Semrush FAQ
8 common questions about Semrush — answered.
Semrush offers a limited free plan with 10 searches per day across most tools (keyword research, domain analysis, site audit). You can audit up to 100 pages and track 10 keywords. For serious SEO work, you'll need a paid plan — the free tier is useful for occasional checks but not daily workflow.
Semrush has three plans: Pro at $139.95/month (freelancers and startups), Guru at $249.95/month (growing agencies, content marketing tools), and Business at $499.95/month (large agencies, API access). Annual billing saves ~17%. Additional users cost $45-$100/month depending on the plan.
Semrush is the more comprehensive platform — it covers SEO, PPC, social media, and content marketing in one tool. Ahrefs has a stronger backlink index and more intuitive UI for pure SEO workflows. Choose Semrush if you need an all-in-one marketing suite; choose Ahrefs if backlink analysis and link building are your primary focus. Most SEO professionals have used both.
Daily limits by plan: Pro: 3,000 reports/day, 10,000 results per report. Guru: 5,000 reports/day, 30,000 results per report. Business: 10,000 reports/day, 50,000 results per report. The Keyword Magic Tool database contains over 25 billion keywords across 142 countries.
Yes, but API access is only available on the Business plan ($499.95/month) or as an add-on. The API provides programmatic access to domain analytics, keyword research, backlink data, and site audit results. It supports REST endpoints with JSON responses. Rate limits depend on your plan and API units purchased.
You can schedule site audits to run daily, weekly, or on a custom schedule. The crawl limit depends on your plan: Pro crawls up to 100,000 pages, Guru up to 300,000, and Business up to 1,000,000 pages per audit. Re-crawl frequency and page limits can be configured per project.
Semrush's backlink database contains over 43 trillion backlinks from 1.6 billion domains, making it one of the largest in the industry. The database updates continuously with new links discovered every day. It tracks referring domains, anchor text, link type (dofollow/nofollow), and first/last seen dates.
Semrush traffic estimates are directionally accurate but not precise. They typically show correct relative trends (which sites get more traffic) and growth/decline patterns, but absolute numbers can be off by 30-70% compared to actual analytics. Use Semrush traffic data for competitive benchmarking and trend analysis, not exact traffic counts. Accuracy improves for larger sites.