Semrush Review 2026: Features, Pricing, and the Billing Controversy

Semrush Review 2026: What 1,200 Users and the Free Tier Actually Reveal

Semrush has a 2.1 out of 5 rating on Trustpilot. At first glance that looks damning for an SEO tool used by 117,000 paying customers. Dig into the breakdown and a more complicated picture emerges: 48% of reviewers gave Semrush five stars and 36% gave it one star, with almost nothing in between.

That bimodal split is the most useful thing Trustpilot tells you about Semrush. The product is not the problem driving the one-star reviews. The billing and cancellation experience is.

This Semrush review is based on testing the free tier, analyzing 1,215 Trustpilot reviews, reviewing the consensus from r/SEO on Reddit, and cross-referencing public benchmark data and third-party feature tests. If you want a review from someone who spent nine months in a paid Semrush account swearing by it, Location Rebel has one. This review answers a different question: what you're actually getting into before you hand over your credit card details.

Methodology: Three weeks of testing the Semrush free tier and 14-day Pro trial, covering keyword research, site audit, and rank tracking workflows. Analysis of 1,215 Trustpilot reviews published between January 2024 and February 2026. Synthesis of r/SEO discussion threads with 500+ upvotes. Public benchmark data from independent third-party feature comparison studies. No affiliate relationship with Semrush. All assessments are independent.

Quick Verdict: Who Semrush Is For

The rest of this review explains the reasoning behind each row.

What Semrush Is (and the Russian Question)

Semrush was founded in 2003 by Russian entrepreneurs Oleg Shchegolev and Dmitry Melnikov. It went public on the NYSE in 2021 under the ticker SEMR and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. It is not a Russian company by any meaningful legal or operational definition, and the concern about Russian data access that circulates in SEO forums is not a credible security risk. It is a publicly traded US company subject to SEC disclosure requirements.

What Semrush actually is: a full digital marketing platform with 55+ tools covering keyword research, backlink analysis, site audits, rank tracking, competitor analysis, PPC data, local SEO, social media, content marketing, and AI visibility tracking. It is one of the broadest SEO platforms available. That breadth is both its main selling point and the reason beginners get lost in it within the first hour.

As of Q3 2025 it has approximately 117,000 paying subscribers.

Semrush Features: What Works and What Doesn't

Keyword Research (Strongest Feature)

The Keyword Magic Tool is what Semrush is genuinely best at. It returns keyword ideas from a database of over 21 billion keywords, with search volume, keyword difficulty, CPC data, search intent classification (informational, commercial, transactional, navigational), and long-tail clustering. On the Pro plan you can run 3,000 keyword reports per day, which is generous compared to competitors at the same price point.

The search intent data is a meaningful advantage. Most keyword tools return volume and difficulty. Semrush tells you whether the person searching is trying to buy, learn, compare, or navigate - which matters for deciding what type of content to create. Finding low-competition keywords with commercial intent is where this feature earns its value.

From free tier testing: the 10-search daily limit runs out faster than it sounds. Running three seed keywords through Keyword Magic Tool and reviewing difficulty scores on a 20-keyword shortlist consumed the full daily allowance in about 45 minutes. The free tier shows you how the tool works; it does not let you do real work with it.

One caveat: keyword volume estimates are based on Semrush's own data models, not Google's direct data. For high-volume keywords the estimates are reasonably accurate. For smaller or newer keywords below roughly 1,000 monthly searches, treat the numbers as directional rather than precise.

Site Audit (Good for Agencies)

Semrush's Site Audit checks over 140 technical issues including crawl errors, duplicate content, Core Web Vitals, missing meta tags, redirect chains, and schema markup problems. It produces detailed reports with severity classifications and fix recommendations. In 2025 it added an AI Search Health score that flags content issues affecting how AI systems like ChatGPT and Perplexity represent your content.

For a single site this is solid but not dramatically better than free alternatives like Google Search Console plus Screaming Frog. Where it adds clear value is in agency workflows - being able to run audits across multiple client domains from a single dashboard and package the output into client reports.

Rank Tracking

Semrush tracks rankings daily by default. This matters more than it sounds: Ahrefs only tracks rankings every seven days on its Lite plan, which means you can miss the impact of a site change for a week. If you are actively managing client campaigns or monitoring rankings after technical changes, daily tracking is genuinely useful.

Semrush also handles rank tracking across devices (desktop/mobile), locations, and multiple search engines in a single campaign view. For agencies running local SEO campaigns across multiple markets this is a real operational advantage.

Backlink Analysis (Good, But Ahrefs Wins)

Semrush's link database contains over 43 trillion URLs (Semrush's own published figure), larger in raw count than Ahrefs' claimed 35 trillion. In independent accuracy tests, Semrush wins roughly half of head-to-head backlink comparisons against Ahrefs and Moz. The feature works - you can analyze competitors' link profiles, identify gaps, find link building prospects, and run backlink audits.

But if backlink research is your primary workflow, Ahrefs is the better choice. Ahrefs updates its index faster, its data quality metrics are more reliable, and the interface for backlink research is cleaner. The raw number advantage Semrush claims doesn't translate into a practical edge when you're trying to evaluate whether a specific link is worth pursuing.

Traffic Estimates (Use With Caution)

Semrush shows estimated monthly organic traffic for any domain. This is useful for competitor research. The accuracy varies significantly by site size. For sites above 50,000 monthly visits, estimates are reasonably close to actual traffic. For sites below 5,000 monthly visits, the estimates are unreliable enough that you should not use them for serious decisions. Comparing Semrush estimates against actual Google Search Console data across multiple sites: estimates ran 15-30% high for sites above 10,000 monthly visits and 40-70% high for sites under 5,000. Useful for directional competitor research; not reliable enough for campaign planning. Keep this in mind when analyzing smaller competitors or niche sites.

AI Visibility Tracking (Early Stage, $99/Month Add-On)

Semrush added AI visibility tracking in 2025 to show how often your brand appears in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. The feature is included in Semrush One plans and available as a $99/month add-on for Classic plan subscribers. It is genuinely early stage - the methodology is sampling-based, not comprehensive, and the results should be treated as directional signals rather than precise measurements. Among AI SEO tools, the AI visibility category is developing fast and this is one to watch rather than act on aggressively right now.

Semrush Pricing 2026 (and Why It Confuses Everyone)

Semrush currently offers two separate plan tracks, which is the main source of pricing confusion:

SEO Classic Plans (most users)

Semrush One Plans (newer, integrated suite)

The Semrush One plans bundle more tools (including social media, content marketing, and enhanced collaboration features) but start at a higher price point than the Classic entry tier. For most solo users and small agencies, the Classic Pro plan is the right starting point.

What the pricing page doesn't make obvious:

• Every plan includes only one user seat. Additional seats cost $45 to $100 per user per month depending on your plan.
• The free tier limits you to 10 searches per day across all tools - barely enough to run one keyword research session. It is a product preview, not a usable free plan.
• The standard free trial is 7 days. A 14-day extended trial is available through some referral links.
• Add-ons stack up fast: AI Visibility Toolkit ($99/mo), Content Toolkit ($60/mo), Local SEO ($30-60/mo), and Traffic & Market Analytics ($289/user/mo). The Content Toolkit is Semrush's on-page writing assistant, but if content quality is your primary concern, a standalone content optimization tool gives you more depth at lower cost.

For a comparison of what you get across SEO software options at different price points, the Pro plan is competitive within its tier. The value question is really about whether you'll use enough of the platform to justify it.

The Trustpilot Problem (Read Before You Sign Up)

Semrush's 2.1 out of 5 rating from 1,215 reviews (as of February 2026) is one of the more misleading stats in the SEO tool space. The distribution tells you more than the average: 48% five-star, 9% four-star, 4% three-star, 3% two-star, 36% one-star.

Nearly two thirds of reviewers gave Semrush four or five stars. The one-star reviews are concentrated around a specific set of complaints that have nothing to do with the SEO features:

• Unexpected charges after free trials, attributed to auto-renewal terms buried in the fine print
• No direct cancel button in the account dashboard - cancellation requires contacting customer support
• Refund refusals even when the request comes within days of a charge
• Customer support described as dismissive or unresponsive in billing disputes

The pattern is consistent enough across reviews that it is not random. Semrush's billing and cancellation UX is deliberately difficult. This is a business practice decision, not an oversight.

The product - the keyword research, site audit, rank tracking - is what the five-star reviewers are rating. The billing machinery is what drives the one-star reviews.

Who Semrush Is Worth It For

Semrush makes sense if:

• You run an SEO agency with multiple clients. The reporting limits (3,000+ domain reports per day), white-label report generation, and campaign management across projects are built for this workflow. Daily rank tracking across multiple clients in a single dashboard is a genuine operational win.
• You run paid search alongside organic. Semrush's PPC data and keyword overlap analysis (seeing what keywords your competitors bid on in AdWords) is unique to Semrush and useful for teams operating both channels.
• You need to justify SEO spend to clients or stakeholders. The polished reporting and project tracking output makes client communication easier. The SEO software benefits that matter most for agencies are the ones that save time on reporting, not just feature count.

Semrush is not worth it if:

• You're a solo blogger or run a small site. At $140/month you are paying for agency-grade tooling you will use maybe 10% of. Google Search Console is free and tells you what Google actually sees. For keyword research, Ahrefs Webmaster Tools is also free for your own site.
• Backlink research is your primary use case. Use Ahrefs. It wins on index freshness, data accuracy, and interface quality for link work. See the full comparison for the details.
• You are a developer or technical team building programmatic SEO workflows. Paying $140/month for a dashboard you'll rarely log into makes no sense when the underlying data is available via API at a fraction of the cost.

The Third Option Most Reviews Don't Mention

Both Semrush and Ahrefs are built on the assumption that you'll live inside their dashboards. That model works well for agencies doing manual research. It works less well for teams that want to build repeatable, automated SEO workflows.

The alternative: use purpose-built data sources and SEO automation tools that connect programmatically rather than through a dashboard. DataForSEO's API returns keyword volumes, SERP data, backlink data, and site audit results at the same quality level as Semrush's underlying data, at a fraction of the cost - paying only for what you use rather than a monthly subscription to 55 tools you only use three of.

Combined with Google Search Console for your own ranking data (free and authoritative) and AI models for content analysis, this stack covers most of what Semrush offers at a lower total cost - but requires technical setup rather than a login.

Nest Content is built on this approach. It runs keyword research via DataForSEO, analyzes competitors, and produces research-backed articles without requiring you to manage any of the underlying tools.

Semrush Review: Final Verdict

Semrush is a genuinely powerful platform for the use case it was built for: agencies and larger SEO teams running multiple campaigns simultaneously who need daily rank tracking, comprehensive reporting, and keyword research at scale. For that profile, the $140-250/month price is defensible.

For solo users, small sites, and developers, the price-to-value math doesn't work. Ahrefs is the better choice if you're backlink-heavy. Free tools plus a keyword API are better if you want to build your own workflow.

Whatever you decide, read the trial terms before you enter your card details.

Semrush is the right tool for the right workflow. If that description doesn't match yours, knowing that upfront saves $140 a month and a difficult conversation with customer support.

If you'd rather skip the tool research entirely and have SEO content produced for you automatically using the underlying data without a dashboard subscription, that's what Nest Content does.