Semrush Pricing 2026: Is Pro Actually Enough?

The most common question about Semrush isn’t “how much does it cost?” It’s “which plan do I actually need?” The pricing page shows three tiers, but the real answer depends on what you’re doing with it.

Here are three real scenarios to find your plan, then a full breakdown of every tier and hidden cost.

Scenario 1: Solo blogger or niche site owner

You have 1-2 websites. You do keyword research weekly, track 100-300 keywords, and run a site audit monthly. No clients, no team.

You need: Semrush Pro ($140/month, $117 annual).

Pro gives you 5 projects (plenty for 1-2 sites), 500 tracked keywords, and 10,000 results per report. The keyword research, site audit, and backlink tools are all fully functional on Pro. You won’t touch the project limit.

What you’re missing on Pro: Historical data (can’t see keyword trends beyond your tracking start date), content marketing toolkit, and content audit tools. For a solo blogger, these are nice-to-haves, not dealbreakers.

Actual monthly cost: $117/month (annual) or $140/month (monthly). No add-ons needed.

But consider this: If keyword research is your primary need and you’re budget-conscious, Mangools at $29/month or SE Ranking at $52/month covers the core workflow at a fraction of the cost.

Scenario 2: SEO freelancer or small agency

You have 6-15 client sites. You need separate projects for each, content optimization tools for deliverables, and historical data for client reporting. Maybe 1-2 team members.

You need: Semrush Guru ($250/month, $208 annual) + at least 1 extra user ($80/month).

The 5-project limit on Pro is the wall. With 6+ clients, you physically can’t set them all up as projects. Guru gives you 15 projects, 1,500 tracked keywords, the content marketing toolkit (SEO Writing Assistant, Topic Research), and historical data for trend reporting.

What you’re missing on Guru: API access (Business-only), Share of Voice metric, and extended limits. For a small agency, Guru covers the full workflow.

Actual monthly cost: $208 (Guru annual) + $80 (1 extra user) = $288/month. Add Semrush Local ($40/month) if you do local SEO for clients. Add Trends ($200/month) if you need market analysis. A fully loaded Guru setup for a small agency runs $328-$528/month.

Scenario 3: In-house marketing team

You have a marketing team of 3-5 people running SEO, content, and PPC for one company. You need shared access, API integrations for dashboards, and deep competitive intelligence.

You need: Semrush Business ($500/month, $417 annual) + extra users ($100/month each).

Business gives you 40 projects, 5,000 tracked keywords, API access for connecting to your reporting dashboards, and Share of Voice for competitive benchmarking. The API access alone justifies Business if your team uses custom dashboards or automated reporting.

Actual monthly cost: $417 (Business annual) + $200 (2 extra users at $100 each) = $617/month. Plus any add-ons.

Full tier breakdown

	Pro	Guru	Business
Monthly	$140	$250	$500
Annual (per month)	$117	$208	$417
Users included	1	1	1
Projects	5	15	40
Keywords tracked	500	1,500	5,000
Results per report	10,000	30,000	50,000
Historical data	No	Yes	Yes
Content marketing toolkit	No	Yes	Yes
API access	No	No	Yes
Share of Voice	No	No	Yes

All plans include: keyword research, site audit, backlink analytics, rank tracking, on-page SEO checker, competitor analysis, and advertising research tools.

The costs that aren’t on the pricing page

Additional users are expensive.

• Pro: $45/month per extra user
• Guru: $80/month per extra user
• Business: $100/month per extra user

A 3-person team on Guru costs $208 + $160 = $368/month. On Business: $417 + $200 = $617/month. User seats are Semrush’s most significant hidden cost for teams.

Add-on tools aren’t included in any plan.

• Semrush Local: $40/month. Local SEO management, listing distribution, review monitoring.
• Semrush Trends: $200/month. Market analysis, traffic analytics, competitive intelligence.
• Agency Growth Kit: $150/month. CRM for agencies, client portals, white-label reports.

These aren’t niche features. Trends in particular (traffic analytics for competitor sites) is something many users assume is included in their plan. It isn’t.

The trial auto-renews. Semrush’s 7-day free trial requires a credit card. If you don’t cancel before day 7, you’re charged $140 for the first month of Pro. This catches more people than Semrush probably intends. Set a calendar reminder.

Daily request limits exist. Even on paid plans, there are daily limits on keyword searches, domain analytics queries, and other API calls. Pro allows 3,000 analytics reports per day. Heavy users can hit this, especially when running bulk competitor analysis.

Annual vs. monthly: what you’re committing to

Plan	Monthly billing	Annual billing	Annual savings
Pro	$140/mo	$117/mo ($1,404/yr)	$276/year
Guru	$250/mo	$208/mo ($2,496/yr)	$504/year
Business	$500/mo	$417/mo ($5,004/yr)	$996/year

Annual billing saves 16-17% across all plans. But it’s a commitment; there’s no partial-year refund if you cancel midway. If you’re not sure which plan you need, start monthly and switch to annual once you’ve confirmed the plan works for your workflow.

How Semrush compares on price

Tool	Entry price (annual)	Keywords	Projects	Users
Mangools	$29/mo	200	Unlimited	1
SE Ranking	$52/mo	500	5	1
Semrush	$117/mo	500	5	1

Semrush costs 2-4x more than alternatives at the entry level. What you get for the premium: deeper backlink database, content marketing tools, advertising research, historical data (Guru+), and the most complete competitive intelligence in the market.

For detailed comparisons: SE Ranking vs Semrush | Mangools pricing

The verdict

Semrush Pro is enough for solo operators managing up to 5 sites. It’s genuinely the best all-in-one SEO platform if you use the full toolkit daily.

But “enough” has sharp edges. The 5-project limit forces agency users to Guru. The per-user pricing punishes teams. And the add-on tools (especially Trends at $200/month) add costs that aren’t visible on the main pricing page.

Before committing, do the math for your specific situation: base plan + extra users + add-ons + annual commitment. The sticker price and the real price are rarely the same number.

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Pricing sourced from Semrush’s official pricing page and their feature comparison documentation. Last checked February 2026.