The short answer
- $139 a month for the SEO plan, $199 Starter, $299 Pro+, $549 Advanced. Billed yearly: $117.33, $165.17, $248.17 and $455.67 a month. Enterprise on request.
- Starter adds AI search tracking and MCP access: 50,000 API units a month for using Semrush in Claude or ChatGPT.
- The API is on Advanced and above, priced in units bought through sales. There is no public per-unit price.
- Extra users on the SEO toolkit start at $45 a month. Other toolkits are sold separately.
Prices from semrush.com on September 21, 2026.
Semrush plans and prices in 2026
Semrush’s pricing page now sells four self-serve plans and Enterprise. Pro, Guru and Business are no longer on it, so a comparison that still quotes $139.95 for Pro is out of date.
| Plan | Price | Sites / keywords | AI prompts | MCP / API |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SEO | $139/mo $117.33 yearly | 5 / 500 | — | Neither |
| Starter | $199/mo $165.17 yearly | 5 / 500 | 50 daily | MCP, 50,000 units |
| Pro+ | $299/mo $248.17 yearly | 15 / 1,500 | 100 daily | MCP, 50,000 units |
| Advanced | $549/mo $455.67 yearly | 40 / 5,000 | 200 daily | API; MCP units extra |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom | Custom API |
Yearly billing saves up to 17%. Extra SEO users start at $45 a month. The free plan is one demo project and 10 reports a day, and paid plans carry a 7-day trial (Semrush’s cost FAQ).
Which plan you actually need
- SEO ($139) if one person tracks a handful of sites and runs reports by hand. It is the one plan with no route to MCP.
- Starter ($199) if you want AI search visibility tracked alongside rankings, or want to ask Claude or ChatGPT about Semrush data. Same site and keyword limits as SEO; the $60 buys AI prompts and MCP.
- Pro+ ($299) if you manage more than five sites. Three times the websites and tracked keywords of Starter.
- Advanced ($549) if you need the API for your own reporting or product. The odd edge: it includes no MCP units, so using Semrush in Claude on Advanced means buying a unit package on top.
The costs outside the plan
The plan buys the SEO toolkit and nothing else. Local, Content, Social, Advertising, AI PR and Traffic & Market are separate toolkits with their own plans; extra users on Traffic & Market start at $289 a month each, against $45 for the SEO toolkit and $20 for the others. Branded reports are $10 or $20 a month per report. Budget for the toolkit you need, not just the plan.
Semrush API pricing
The API is where the pricing gets opaque. Semrush’s pricing page puts API access on Advanced and above; its API help page still describes the Standard API as an add-on to the older Business plan, and says that after upgrading "the number of units will still be zero". Units come in packages of 2, 5, 10 or 20 million through sales, no per-unit price is published, and unused units expire at renewal rather than rolling over.
What is published is the cost of each report, in units per line returned (developer documentation):
| Report | Units per line | 100 rows |
|---|---|---|
| Domain overview | 10 | 1,000 |
| Domain organic keywords | 10 | 1,000 |
| Domain paid keywords | 20 | 2,000 |
| Keyword overview | 10 | 1,000 |
| Broad match keywords | 20 | 2,000 |
| Related keywords | 40 | 4,000 |
| Keyword questions | 40 | 4,000 |
| Backlinks | 40 | 4,000 |
| Referring domains | 40 | 4,000 |
| Keyword difficulty | 50 | 5,000 |
Historical data costs five times the live rate. The Trends API, which carries traffic and market estimates, is a separate quarterly subscription with its own 10,000 units a month, priced through sales (Trends API).
What Semrush MCP costs
The MCP server is how Semrush reaches Claude and ChatGPT, and it is priced differently from the API. Starter, Pro+ and the legacy SEO Classic Pro and Guru plans include 50,000 MCP API units a month, refreshed on the renewal date (Semrush MCP). Calls spend them at the same per-line rates as the table above, which converts to 5,000 organic keyword rows, 1,250 backlink rows or 1,000 difficulty lookups a month.
That is ample for a person running reports and thin for an agent. A three-competitor workup — top 100 keywords and 100 backlinks each, plus difficulty on 100 terms — is about 20,000 units, 40% of the month, for one question. The full arithmetic is in Semrush MCP: costs, limits and alternatives, and the setup in our Semrush MCP review.
Semrush API limits
- Rate: no more than 10 requests a second from one IP address, or 10 simultaneous requests per user.
- Balance: when units run out, the SEO, Trends, Position Tracking and Site Audit APIs return
ERROR 132; the Projects and Local APIs return HTTP403. - Partial results: a report priced per line returns only as many rows as your balance covers, instead of failing. Check row counts before trusting a total.
Finding your Semrush API key
On a plan with API or MCP access, the key is in the API keys section of your Semrush profile. The MCP server signs in with OAuth by default, so you need the key only for clients that take a header, sent as Authorization: Apikey YOUR_API_KEY. Anyone holding it spends your units.
Semrush after Adobe
Adobe completed its acquisition of Semrush on April 28, 2026. Semrush’s customer FAQ says there are no changes to existing contracts and agreements for now, and promises updates as the integration progresses.
If the price is the problem
Semrush is a database: it answers questions about the market, and someone still has to act on the answers. That shapes what a cheaper option looks like.
- Ahrefs starts at $129 a month for Lite, which includes its MCP server and more API units than Semrush Starter. Details in Ahrefs MCP.
- Sprites is not a database; it is an AI marketing agent that acts on the research, with every change held for your approval. Build, at $66 a month billed yearly ($99 monthly), covers keyword data, a technical SEO audit, backlink analysis and publishing to WordPress, Webflow, Shopify and other CMSs; the SEO article writer is on Launch. It works from Claude or ChatGPT through one MCP connector, on plan credits rather than API units. It does not replace Semrush’s depth on competitors’ paid search and shopping ads. The head-to-head is at Sprites vs Semrush.
- Search Console is free and holds the most accurate data there is about your own site. It says nothing about competitors.
Semrush pricing questions
How much does Semrush cost per month?
From $139 a month for the SEO plan to $549 for Advanced, billed monthly. Billed yearly the same plans work out to $117.33 and $455.67 a month. Starter is $199 ($165.17 yearly) and Pro+ is $299 ($248.17 yearly). Enterprise is priced on request.
Is there a free version of Semrush?
Yes, with tight limits: one demo project and 10 reports a day. Paid plans and toolkits also come with a 7-day free trial.
How much does the Semrush API cost?
Semrush does not publish a per-unit price. API access sits on Advanced ($549 a month) and above, and units are bought in packages of 2, 5, 10 or 20 million through sales. Each report then costs a published number of units per line: 10 for an organic keyword row, 40 for a backlink, 50 for a keyword difficulty lookup.
Which Semrush plan includes API access?
Semrush’s pricing page puts API access on Advanced and above. Its developer documentation still describes the API as an add-on to the older Business plan. Either way the account starts with zero units until a package is bought. The MCP server is the exception: Starter and Pro+ include 50,000 MCP API units.
What are the Semrush API limits?
Two. A rate limit of 10 requests a second from one IP address, or 10 simultaneous requests per user, and your unit balance. When units run out the SEO API returns ERROR 132 and the Projects API returns HTTP 403; reports priced per line return only as many rows as your balance covers instead of failing.
How do I get a Semrush API key?
On a plan with API or MCP access, open the API keys section of your Semrush profile. The key spends your units, so keep it out of shared documents and code repositories.
Does Semrush charge per user?
Yes. Extra users on the SEO toolkit start at $45 a month, and extra users on the other toolkits are $20 each.
Did the Adobe acquisition change Semrush pricing?
Not for existing customers. Adobe completed its acquisition of Semrush on April 28, 2026, and Semrush’s customer FAQ says existing contracts, agreements and billing are unchanged.
Is there a cheaper alternative to Semrush?
Ahrefs Lite is $129 a month and includes its MCP server. Sprites works differently: it is an AI marketing agent rather than a database, and it acts on the research. Its Build plan, $66 a month billed yearly, covers keyword data, a technical audit, backlink analysis and publishing to your CMS; the SEO article writer is on Launch.