Which Semrush Plan Do You Need in 2026?

Transparency note: CriticNest has no affiliate or commercial relationship with Semrush. Nothing on this page is a paid placement, and the links below are plain links. Every price was read off Semrush’s own pricing page on 3 August 2026 and is quoted with the date it was checked, because this is a product whose plan structure changed recently enough that most of what you will find online is wrong.

The Plan Names Changed, and Most Guides Have Not Caught Up

If you have researched Semrush at any point in the last decade, you learned three plan names: Pro, Guru and Business. Nearly every comparison article, YouTube review and affiliate roundup still uses them, and most quote Pro at $139.95 a month.

Open the pricing page today and none of those names are there. A new buyer chooses between four plans called SEO, Starter, Pro+ and Advanced, and the whole line is presented as SEO plus AI Search rather than SEO alone.

The confusion is not only yours. Semrush’s own pricing page still carries a frequently asked question headed “Which would be better for me, Guru or Pro?”, answering a question about plans it no longer offers you.

To be precise about what can and cannot be verified: a new buyer cannot select a plan called Pro, Guru or Business on the pricing page today. Whether existing subscribers on those old plans were migrated, grandfathered or left alone is not something Semrush states publicly, so this page does not guess. If you are already paying for Guru, check what your account actually shows before assuming any article, including this one, describes your billing.

What Every Semrush Plan Costs in 2026

All figures read from Semrush’s pricing page on 3 August 2026. Annual plans are billed as one payment, and the per-month figure is what that works out to.

Plan	Monthly	Annual, per month	Annual total	Sites	Keywords daily	Free trial
SEO	$139	$117.33	$1,407.96	5	500	Yes
Starter	$199	$165.17	$1,982.04	5	500	Yes
Pro+	$299	$248.17	$2,978.04	15	1,500	Yes
Advanced	$549	$455.67	$5,468.04	40	5,000	No

Two details in that table are worth pausing on.

First, SEO and Starter give you identical capacity. Both cover 5 sites and 500 keywords. The $60 a month between them buys AI visibility features, not more room to work: prompt tracking, a domain for AI brand performance, AI visibility reports and an AI-ready site audit. If you do not intend to track how your brand appears inside AI answers, that $60 buys you nothing you will open.

Second, Advanced is the only plan with no free trial. Its card offers Subscribe or a custom plan request, with no try-for-free option. At $5,468.04 a year committed, that is the plan where you would most want to test first, and it is the one you cannot.

Which Semrush Plan Do You Actually Need?

Capacity, not features, is what should decide this. Almost nobody outgrows Semrush on features. People outgrow it on the number of sites and tracked keywords.

You run one site, or a handful. Take SEO at $139, or $117.33 annually. Five sites and 500 daily keywords is a lot of room for a single property. There is no reason to pay more, and the tools that separate the higher plans are ones a single-site owner opens rarely.

You are a freelance consultant with a few clients. Still SEO, until you pass five active sites. The moment you take a sixth client site you need Pro+, because that is the next tier that raises the site limit, and it more than doubles the bill from $117.33 to $248.17 a month annually. Plan for that step before you sign the sixth client, not after.

You care about showing up in AI answers. This is the case for Starter at $199. Prompt tracking and AI visibility reporting are genuinely new capabilities rather than repackaged old ones, and if part of your value to clients is reporting on AI search presence, that is where it lives. If it is not, skip it.

You run a small agency. Pro+ at $299, and budget for the add-ons below, because an agency is exactly the buyer that needs extra seats and white-labeled reports. Historical data and cannibalization analysis also start here, and both matter once you are diagnosing sites you did not build.

You need API access or 40 sites. Advanced, at $549. If you are not sure whether you need the API, you do not.

The Add-Ons Are Where the Real Cost Hides

This is the part missing from most Semrush comparisons, and it is the part that decides what an agency actually pays.

Add-on	Price	What it is
Additional Users	from $45/mo each	Individual logins for colleagues, shared projects
Lead Generation	$90/mo	Branded profile on Semrush Agency Partners, verified badge
Base Report	$10/mo	Data from 20+ Semrush tools, GA and Search Console, scheduling, PDF export
Pro Report	$20/mo	Base plus external integrations, white-labeling, AI summaries, share by link

A Semrush subscription is one seat. Every additional person in your team who needs their own login starts at $45 a month. Two people on Pro+ annual is $248.17 plus $45, so $293.17 a month before anyone has generated a client report. Three people is $338.17.

Sharing one login instead is the obvious workaround and a bad idea, both because it breaks project attribution and because individual logins are the stated reason the add-on exists.

If you send client reports, white-labeling lives in Pro Report at $20 a month, not in your plan. Budget $20, not zero.

Is the Annual Plan Worth Committing To?

Semrush advertises saving up to 17 percent on annual billing. In money, over a year:

• SEO: $1,407.96 annually against $1,668 paying monthly. You save $260.04.
• Starter: $1,982.04 against $2,388. You save $405.96.
• Pro+: $2,978.04 against $3,588. You save $609.96.
• Advanced: $5,468.04 against $6,588. You save $1,119.96.

Those are real savings and on Pro+ or Advanced they are substantial. The trade-off is not just the commitment. It is that the refund rules treat the two billing choices completely differently, which almost nobody realises until they want out.

The Free Trial and the Refund Rule That Catches People

The trial is seven days. Semrush’s own wording is “Try Semrush free for seven days. Cancel anytime.” If you start a subscription with a trial, the first payment is charged automatically when the trial ends unless you cancel first.

The refund policy is where it gets specific, and these are their terms rather than a summary:

• Semrush offers a one-time, 7-day money-back guarantee, limited to initial subscription purchases of twelve months or longer, and to initial add-on purchases.
• Refunds are not available for month-to-month subscriptions at all. If you pay monthly, there is no money-back window.
• Refunds are only available to customers who bought directly from Semrush.com using a credit card.
• You must submit a written request within 7 calendar days of the initial annual order.
• Cancelling part-way through a term does not refund what you prepaid. It stops the next renewal.

And the trap. Their policy states that if you cancel through their cancellation form and want a refund, you must explicitly state the refund request in the additional comment field to be eligible. Cancelling without typing that sentence forfeits the refund, inside the seven days or not.

The practical reading is counterintuitive. The annual plan is the cheaper one and the only one with a money-back window, but that window is seven days and it needs a sentence written in the right box. The monthly plan costs more and has no refund at all, but you can stop it at the end of any month. Pick monthly if you are unsure, annual once you know you will keep it.

What Changed Under Adobe

Semrush is now, in its own words on its own site, “Semrush, an Adobe Company”. Press coverage reports the acquisition was announced in November 2025 and completed on 28 April 2026, an all-cash deal valued at $1.9 billion, or $12.00 per share. The ownership is confirmed on Semrush’s site; the deal terms are as reported rather than something this page verified independently.

For a buyer, the honest answer is that nothing about the plans has visibly changed as a result yet, and the pricing above is what is on offer today. What is worth watching is direction. The plan restructure toward AI visibility, the prompt tracking limits attached to every tier, and Adobe’s own positioning around AI search all point the same way, and a tool being folded into a much larger marketing suite historically means enterprise features and enterprise prices get more attention than solo ones. That is a reason to prefer monthly billing if you are on the fence, not a reason to avoid the product.

Who Should Not Buy Semrush at All

Plenty of people. The cheapest Semrush plan is $1,407.96 a year committed, which is a real business expense that a hobby site or a small local business will not earn back.

If you run one site and mostly want to know which keywords you rank for and what is technically broken, Google Search Console is free and gives you your own data rather than an estimate of it. Semrush earns its money on competitor research, scale and reporting, none of which a single site needs weekly.

We looked at this in detail in our piece on whether Semrush is overkill for a one person website, and the answer there is often yes. If you have not decided whether to buy at all, read that first. This page assumes you already decided to and are choosing a tier.

Cheaper Ways to Get Most of It

Before committing to a plan, be honest about which of the three jobs you are buying: keyword research, rank tracking or site auditing. Very few people need all three at Semrush’s depth.

Rank tracking alone is available from dedicated trackers at a fraction of the price. Site auditing is available free, at lower volume, from Google’s own tools and from open-source crawlers. Keyword research is where Semrush’s data is genuinely hard to replace, and it is the one thing worth paying for if you have to choose.

The seven day trial exists for this. Run your real work through it for a week, note which tools you opened more than once, and buy the plan that covers those rather than the plan that covers everything.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which Semrush plan is best for beginners?

The SEO plan at $139 a month, or $117.33 billed annually. It covers 5 sites and 500 daily tracked keywords, which is well beyond what a beginner with one site will use. The higher tiers add capacity and agency tooling, not easier tools, so paying more does not make Semrush simpler.

What happened to the Semrush Pro and Guru plans?

They are no longer offered as selectable plans on the pricing page. A new buyer today chooses between SEO, Starter, Pro+ and Advanced. Semrush’s own pricing FAQ still contains a question comparing Guru and Pro, which is why so much of the advice online is out of date. If you are an existing subscriber on an old plan, check your account rather than relying on any article.

How much does Semrush cost per month in 2026?

Four prices, checked 3 August 2026: SEO $139, Starter $199, Pro+ $299 and Advanced $549 when billed monthly. Billed annually those become $117.33, $165.17, $248.17 and $455.67 per month respectively.

What is the difference between Semrush SEO and Starter?

Capacity is identical at 5 sites and 500 keywords. Starter costs $60 a month more and adds AI visibility features: daily prompt tracking, a domain for AI brand performance, AI visibility reports and an AI-ready site audit. If you are not reporting on AI search presence, the extra $60 buys nothing you will use.

Does Semrush have a free trial?

Yes, seven days, in Semrush’s own words “Try Semrush free for seven days. Cancel anytime.” It is offered on the SEO, Starter and Pro+ plans. Advanced has no free trial option on its plan card. If a subscription starts with a trial, the first payment is charged automatically when the trial ends unless you cancel first.

Can I get a refund from Semrush?

Only in narrow circumstances. Semrush offers a one-time 7-day money-back guarantee limited to initial subscriptions of twelve months or longer and to initial add-on purchases, bought directly from Semrush.com with a credit card. There are no refunds on month-to-month subscriptions. You must also explicitly state the refund request in the comment field of their cancellation form, otherwise cancelling forfeits it.

How many users does a Semrush subscription include?

One. Every additional person who needs their own login is an add-on starting at $45 a month each. Two seats on Pro+ annual is $293.17 a month rather than $248.17, which is the number most agency budgets miss.

Is the annual Semrush plan worth it?

Financially yes if you are certain you will stay: annual billing saves $260.04 on SEO and $609.96 on Pro+ over a year. It is also the only billing option with any money-back window, though that window is seven days. If you are unsure whether the tool will stick, monthly costs more but you can leave at the end of any month.

Does Semrush include white-labeled client reports?

Not in the plan price. White-labeling and external integrations are in the Pro Report add-on at $20 a month. The cheaper Base Report add-on at $10 a month covers scheduled PDF reports with Google Analytics and Search Console data but without branding.

Who owns Semrush now?

Adobe. Semrush’s own site now describes the company as “Semrush, an Adobe Company”. Press reporting puts the completion at 28 April 2026 in an all-cash deal valued at $1.9 billion. No plan or pricing change has been visibly attributed to the acquisition so far.

If the answer you reached is that no Semrush tier is worth it at these prices, that is a legitimate conclusion and there are real options below the line. Our guide to Semrush alternatives under $50 a month compares six of them on verified pricing, including the Ahrefs Starter tier at $29 that most comparisons have not caught up with.