Semrush vs SE Ranking
Semrush starts at €112.52 a month billed annually, or €134 month to month, for a plan covering 5 websites and 500 keywords tracked daily. Its real strength is the size and depth of its database. SE Ranking starts at €87.20 a month billed annually for Core, with Growth at €188, and covers the same daily work of rank tracking, keyword research and site auditing for less. If you need the deepest competitive data available, Semrush. If you need rank tracking and keyword research that is accurate enough to act on, SE Ranking does it for about €25 a month less at the entry point.
Both price lists were re-checked on 9 September 2026 from a European connection, so the figures below are the euro prices these vendors show in Europe. Both route visitors to a regional price list, so confirm your own currency on their checkout before budgeting.
Head to head
| Semrush | SE Ranking | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From €112.52/mo | From €87/mo |
| Entry plan | SEO €112.52/mo annual (€134 monthly) | Core €87.20/mo annual |
| Entry plan coverage | 5 websites, 500 keywords tracked daily | 10 projects, 2k keywords, 100 AI prompts |
| Next tier | Starter SEO + AI Search €158.40/mo annual (€190 monthly) | Growth €188/mo annual |
| Next tier coverage | SEO plus AI search visibility | 30 projects, 5k keywords, 3 manager seats |
| Annual saving | Up to 17% | 20% (€261.60 on Core, €564 on Growth) |
| Known for | Database depth and competitive research | Rank tracking at a workable price |
What Semrush actually charges
Semrush's entry plan is called SEO and costs €112.52 a month billed annually, or €134 month to month. It covers 5 websites to monitor and 500 keywords tracked daily, with basic keyword research.
Above it, Starter SEO + AI Search is €158.40 a month billed annually, or €190 monthly, and adds AI search visibility to the same 5 sites and 500 keywords. Higher tiers exist and raise the website and keyword allowances, but we are not quoting figures for them here because we did not see them on the page on the day we checked.
Read that ladder carefully, because the first upgrade buys you a feature rather than capacity. If your problem is that you track too few keywords, the Starter plan does not solve it. That is a €46 a month decision hiding behind a plan name, and it buys AI search visibility rather than more keywords.
Where SE Ranking sits
SE Ranking's Core plan is €87.20 a month billed annually, which is €1,046.40 for the year and saves €261.60 against monthly. It covers 10 projects, one manager seat, 2,000 keywords and 100 AI prompts tracked daily, across 5 domains.
Growth is €188 a month billed annually, or €2,256 for the year with a €564 saving. It raises the allowance to 30 projects, 3 manager seats, 5,000 keywords and 250 prompts across 15 domains, and is the tier SE Ranking points agencies at.
The honest summary is that SE Ranking is cheaper at the entry point but not dramatically: about €25 a month against Semrush's annual price. It gets considerably cheaper for the amount of tracking you get as you scale, and the gap is widest when what you need is rank tracking, keyword research and site audits rather than a full competitive intelligence suite.
Database depth is the real difference, and it is hard to price
Every SEO tool estimates. Search volume, keyword difficulty and traffic figures are all modelled, not measured, and different tools model differently. Semrush's advantage is the size of its index and the length of its history, which shows up most in competitor research and backlink analysis.
For rank tracking, the gap narrows a lot. Your own position for your own keyword is a fact both tools can check directly, and both check it daily on their paid plans.
So the question becomes what you use the tool for. If it is mostly watching your own rankings and finding keywords to write about, you are paying Semrush's premium for a database you barely query. If you spend your week reverse-engineering competitors' traffic, that database is the product and SE Ranking will feel thin.
A caution about difficulty scores
One thing worth saying plainly, because we ran into it ourselves: keyword difficulty scores are not always reliable, and a score of zero usually means no data rather than no competition.
We checked two spellings of the same query in SE Ranking's data. One returned 4,400 monthly searches with a difficulty of 0. The other returned 1,100 searches with a difficulty of 67. Same search results page, same competitors, wildly different numbers, because one variant simply had no difficulty data behind it.
This is not a criticism of SE Ranking specifically; every tool has thin spots. It is an argument for checking the same keyword two ways before you build a plan on the number, whichever tool you pay for.
Which should you choose?
Choose Semrush if…
- You need the deepest competitor and backlink data on the market
- You are pitching clients who expect to see the Semrush name
- You want SEO and AI search visibility in one platform
- The budget is a company budget, not yours
Choose SE Ranking if…
- You want rank tracking and keyword research without the flagship price
- You are a freelancer or small agency watching every subscription
- You would rather pay for what you use than for a suite you half-open
- You want an API you can actually afford to call
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If you are a freelancer or a small agency and the SEO tool is a cost you feel every month, take SE Ranking. Core at €87.20 a month billed annually covers rank tracking, keyword research and audits, which is the work most people actually do.
If competitor research is your job rather than a task, take Semrush and pay the €112.52 or more, but go straight to the plan that has the keyword allowance you need rather than the one with the feature name you liked. The Starter tier at €158.40 adds AI search visibility to the same 500 keywords; more capacity only arrives above it. Getting that wrong is the most common expensive mistake on this page.
Frequently asked
Is SE Ranking cheaper than Semrush?
Yes, though less dramatically at the entry point than people expect. SE Ranking Core is €87.20 a month billed annually against Semrush's SEO plan at €112.52 annually, or €134 monthly. That is about €25 a month. The saving grows at higher tiers and when what you need is rank tracking rather than competitive intelligence.
How many keywords can I track on Semrush?
The SEO plan at €112.52 and the Starter plan at €158.40, both billed annually, track 500 keywords daily across 5 websites. Higher tiers raise that allowance; check the current figures on the pricing page, because we only verified the first two on 9 September 2026.
What does SE Ranking cost?
Core is €87.20 a month and Growth is €188, both billed annually, with a 20% saving against monthly. Core covers 10 projects and 2,000 keywords; Growth covers 30 projects and 5,000. Checked on 9 September 2026 from a European connection.
Is Semrush worth the extra money?
It depends what you use it for. For competitor and backlink research, its database depth is the product and the price is defensible. For tracking your own rankings and finding keywords to write about, you are paying a premium for data you rarely query.
Can I trust the keyword difficulty scores?
Treat them as a guide, not a fact. A difficulty of 0 usually means the tool has no data for that phrase rather than that the keyword is easy. Check the same keyword in two spellings before planning around the number.
Do either offer an API?
Both do. SE Ranking's is the more affordable of the two for small-scale use, which matters if you want to pull volume and difficulty data into your own scripts rather than reading it in a dashboard.