data in France; elsewhere it uses unnamed providers.

What the Free plan includes, according to the app we used on October 29, 2026:

• 17 ready-made SEO skills, from a full audit to local SEO and content briefs.
• Connectors to Google Search Console, Google Analytics 4, Bing Webmaster Tools, WordPress, Webflow, Slack and Notion, plus any MCP server. We tested the Search Console one (read only); the others, not yet.
• No time limit: the quota renews every month.

Two limits to know. The quota is counted in tokens, and SemChat doesn’t say how many audits or questions that equals. And like any assistant, it can be wrong: check its advice before you act on it.

What one full audit costs on the SemChat Free plan

We tested it on a real site on October 29, 2026. One sentence asking for a full audit and a plan by priority. SemChat picked its audit skill on its own, ran its tools, and about 3 minutes later returned 8 key figures, a diagnosis and 3 immediate actions for the week.

The part to know: that single audit used 100% of the Free plan’s monthly quota. The quota resets every month. If you need more, Starter costs €20 a month (€16 billed yearly).

The Usage screen after the audit: the Free plan quota is used up (French interface). Screenshot of the SemChat app (Jérémy’s account, Free plan), October 29, 2026.

SemChat review and pricing: where to go next

Want the whole test, the good and the bad? Read our SemChat review. Want every plan and what the quota means? See our SemChat pricing page.

Still weighing the two tools? Our Semrush vs SemChat duel compares them point by point. And if you’d rather see every option side by side, our Semrush alternative guide sorts them by budget and skill level.

Semrush free is a good way to look around. To know what to fix this week, ask.