Semrush vs Ahrefs: prices, limits and data compared

Semrush vs Ahrefs comes down to two questions: do you need paid search and traffic research as well as SEO, and how often do you need rankings updated? Pick Ahrefs if links and content research are the heart of your work. Pick Semrush if you also run Google Ads, want rank tracking updated daily on the entry plan, or want to try before you pay.

They start close together: $129 a month for Ahrefs Lite, $139 a month for the Semrush SEO plan, both on monthly billing. The gap opens when you add people, and when you need a tool that is not in the plan you bought.

Prices below were read from each vendor's own pricing page on 4 October 2026. Index sizes come from each vendor's own data page, read the same day.

Semrush vs Ahrefs at a glance

Ahrefs also lists a $29 Starter plan, but its pricing page does not publish Starter's limits, so it is left out of the comparisons below. Full plan detail lives on the Semrush pricing and Ahrefs pricing pages.

What a team really pays

List prices are for one person. Here is the team arithmetic, on published monthly prices. Our sums, not vendor quotes.

The jump on the Ahrefs side is structural. Lite allows only two extra users, so a team of five must move to Standard, where each seat is $60. Semrush prices its user add-on as "starting at $45" and does not say whether that rises on higher plans, so treat its column as a floor.

For one person, Ahrefs is cheaper. From four people up, Semrush usually is.

The limits that bite

Ahrefs Lite has a credit cap. Each Lite user gets 1,000 credits a month, and reports show at most 2,500 rows. Standard and above have unlimited credits and 30,000 rows per report. If you research every day, Lite is a trial run for Standard.

Ahrefs tracks rankings weekly. The pricing table lists a weekly update for Rank Tracker on every plan, including Enterprise. Semrush updates tracked keywords daily from its $139 plan. If you report rankings to clients each month, weekly is fine. If you need to see the day a page dropped, it is not.

Semrush keeps history behind Pro+. "Historical SEO data" appears from Pro+ at $299. On SEO and Starter you see the present. Ahrefs includes 6 months of history on Lite, 2 years on Standard and 5 on Advanced.

Semrush's breadth is sold in toolkits. The PPC research tools (Advertising Research, ad copies, Google Shopping ads) sit in the Advertising toolkit, from $99 a month billed annually. The total traffic and channel estimates sit in Traffic & Market, at $289 a month billed annually. Neither comes with the $139 SEO plan.

Ahrefs content research starts at Standard. Content Explorer and Batch Analysis are listed as Standard features. If finding top content in a niche is why you want Ahrefs, budget $249, not $129.

Projects are close. Semrush SEO covers 5 websites. Ahrefs Lite covers 5 projects for sites you have not verified, and unlimited projects for sites you have.

Semrush vs Ahrefs, job by job

"Close" means the published limits and data sizes give neither a clear edge, so habit, interface and price should decide it.

Whose data is stronger

Both publish index sizes. Both claim to be the largest.

Sources: Semrush's stats page (dated "as of October 4, 2026") and Ahrefs' big data page.

The figures are not counted the same way. Semrush counts links; Ahrefs counts history records and vets domains first. So the headline numbers do not settle which index is better for your sites.

What is fair to say is that Ahrefs is organised around links. Domain Rating, URL Rating and Ahrefs Rank are all calculated from its backlink index, and it says that index refreshes every 15 to 30 minutes. Semrush is organised around keywords and markets, with more toolkits hanging off the same database.

Where Ahrefs wins

• Link work. Fresh link data, link history on every plan, and metrics built around it. If you sell link building, this is the reason to pay.
• One person, one bill. Lite at $129 with 6 months of history is the cheaper single seat, and there are no toolkits to add.
• Your own sites for free. Ahrefs Free gives limited Site Explorer and Site Audit access for any site you can verify as yours.

Where Semrush wins

• Daily rank tracking. 500 keywords a day on the entry plan, 1,500 on Pro+, 5,000 on Advanced.
• PPC and traffic in the same login. At extra cost, but available. Ahrefs has paid search reports but no equivalent toolkits.
• Teams of four or more. Cheaper seats once you outgrow Ahrefs Lite's three-user ceiling.
• Trying it first. A free plan and a 7 day trial. Ahrefs' FAQ says "We never run discounts" and offers no trial.

Learning curve

Semrush has more tools across more toolkits, so there is more to learn. Ahrefs is built around a few explorers (Site Explorer, Keywords Explorer, Site Audit, Rank Tracker). Neither is hard for someone who knows SEO. For an owner doing it on the side, fewer menus is a real advantage.

If you are reading older comparisons

Both companies have rebuilt their plans, so many articles quote prices and names that no longer exist. Semrush's plans are now SEO, Starter, Pro+ and Advanced; the old Pro, Guru and Business names are gone from the pricing page. Ahrefs now runs Lite, Standard, Advanced and Enterprise, plus a $29 Starter plan. If a comparison quotes Guru, it predates the change.

Which is better, Semrush or Ahrefs?

Pick Ahrefs if links are central to your work, you work alone or in a team of three, you want history without paying for a higher tier, and weekly rankings are enough.

Pick Semrush if you also run Google Ads or need total traffic estimates, you want daily rank tracking, your team is four people or more, or you want to test the tool before you commit.

Pick neither if your need is narrower than either tool. For rank tracking alone, SE Ranking tracks 2,000 keywords daily for $129 (see SE Ranking vs Ahrefs). For years of a competitor's Google Ads history, SpyFu is the specialist (SpyFu vs Semrush). For total traffic and channel mix, Similarweb answers a different question (Semrush vs Similarweb). The Semrush alternatives and Ahrefs alternatives pages cover the rest.

And if what you actually need is to know what competitors changed each week, neither is built for that job. Figo checks each competitor once a week (new ads on Google, Meta and TikTok, page and pricing changes, rankings, reviews) and sends a Monday briefing, from $49 a month. Ours, so judge accordingly, and keep Semrush or Ahrefs if you do real SEO work: Figo has no backlink data or keyword research.