Head to head · Last updated August 2026
Ahrefs vs Semrush: pricing, rank tracking, and which is better for SEO
The short answer
Ahrefs starts at $129 a month and Semrush at $139, and the honest split is that Ahrefs wins on backlink data while Semrush wins on breadth and on keyword research. The difference nobody puts in the comparison table is the one that matters most if you bought either tool to watch rankings: Ahrefs lists Rank Tracker update frequency as weekly on all four plans, including the $1,499 Enterprise tier, while Semrush Position Tracking updates daily on all four of its plans. On rankings alone, Semrush is roughly seven times the data for ten dollars more.
Every price and limit below was read off ahrefs.com/pricing and semrush.com/pricing on August 20, 2026. Serpstracker builds a dedicated rank tracker and competes with the ranking module inside both suites. We are not affiliated with either company and we do not earn a commission on either link. The sections on what each tool is genuinely better at are as specific as the rest of the page.
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What Ahrefs and Semrush cost in August 2026.
Both vendors changed their plan lineups in the last year, and most comparison articles are still selling the old ones. Semrush retired Pro, Guru and Business. Ahrefs added a cut down $29 Starter tier that sits outside the main grid. Here is what each page actually shows today.
| Plan | Monthly | Annual, per month | Tracked keywords | Seats included | Ranking updates |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ahrefs Starter | $29 | Monthly only | No Rank Tracker | 1 | Not included |
| Ahrefs Lite | $129 | About $108 | 750 | 1 | Weekly |
| Ahrefs Standard | $249 | About $208 | 2,000 | 1 | Weekly |
| Ahrefs Advanced | $449 | About $374 | 5,000 | 1 | Weekly |
| Ahrefs Enterprise | $1,499 | Annual commitment | From 10,000 | From 3 | Weekly |
| Semrush SEO | $139 | $117.33 | 500 | 1 | Daily |
| Semrush Starter | $199 | $165.17 | 500 | 1 | Daily |
| Semrush Pro+ | $299 | $248.17 | 1,500 | 1 | Daily |
| Semrush Advanced | $549 | $455.67 | 5,000 | 1 | Daily |
| Semrush Enterprise | On request | On request | Not published | Not published | Daily |
The $29 Ahrefs plan is not the entry price
Ahrefs Starter sits outside the main plan grid, next to the free account, and it does not include Rank Tracker. The cheapest Ahrefs plan that tracks rankings at all is Lite at $129. If a roundup tells you Ahrefs starts at $29, it is comparing a keyword research teaser against a full Semrush subscription.
Two Semrush plans share one keyword ceiling
Semrush SEO at $139 and Semrush Starter at $199 both cap Position Tracking at 500 keywords across 5 websites. The $60 step between them buys AI visibility and research tooling, not tracking capacity. If rankings are why you are upgrading, that upgrade buys you nothing.
Both include exactly one seat
Ahrefs Lite, Standard and Advanced each include a single user, with extra seats at roughly $40, $60 and $80 per user per month, capped at 2, 5 and 10. Semrush also bills additional users on top of the plan. A three person team is a materially different price than the headline on either side.
Only one of them publishes an enterprise number
Ahrefs prints $1,499 a month for Enterprise with an annual commitment required, which is unusual in this category. Semrush quotes Enterprise privately and publishes no figure at all, so we do not guess one here.
The full breakdown of each vendor, including add ons and the annual billing traps, is on Ahrefs pricing and Semrush pricing.
Semrush checks your rankings every day. Ahrefs checks them once a week.
This is the single largest functional gap between the two products for anyone who bought an SEO suite to watch positions, and it is missing from almost every comparison article on the first page of Google. Both figures come straight off the vendors' own plan comparison tables.
Ahrefs, verbatim from its comparison table
Rank Tracker, update frequency: Weekly, Weekly, Weekly, Weekly.
That is Lite, Standard, Advanced and Enterprise. Paying $1,499 a month does not buy a faster ranking check. The Ahrefs help center says the same thing in prose: weekly is the default update frequency for tracked keywords on all subscription plans. Daily positions are offered through the paid Project Boost add on, billed per project on top of the subscription, and Ahrefs does not document which Boost tier turns them on.
Semrush, from its plan limits
Position Tracking counts keywords to track daily, on every published plan.
Semrush meters Position Tracking in keywords tracked daily, and daily updates run on SEO, Starter, Pro+ and Advanced alike. The allowance is smaller, 500 keywords at the two cheapest tiers against 750 and 2,000 at Ahrefs, but each of those keywords is read roughly thirty times a month instead of four.
What that does to the price per reading.
Cost per tracked keyword is the number both vendors would prefer you compare, and on that measure Ahrefs looks cheaper. Cost per actual ranking check is the number that reflects how much data you receive, and it points the other way. Both columns below are simple arithmetic from the plan prices and allowances above, using thirty daily checks or 4.33 weekly checks in a month.
| Plan | Keywords | Cadence | Cost per keyword | Checks per month | Cost per check |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ahrefs Lite $129 | 750 | Weekly | $0.172 | 3,248 | $0.0397 |
| Ahrefs Standard $249 | 2,000 | Weekly | $0.125 | 8,660 | $0.0288 |
| Ahrefs Advanced $449 | 5,000 | Weekly | $0.090 | 21,650 | $0.0207 |
| Ahrefs Enterprise $1,499 | 10,000 | Weekly | $0.150 | 43,300 | $0.0346 |
| Semrush SEO $139 | 500 | Daily | $0.278 | 15,000 | $0.0093 |
| Semrush Starter $199 | 500 | Daily | $0.398 | 15,000 | $0.0133 |
| Semrush Pro+ $299 | 1,500 | Daily | $0.199 | 45,000 | $0.0066 |
| Semrush Advanced $549 | 5,000 | Daily | $0.110 | 150,000 | $0.0037 |
| Serpstracker Starter $39 | 250 | Daily | $0.156 | 7,500 | $0.0052 |
| Serpstracker Growth $99 | 1,500 | Daily | $0.066 | 45,000 | $0.0022 |
| Serpstracker Agency $249 | 5,000 | Daily | $0.050 | 150,000 | $0.0017 |
Read that table honestly and Semrush Advanced at $549 delivers a cheaper ranking check than our own $39 Starter plan does. It should: it is buying 5,000 keywords instead of 250. The point of the column is not that one vendor is being greedy, it is that the headline keyword allowance tells you almost nothing until you know how often those keywords are read. We wrote up why the cadence matters for diagnosis, not vanity, in weekly vs daily rank tracking.
What Ahrefs is better at, and what Semrush is better at.
These two tools overlap on maybe sixty percent of what they do. The decision lives in the other forty. Neither of these lists is a diplomatic tie: each item is somewhere one product is plainly ahead.
Ahrefs is better at
The backlink index
This is the reason Ahrefs exists and it is still the strongest in the category. Ahrefs recrawls fresh link data every 15 to 30 minutes and completes a full database refresh about every two months. If link auditing, competitor link gap analysis or disavow work is a regular part of your job, this alone justifies the subscription.
Projects and site coverage
Ahrefs allows unlimited projects on domains where you have verified ownership, at every tier. Semrush counts websites against a hard plan limit: 5 on SEO and Starter, 15 on Pro+, 40 on Advanced. For an agency with thirty client sites, that difference is structural, not cosmetic.
Historical depth
Six months of history on Lite, two years on Standard, five years on Advanced, unlimited on Enterprise. If you need to show a client what happened during a core update eighteen months ago, Ahrefs keeps it and cheaper tools do not.
Published enterprise pricing
A minor point that saves real time. Ahrefs prints $1,499 for Enterprise. Semrush makes you book a call to learn a number, which is a week of procurement you may not have.
Semrush is better at
Ranking data cadence
Daily Position Tracking on every published plan against weekly on every Ahrefs plan. If you run tests, ship changes weekly, or have to explain a drop while it is still happening, this is not a small edge. It is the difference between a diagnosis and a postmortem.
Breadth beyond SEO
Advertising research, display and PPC data, social publishing, content marketing tooling, PR and local listing management all sit inside the same subscription. Ahrefs is deliberately narrower. For a marketing team of generalists rather than an SEO specialist, breadth is worth real money.
Keyword research and intent
Semrush keyword reports carry more contextual data and its keyword database has historically been the larger of the two in the United States. The Keyword Magic tool remains the fastest way to go from one seed to a structured topic list.
Site audit prioritization
Both crawlers find issues. Semrush is better at ranking them by likely impact and at catching structural problems such as keyword cannibalization, which is the difference between a list of 400 warnings and a list of the six that matter.
Five buyers, five different right answers.
The generic verdict is that Semrush is broader and Ahrefs is deeper, which is true and useless. Here is the version that actually decides it, sorted by who you are.
You do link building for a living
Ahrefs, and it is not close. The referring domain index and the freshness of the crawl are what you are paying for, and Semrush has not caught up on either. Start on Lite at $129 and upgrade only when the export limits bite.
You are a one person in house marketer
Semrush SEO at $139. You will use the advertising research, the content tooling and the site audit prioritization more often than you will use a deep backlink crawl, and daily Position Tracking means the ranking tab is worth opening. The 500 keyword ceiling is the constraint to watch.
You run an agency with more than fifteen client sites
Ahrefs, on the project math alone. Semrush caps you at 15 websites on Pro+ and 40 on Advanced, while Ahrefs allows unlimited projects on domains you have verified. Then add a dedicated tracker for the ranking reports, because weekly readings do not survive a client asking what happened on Tuesday.
Rankings are the only report you open
Neither, at these prices. You are paying $129 or $139 a month for a suite in order to use one module, and the Ahrefs version of that module updates weekly. A dedicated daily tracker does that job for a fraction of it. This is the one case where the honest answer is that we are the better buy, and the rest of this page has told you when we are not.
You have budget for one tool and use both halves
Semrush, narrowly, because the floor is higher. Its weakest module is more usable than the Ahrefs equivalent of the things Ahrefs does not specialize in, and the daily ranking data closes the loop on whatever else you do. If backlinks are more than a quarter of your work, flip that answer.
Do you need both Ahrefs and Semrush?
Most teams do not. Running both costs $268 a month at the entry tiers and buys you two keyword databases, two site audits and two dashboards to keep current, for one genuinely unduplicated asset: the Ahrefs link index. Before you subscribe to the second one, work out how many hours a month you spend inside that index. Under about four, and a one off competitor link export from a freelancer is cheaper.
The pairing that does earn its keep is different: one suite plus a dedicated tracker. The suite gives you research, audits and links. The tracker gives you daily positions per location and device without a per project add on. That combination is cheaper than the second suite and it fixes the actual gap, which is cadence rather than coverage. We worked through the arithmetic in do you need a rank tracker with Semrush or Ahrefs.
Semrush plus a dedicated tracker
Redundant on cadence, since Semrush already checks daily. Worth it only if you need more tracked keywords than the 500 on SEO and Starter, or per location and per device rows that count separately. Semrush Pro+ at $299 buys 1,500 daily keywords; Growth here is $99 for the same 1,500.
Ahrefs plus a dedicated tracker
The strongest pairing of the three. You keep the best link index in the category and stop paying per project for daily positions. Ahrefs Lite at $129 plus a tracker at $39 is $168 a month for better link data and better ranking data than either $139 Semrush or $129 Ahrefs alone.
Ahrefs plus Semrush
Justified when link building and paid media are both core to the business, when you need Semrush breadth for advertising and PR and Ahrefs depth for links. At $268 a month it should be a deliberate decision with a named use for each, not a default.
We replace one module of either suite, and we are upfront about which one.
Serpstracker is not an Ahrefs or Semrush competitor in any full sense. We build the ranking table and nothing else. If the rest of the suite is why you are buying, buy the suite. Here is the trade stated plainly, including everything we do not do.
What we do
Daily Google positions for every tracked keyword, set per location and per device. Each phrase, city and device combination is its own tracked row. Every check stores the organic top 10 behind your position, so you can see who moved past you rather than only that someone did.
What it costs
Starter is $39 a month for 250 keywords, 3 sites and 1 competitor. Growth is $99 for 1,500 keywords, 10 sites, 5 competitors and 3 seats. Agency is $249 for 5,000 keywords, unlimited sites, 10 competitors, 10 seats and API access. Annual billing takes 20 percent off. There is no free plan.
Alerts and exports
Email drop alerts on every plan, Slack alerts from Growth upward. CSV keyword export on every plan. Alerts fire the same day the drop is recorded, which is the practical reason to check daily in the first place.
What we do not have
No backlink index, no site audit crawler, no keyword volume database, no content research. No share of voice or visibility score. We record the organic top 10 only, so no SERP feature data, no AI Overview flag, no map pack and no marketplace rankings. Google only: no Bing, no Yandex. If you need any of that, one of the two tools above is the right purchase.
The full side by side against each is on Serpstracker vs Ahrefs Rank Tracker and Serpstracker vs Semrush Position Tracking. If you are shopping the wider field, start at best rank tracker.
Questions people ask before they pick one.
Which is better, Ahrefs or Semrush?
Semrush is better for most buyers because it covers more ground and updates rankings daily on every plan. Ahrefs is better if backlink data is central to your work, since its link index remains the strongest in the category. At $129 against $139 a month the price is close enough that the decision should be about which job you do more often.
Is Ahrefs cheaper than Semrush?
Marginally. The cheapest Ahrefs plan that includes rank tracking is Lite at $129 a month, against $139 for Semrush SEO. The $29 Ahrefs Starter plan is cheaper still but does not include Rank Tracker, so it is not a comparable product. On annual billing Semrush SEO drops to $117.33 and undercuts Ahrefs Lite.
Does Ahrefs or Semrush update rankings daily?
Semrush does. Its Position Tracking allowance is counted in keywords tracked daily and runs daily on all four published plans. Ahrefs lists Rank Tracker update frequency as weekly on all four of its plans, including the $1,499 Enterprise tier, and sells daily positions through a per project Project Boost add on.
Is Ahrefs or Semrush more accurate?
Neither is reliably more accurate, because they measure slightly different things. Both sample the SERP from a chosen location rather than reading your personal results, so numbers differ by a position or two between any two trackers. The larger practical gap is freshness: a weekly Ahrefs reading can be six days stale when you look at it.
What is the difference between Semrush and Ahrefs?
Semrush is a broad marketing suite covering SEO, advertising, content, social and PR. Ahrefs is a focused SEO tool built around the largest backlink index in the category. Semrush caps the number of websites you can track per plan; Ahrefs allows unlimited projects on domains you have verified ownership of.
Which is better for keyword research, Ahrefs or Semrush?
Semrush, for most United States users. Its keyword database has historically been the larger of the two domestically and its reports carry more intent and context data around each term. Ahrefs Keywords Explorer is excellent and its parent topic analysis is genuinely useful, but Semrush Keyword Magic gets from seed to structured list faster.
Which has better backlink data, Ahrefs or Semrush?
Ahrefs, clearly. It has spent longer building its crawler than Semrush has, and it refreshes new link data every 15 to 30 minutes with a full database update roughly every two months. Semrush backlink data is perfectly usable for competitive analysis; Ahrefs is what you want for a genuine link audit.
Do I need both Ahrefs and Semrush?
Usually not. Running both costs $268 a month at the entry tiers and duplicates keyword research, site audits and reporting for one unduplicated asset, the Ahrefs link index. If you spend fewer than about four hours a month inside that index, the second subscription is hard to justify.
How many keywords can you track with Ahrefs and Semrush?
Ahrefs tracks 750 keywords on Lite, 2,000 on Standard, 5,000 on Advanced and from 10,000 on Enterprise, all checked weekly. Semrush tracks 500 on SEO and Starter, 1,500 on Pro+ and 5,000 on Advanced, all checked daily. Ahrefs gives you more keywords; Semrush gives you far more readings of each one.
Do Ahrefs and Semrush have free trials?
Semrush offers a free trial on its plans. Ahrefs does not: it states in its pricing FAQ that it never runs discounts, and its free option is a limited Ahrefs Free account for websites you have verified ownership of, which does not include Rank Tracker. Ahrefs also does not issue refunds in general.
Is Ahrefs or Semrush better for a small business?
Semrush, in most cases. Its entry plan is more generous on reporting limits than the Ahrefs equivalent, the daily ranking data is more useful when you check in weekly rather than daily, and a small business is more likely to need advertising and content tooling than a deep backlink crawl.
Why do Ahrefs and Semrush prices look different on other sites?
Both lineups changed and most articles have not caught up. Semrush retired the Pro, Guru and Business plans that roundups still quote at $129.95, $249.95 and $499.95. Ahrefs added a $29 Starter tier outside its main grid. Ahrefs also prices by region, so the same page returns euros to a European visitor.
The narrow versions of the buying question are covered in is Ahrefs worth it for rank tracking and is Semrush worth it, and the pricing units this whole category uses are explained in how much a rank tracker costs.
Price the rest of the field.
Ahrefs pricing
Every tier, add on and annual billing trap.
Semrush pricing
Where two plans share one keyword ceiling.
Ahrefs alternatives
Ten cheaper trackers, compared on cadence.
Semrush alternatives
What replaces the suite, module by module.
SE Ranking pricing
Where the keyword count is really a target count.
Moz vs Semrush vs Ahrefs
The three way comparison, with Moz Pro pricing added.
Rank tracker cost comparison
Cost per tracked keyword across eleven tools.
Best rank tracker
The full roundup of the category.
Weekly vs daily rank tracking
What a six day old position actually costs you.
Serpstracker pricing
Our three plans and what each keyword ceiling costs.
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Daily Google positions per location and device, the organic top 10 stored on every check, and same-day drop alerts. From $39 a month for 250 keywords.