SpyFu vs Semrush: PPC history or the full suite

SpyFu vs Semrush is depth against breadth. SpyFu is built around one thing: years of what a competitor has bought on Google Ads and where it has ranked, domain by domain. It sells that history from $119 a month, after a $59 first month. Semrush does far more (rank tracking, audits, content, a traffic panel) but sells paid search research as a separate toolkit, and its SEO history starts on the $299 plan.

If your question is "what has this competitor been bidding on, and which ads did they keep?", SpyFu is the cheaper, more focused answer. For almost everything else in search, Semrush.

Prices below were read from each vendor's own pricing page on 4 October 2026.

What PPC history actually tells you

A competitor's current ads are free to see. Google's Ads Transparency Center shows what an advertiser is running, but not the keywords behind the ads. History is what the paid tools add, and it answers three questions:

• Which keywords are worth it. A keyword a rival has bought for three years is probably profitable for them. One they dropped after a month probably was not.
• Which ad copy won. SpyFu describes its ad history as showing "the results of every ad split test they've ever run". In practice, the variation that kept running is usually the one that beat the others.
• When they spend. Seasonal ramps show up as keywords appearing and disappearing on the same months each year.

That is the job SpyFu was built for. The PPC competitor analysis guide shows how to turn it into decisions.

SpyFu vs Semrush prices

Extra users are $30 a month on SpyFu Pro + AI and Team. On Semrush they start at $45 a month for the SEO plans and are $20 a month on the Advertising toolkit. SpyFu offers no trial but a 30 day money-back guarantee. Semrush has a free plan and a 7 day trial. Full breakdowns: SpyFu pricing and Semrush pricing.

The limits that bite

SpyFu Basic has no history. The $39 plan excludes historical data, which is the reason most people buy SpyFu. The real entry plan is Pro + AI at $119 a month, or $89 on annual billing.

Semrush splits SEO and PPC. To get search research and ad history in Semrush, you pay for two toolkits. On annual billing that is $117.33 plus $99, about $216 a month by our arithmetic, against $89 for SpyFu Pro + AI.

SpyFu tracks rankings weekly. Every plan's rank tracking is listed as weekly tracked keywords (5,000, 15,000 or 50,000). Semrush updates tracked keywords daily.

Country coverage. SpyFu's homepage lists 38 countries. Semrush lists 142 geo databases on its stats page. Outside SpyFu's list, the decision is made for you.

Semrush's SEO history costs more. Historical SEO data appears from Pro+ at $299. SpyFu includes 10+ years from $119.

The data claims, and how to check them

SpyFu's homepage lists 13.1 billion keywords, 152 million websites and "18+ years" of historical data. It also claims "20x more paid keywords and ads" and "2x more organic rankings" compared with Semrush and Ahrefs. That is SpyFu's own claim, and we have not tested it.

Semrush lists 28.9 billion keywords and 808 million domain profiles, as of 4 October 2026.

Different counting methods make those totals hard to compare. A small test is more useful.

Pick SpyFu if

• You manage Google Ads and want to see what competitors have bid on over years, not weeks.
• Your market is in SpyFu's 38 countries.
• Weekly rank tracking is enough, and you do not need site audits or content tools.
• You are an agency of up to five: Team / Agency includes five users for $249.

Pick Semrush if

• Search is your whole job, organic and paid, and you want one login for both.
• You need daily rank tracking, site audits or a traffic panel.
• You work in markets SpyFu does not cover.
• You want to try it on a free plan before paying.

Use both if you run PPC and SEO for clients. SpyFu for ad history, Semrush for everything else. SpyFu Pro + AI plus Semrush SEO is $258 a month on monthly billing, under half the price of Semrush Advanced. For the same question asked of Ahrefs, see SpyFu vs Ahrefs. If SpyFu is close but not right, the SpyFu alternatives page lists other ways to research competitors' ads.

Watching ads as they launch

History tells you what worked. It does not tell you on Monday what a competitor launched last week. If what you actually need is to know what competitors changed each week, Figo reads the Google Ads Transparency Center, the Meta Ad Library and the TikTok Ad Library once a week and alerts you to new ads by email and Slack, alongside page, pricing and ranking changes, from $49 a month. Ours, so judge accordingly. It shows no keywords behind the ads and no spend figures, so it does not replace SpyFu for bid research.