SE Ranking vs Semrush: Tracking Volume or Research Depth

The short answer: if your week is reporting rankings for up to 10 sites and 2,000 keywords, SE Ranking's Core plan covers it for $129 a month on monthly billing, with 100 AI prompts tracked daily and an audit of 250,000 pages a month (SE Ranking pricing). Semrush asks $139 for 5 websites and 500 tracked keywords on its SEO plan (Semrush pricing), and earns the difference only if you spend your time in its research database rather than in rank reports.

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These two overlap a great deal. Both track rankings, audit sites, research keywords and backlinks, and follow brands in AI answers. Where they split is what the base price is sized for: SE Ranking sizes it for monitoring many sites, Semrush for researching a market.

Where the money goes:

1. Per tracked keyword. For example, Core works out at $129 / 2,000 = $0.0645 per keyword a month, and the Semrush SEO plan at $139 / 500 = $0.278, using the SE Ranking and Semrush pricing pages. If tracking is most of the job, that ratio decides it.
2. Your current rank history. SE Ranking imports projects and keyword ranking history from other tools, and its assisted migration is free with an annual plan, per its pricing FAQ. Semrush lists migration from third-party tools on its Advanced plan only, per its plan comparison.
3. The people who log in. Core includes 1 manager seat and Growth 3, and SE Ranking allows one active session per login, per its FAQ. Semrush includes one user on every plan and charges $45 for each extra on SEO and Starter. Count daily users before you count features.
4. A check you can run in the trial. Pick 20 keywords for one site and compare each tool's reported position with the average position Search Console shows for the same query. Large gaps are a question for support before you commit, not after.

Plan against plan

USD, from the SE Ranking pricing page and the Semrush pricing page, both checked on 24 October 2026. SE Ranking's Growth plan, at $279 a month, raises the limits to 30 projects, 3 seats, 5,000 keywords and 2 million audit pages.

What separates them

How much each base price watches

On tracking volume, SE Ranking gives four times the keywords and twice the projects for $10 less a month on monthly billing, per the table above. Semrush's higher tiers close the gap slowly: Pro+ at $299 tracks 1,500 keywords across 15 websites, per its pricing page. An agency reporting on many small clients feels that difference every month.

How deep the research goes

Semrush's homepage claims 29 billion keywords and 142 geo databases. SE Ranking's homepage claims 5.5 billion keywords across 188 country databases. Each vendor counts its own way, so treat both as claims, not measurements. In practice the question is whether your keyword research reaches the long tail in your markets, and the trial is where you find out.

How the bill grows

SE Ranking keeps the base plan lean and sells extras: an Agency Pack for white-label reporting at $69 a month on annual billing only, an AI Search add-on at $89 a month on monthly billing for 200 more prompts, and an API add-on at $45 a month, also annual only, per its pricing page. Semrush grows by tier and by toolkit, with local, content, social and traffic data sold separately, per its subscriptions article. List the add-ons you would buy on day one, then compare totals.

One step an agent can take

SE Ranking hosts an MCP server with more than 180 tools that runs on the API credits already in the plan, and publishes open-source Claude Skills on top of it, including a content brief generator that turns keyword and SERP analysis into a brief, per its MCP page. The agent assembles the brief from live data; an editor checks the target keyword, the search intent and the competitors it chose before a writer starts. For scheduled jobs, SE Ranking's homepage names Make, n8n and Zapier as ways to automate work across client projects. Semrush's MCP is read-only and comes with 50,000 MCP API units on Starter and Pro+, per its MCP article.

Prices, checked on 24 October 2026

USD, from the SE Ranking pricing page and the Semrush pricing page, checked on 24 October 2026. SE Ranking says payments are non-refundable except where the service was not delivered as promised.

Start with the trials. SE Ranking's 14 days need no card and include 10 projects, 750 tracked keywords a day and 20 AI prompts, per its pricing FAQ; Semrush adds a free plan with 10 reports a day. Two weeks of your own client sites in both is a better test than any feature list.

Note what the migration offer is for. Free assisted migration comes with an annual subscription, per the SE Ranking pricing page, so the help that moves your history in is tied to the longer commitment. Move one client by self-serve import during the trial, and accept the assisted move only once the trial has settled the question.

Choose SE Ranking if

• Your job is monitoring rankings for many sites and reporting them to clients.
• You track thousands of keywords and want the base plan to carry them.
• You want MCP and API credits in the plan without a separate data contract.

Choose Semrush if

• Your job is research: competitor gaps, market sizing and long-tail discovery.
• A few hundred tracked keywords per site is enough.
• You want traffic, local or content toolkits on the same login later.

Background on each: the SE Ranking entry and the Semrush entry.

FAQ

Can two colleagues share one SE Ranking login?

Not at once. One session can be active per login, and a second sign-in asks the first to hand over, per the pricing FAQ. Add seats or use view-only guest links.

Does Semrush import ranking history from another tool?

Its plan comparison lists migration from third-party tools on the Advanced plan only, per the Semrush pricing page, checked on 24 October 2026.

Which one tracks AI answers on its entry plan?

SE Ranking Core tracks 100 prompts a day. Semrush's SEO plan has no prompt quota; Starter tracks 50, per the two pricing pages (SE Ranking, Semrush).