Semrush vs Ahrefs for Bloggers: Prices Checked 3 October 2026

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Semrush and Ahrefs are the two names every SEO comparison ends up at, and most of those comparisons quote prices nobody has checked since they were written. Ahrefs Lite was $99 for years and still gets quoted at $99. Semrush retired a $149.95 tier that third-party reviews still list. We keep dated price logs for Semrush and Ahrefs, and this page is built from those logs plus a fresh reading taken on 3 October 2026.

We compare what the published plans buy. Both tools have large keyword and backlink databases, and arguing about whose index is bigger is a fight the vendors fund. Plan limits are printed on their own pricing pages, and anyone can check them.

The verdict

For a blogger paying out of pocket, Ahrefs Lite buys more for less: 750 tracked keywords against 500, six months of history included, and a cheaper second seat. Semrush wins if you want a printed annual price you can budget against, or AI-search prompt tracking without a second tool.

Semrush: $139 a month, or $117.33 billed yearly. Choose it for AI-visibility tracking (from $199) and breadth beyond SEO.

Ahrefs: $129 a month, no annual price published. Choose it for backlink research and more keyword rows per dollar.

Prices read on 3 October 2026 from each vendor’s own pricing page · US dollars unless marked

Where we stand. Blogging Titan earns affiliate commission on some tools we cover, and the two vendor links below may pay us. We say so here because our Stake Test found a financial stake behind 80% of page-one tool advice. This comparison uses published pricing and plan pages and claims no hands-on testing.

Table of Contents show

At a glance

Entry tiers compared, because the entry tier is where most bloggers stay.

	Semrush SEO	Ahrefs Lite
Month-to-month	$139	$129
Billed yearly	$117.33 a month ($1,407.96 up front)	Not published. The page says “save up to 17%”
Tracked keywords	500, updated daily	750
Projects or sites	5 websites	5 projects
Historical data	From the $299 Pro+ plan	6 months included
Second user	From $45 a month	$40 a month, two extra users at most
Cheapest way in	Free account, 10 reports a day	Starter at $29, or the free tool for sites you own
AI-search tracking	From Starter at $199, 50 prompts	Not in Lite. Brand Radar AI was listed from $199 in August

The keyword maths

A tracked keyword is the allowance bloggers run out of first, and it is the lever both vendors use to move you up a tier. Divide the entry price by the rows it buys and Semrush costs 27.8 cents per keyword a month against 17.2 cents on Ahrefs. That is a 62 percent premium per row, on plans whose headline prices sit $10 apart.

Add a second person and the gap holds. Semrush SEO plus one extra seat starts at $184 a month. Ahrefs Lite plus one is $169. Ahrefs caps Lite at two extra users, so a team of four has to move to Standard, which starts at $249 before its own $60 seats.

The one place Semrush is easier to price is commitment. It prints an annual figure for every tier, $117.33 a month on SEO, a saving of $260.04 a year or 15.6 percent. Ahrefs advertises a saving of up to 17 percent and prints no annual price for any tier. If that full 17 percent applied to Lite, it would come to about $107 a month and undercut Semrush, but the page never says which tiers get it. You cannot compute an Ahrefs annual bill from its own pricing page, and that was as true on 3 October as on every earlier reading in our log.

History is the feature nobody prices

Here is the difference that surprised us when we laid the two plan pages side by side. Semrush lists historical SEO data as a Pro+ feature, so you pay $299 a month before you can look back at how a competitor used to rank. Ahrefs includes six months of history on Lite at $129, two years on Standard at $249 and five years on Advanced. If you write updates of old posts and want to see what moved, that line matters more than any headline price.

Who each one is for

Pick Semrush if you want one subscription that also covers AI visibility. Starter at $199 adds 50 tracked prompts a day, and Pro+ at $299 adds 100. You can also buy a single month and stop, which suits a one-off site audit or a launch. Check the current figures on the Semrush pricing page.

Pick Ahrefs if links are the reason you pay for software, or if you track more than 500 keywords and do not need AI-prompt tracking. Starter at $29 is a cheap way to test the interface before paying $129. Current figures are on the Ahrefs pricing page.

If neither price works, our Semrush alternatives and Ahrefs alternatives pages price the cheaper options, and the SE Ranking vs Semrush comparison covers the cheapest full platform per keyword.

Price history from our logs

Every reading we have taken of both entry tiers, oldest first. Rows are never edited after the fact; a correction gets its own dated row.

Date	Tool	Plan	What we read	Notes
20 July 2026	Semrush	SEO	$139.95/mo month-to-month, $117.33/mo billed yearly	Ground-truth capture for our Teaser Rate Test study
29 August 2026	Semrush	SEO	$139/mo month-to-month, $117.33/mo billed yearly	Read in-browser with the dollar symbol confirmed. The old Pro tier at $149.95 had gone
29 August 2026	Ahrefs	All tiers	Starter $29, Lite $129, Standard $249, Advanced $449, Enterprise $1,499	Price sweep. Brand Radar AI was listed from $199
3 September 2026	Semrush	SEO	$139/mo entry price	Cost Index build
3 September 2026	Ahrefs	Lite	$129/mo, 750 tracked keywords	Cost Index build
4 September 2026	Semrush	SEO	$139/mo month-to-month, $117.33/mo billed yearly	Our Semrush pricing page
4 September 2026	Ahrefs	All tiers	Starter $29, Lite $129, Standard $249, Advanced $449, Enterprise $1,499	Our Ahrefs pricing page
3 October 2026	Semrush	All tiers	SEO $139, Starter $199, Pro+ $299, Advanced $549 month-to-month; $117.33, $165.17, $248.17, $455.67 billed yearly	Read from a United States connection. A UK browser was shown £113, £161, £242 and £444 for the same tiers
3 October 2026	Ahrefs	All tiers	Starter $29, Lite $129, Standard $249, Advanced $449, Enterprise $1,499. Still no annual price printed, only “save up to 17%”	Read in US dollars

Neither price moved between our September and October readings. The movement that matters is older: Semrush shaved its monthly headline from $139.95 to $139 between 20 July and 29 August 2026, and Ahrefs has held $129 for every reading in our log.

Questions people ask

Short answers, with the date each figure was read.

Is Ahrefs cheaper than Semrush?

At the entry tier, yes. Ahrefs Lite is $129 a month and Semrush SEO is $139, both read on 3 October 2026. Ahrefs also tracks 750 keywords against 500. On yearly billing Semrush prints $117.33 a month, while Ahrefs advertises up to 17 percent off and prints no annual price, so the yearly comparison cannot be settled from its pricing page.

Which is better for a small blog, Semrush or Ahrefs?

For keyword tracking and backlink research on one budget, Ahrefs Lite gives more per dollar and includes six months of history. Semrush is the better fit if you also want AI-search prompt tracking, which starts on its $199 Starter plan.

Does Semrush or Ahrefs have a free plan?

Semrush has a free account limited to 10 reports a day. Ahrefs offers a free tool for sites you own and verify, and a cut-down Starter plan at $29 a month.