Semrush Alternatives: 6 Tools Compared on Price (2026)

The best Semrush alternative for most e-commerce teams is Ahrefs if you want a like-for-like all-in-one suite, SE Ranking if you want the most tracked keywords for the money, and Moz Pro or Serpstat if you need a lower entry price. Paying more for Semrush is worth it when you use its breadth every week across several sites; a cheaper tool wins when you only need keyword research, rank tracking and an audit for one store.

This guide is for Shopify and e-commerce owners, in-house marketers and small teams deciding whether to keep, downgrade or replace a Semrush subscription. You'll get a side-by-side price and limits table built from each vendor's own pricing page (checked October 27, 2026), a ranked list of alternatives with who each one suits, a cost-per-keyword comparison, free options that cover more than you might expect, and a step-by-step way to switch without losing your history.

Is a Semrush alternative right for you?

Semrush is a broad platform: keyword research, competitor analysis, backlink data, site audits, rank tracking and, more recently, AI visibility features in one login. Its pricing page now lists four paid tiers called SEO, Starter, Pro+ and Advanced, plus a free plan. If you remember the old Pro, Guru and Business names, those are gone from the pricing page.

The real question is not whether Semrush is good. It is whether you use enough of it to justify the price. Most stores fall into one of three groups:

• Power users. You manage several sites or markets, run competitor research weekly and rely on historical data. Semrush or Ahrefs usually earns its price here.
• Core users. You check rankings, run a monthly audit and research keywords for new collections and blog posts. A cheaper suite usually covers this.
• Occasional users. You log in a few times a quarter. Free tools plus Google Search Console often cover everything you actually do.

Signs you're overpaying

• You track fewer keywords than your plan allows and never hit report limits.
• Most logins are to check rankings for one domain.
• Your team exports data to spreadsheets because nobody uses the dashboards.
• You pay monthly billing on a tool you have kept for over a year.

Signs a cheaper tool will hold you back

• You need more than a few months of historical data to explain traffic changes.
• You compete in several countries and need market-level keyword data.
• Several people need their own logins and shared projects.
• You need API access or automation to feed your own dashboards.

Semrush alternatives compared on price and limits

Every number below comes from the vendor's own pricing page, checked on October 27, 2026. Prices are in US dollars and billed monthly unless noted. Vendors change plans often, so confirm on the pricing page before you buy.

On sticker price alone, Serpstat and Moz Pro are the cheapest suites, and Ahrefs Lite and SE Ranking Core undercut Semrush's SEO plan by $10 a month. Price is only half the picture, though, because the limits differ a lot.

The best Semrush alternatives, ranked

We ranked these tools on how well each one replaces Semrush for an e-commerce or Shopify team, judged on the features and limits each vendor publishes. We did not run our own head-to-head data accuracy tests, and we are not reporting user ratings. Your best fit depends on which Semrush features you actually use.

1. Ahrefs: the closest like-for-like replacement

Ahrefs is the most complete swap if you use Semrush for everything. Its Lite plan at $129 a month includes Site Explorer, Keywords Explorer, Site Audit, Rank Tracker, Web Analytics, Brand Radar, tracked AI prompts and a report builder, with 750 tracked keywords and unlimited verified projects.

• Best for: teams who do serious competitor and backlink research and want one platform.
• Trade-offs: Lite keeps 6 months of historical data (Standard keeps 2 years and Advanced 5 years), and Content Explorer, Portfolios and Batch Analysis start on higher plans. Lite includes 1,000 credits per user, while Standard and above are unlimited.
• Price step: Standard is $249 a month and Advanced $449. A Brand Radar AI add-on is listed from $199 a month.

If you're weighing Ahrefs specifically, our guide on what Ahrefs is and how it works goes deeper, and our Ahrefs alternatives post covers the reverse decision.

2. SE Ranking: the most tracked keywords for the money

SE Ranking Core costs the same as Ahrefs Lite but tracks 2,000 keywords daily across 10 projects, with 250,000 audit pages a month. Growth, at $279 a month, raises that to 5,000 keywords, 30 projects and 3 manager seats.

• Best for: stores that track a large product and collection keyword set, and small agencies with several clients.
• Trade-offs: it is a smaller platform than Semrush or Ahrefs, so check that the specific research reports you rely on exist before you cancel anything.
• Try it: a 14-day free trial with no credit card, according to its pricing page.

3. Moz Pro: a lower entry price with AI visibility included

Moz Pro Standard is $99 a month, or $79 a month billed yearly. It includes 1 user, 3 tracked sites, 300 tracked keywords and 400,000 pages crawled a month, plus AI visibility features such as tracked prompts across GPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode. Medium ($179) and Large ($299) add users and limits, and a $49 plan is offered for people managing a single website.

• Best for: a single store that wants the basics plus a first look at AI search visibility.
• Trade-offs: 300 tracked keywords is tight for a catalog with many collections.

4. Serpstat: the budget all-in-one

Serpstat Individual is listed at $50 a month for 5 projects, 100 searches a day for sites, keywords and links, 10,000 keyword position checks and 30,000 pages to audit. Team plans start at $100 a month, and the page advertises up to 27% off with annual billing.

• Best for: freelancers and small stores that want keyword research, rank tracking, audits and backlinks without a three-figure bill.
• Trade-offs: daily search caps can slow down heavy research days.

5. Screaming Frog SEO Spider: replace the site audit only

If the Semrush feature you use most is the site audit, a dedicated crawler may do it better for less. Screaming Frog is free for crawls up to 500 URLs, and a licence costs £199 a year to crawl more and unlock extra features. It is a desktop crawler, so it does not track rankings or research keywords.

6. Google Search Console: the free source of truth

Google Search Console is free and shows the queries, clicks, impressions and average positions Google actually recorded for your site. Third-party tools estimate traffic; Search Console reports it. It won't show competitors, but for your own store it is the first place to look.

What you pay per tracked keyword

Rank tracking is the feature most e-commerce teams use every week, so it's a fair way to compare value. This illustrative calculation divides each entry plan's monthly price by its tracked keyword allowance.

By this measure SE Ranking Core is far cheaper per keyword, at $6.45 for every 100 tracked keywords against $27.80 on Semrush SEO. Moz Pro Standard is the cheapest plan to start but the most expensive per keyword, because its allowance is small. That matters if you sell hundreds of products and want to watch every collection term.

It doesn't settle the decision on its own. If you rarely track more than 300 keywords, the cheapest monthly price wins. If you rely on deep competitor research, the platform with the better research reports wins even at a higher cost per keyword.

Annual billing changes the math

If you already know you will keep a tool for a year, annual billing is the easiest saving. Using the annual prices on each pricing page, the first-year cost looks like this:

When paying more for Semrush is worth it

A cheaper tool is not automatically the smarter buy. Paying for Semrush, or for a higher plan of any suite, tends to make sense in these situations.

The pattern is simple: pay more for scale (sites, seats, markets and history) and for research depth. Don't pay more for features you open twice a year.

Free tools that replace paid features

Before you pay for any suite, see how much a free stack covers. Between Google Search Console, the free plans from Semrush and Ahrefs, and our own free tools, a single store can handle most routine checks for nothing.

What free tools can't do well is competitor research: seeing which keywords and links another store owns. That is where a paid suite still earns its price.

How to switch from Semrush step by step

Switching tools is mostly about keeping your history and your reporting intact. Follow these steps so you don't lose months of data.

1. List what you actually use. Write down the five reports your team opened in the last 90 days. That list, not the vendor feature page, decides your new tool.
2. Export your history. Download rank tracking history, keyword lists, audit results and any custom reports before your Semrush billing period ends.
3. Start a trial in parallel. Run the new tool alongside Semrush for two weeks. SE Ranking offers a 14-day trial and Semrush a 7-day trial, so time your overlap.
4. Import your tracked keywords. Add the same keyword set and the same location and device settings so the numbers are comparable.
5. Compare against Search Console. Check both tools' positions for a sample of 20 keywords against Search Console's average position. Expect differences; you're looking for which tool tracks your real trends.
6. Rebuild your reports. Recreate the one or two reports stakeholders read every month, and connect Search Console and GA4 where the new tool supports it.
7. Cancel and set a review date. Cancel the old plan, then set a reminder to review usage in six months before you commit to annual billing.

Tools don't rank stores, work does

Every tool on this list tells you roughly the same thing: which pages rank, which keywords competitors own and what's broken on your site. None of them writes the collection page, fixes the template or tests the product page. For most stores the gap is not data, it is the time and skill to act on it.

That is where an agency fits. QCK is not a software company, so we're not on the ranked list above. We're an SEO, AI search and CRO agency for e-commerce and Shopify brands, and every role is in-house: writers, editors, developers, data analysts, designers and CRO strategists. We've built 7,960 live pages for clients and run 197 A/B tests across 26 e-commerce stores, with 171 wins.

If you'd rather spend your budget on execution than on another subscription, see our e-commerce SEO services or browse the case studies.

Choosing your Semrush alternative

Pick the tool that matches how you work, not the longest feature list:

• You use everything in Semrush: Ahrefs.
• You track a large keyword set: SE Ranking.
• You run one store and want a low entry price: Moz Pro or Serpstat.
• You only need audits: Screaming Frog plus our free SEO checker.
• You're not sure: start with Search Console and free tools for a month, then buy only what you missed.

For more options, see our roundup of tools like Semrush. And if you want a second opinion on where your store's organic growth is stuck, get a free plan and we'll show you the pages ready to move.