Ubersuggest vs Semrush: is the cheap one enough?

Ubersuggest vs Semrush is a beginner's tool against a professional's. Ubersuggest costs a fraction: on the yearly view of its pricing page, plans worked out at $16 to $54.75 a month under a limited-time offer, and the page's own comparison strip puts Ubersuggest at "US$ 29 - US$ 99". Semrush starts at $139 a month.

If you own one website and want to check keywords, rankings and a few competitors yourself, Ubersuggest's limits will probably fit. If you do SEO for clients, at volume, or alongside Google Ads, its limits and its thinly documented data make Semrush, or a mid-priced alternative, the better buy.

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

Ubersuggest vs Semrush prices

Three cautions on the Ubersuggest column. The yearly prices carried a "Limited Offer" (five months free) tied to a countdown, so they may rise. The page also has monthly and lifetime toggles, and we could not read those figures from it, so they are not quoted here. And lifetime purchases are "final and non-refundable", according to its FAQ.

As arithmetic, Ubersuggest Business at $326 a year compares with $1,408 a year for Semrush SEO on annual billing. Full detail: Ubersuggest pricing and Semrush pricing.

Where Ubersuggest's limits bite

One project on Individual. One site, 125 tracked keywords and five competitor domains. Fine for your own business, too small for a second site.

Tracked keywords per project. Even Enterprise tracks 300 per project. Semrush's entry plan tracks 500 across five sites, daily.

Daily searches. 150 a day on Individual, 300 on Business. Enough for a weekly session, tight for a full research day.

No API. If you want data in your own dashboards, Ubersuggest cannot do it.

The good news is that most of these limits can be raised cheaply. Ubersuggest sells add-ons at $5 a month each: an extra user, an extra project, 250 more tracked keywords, 500 more daily searches, extra competitor domains or 500 more monthly credits.

Where Semrush's costs bite

The entry price. $139 a month is a lot for an owner doing their own SEO a few hours a month.

Seats. Extra users start at $45 a month each. Ubersuggest's are $5.

History and toolkits. Historical SEO data starts at Pro+ ($299). Paid search research and total traffic estimates are separate toolkits.

Data depth

Semrush publishes detailed figures on its stats page: 28.9 billion keywords across 142 geo databases, over 43 trillion backlinks and 390 million referring domains, dated 4 October 2026.

Ubersuggest publishes much less. Its product page mentions a "100 million keyword database", and its FAQ says "Our data providers are similar to those used by other SEO keyword research tools." It does not give a backlink index size on that page.

Those figures are not like-for-like, and a loose marketing line is not proof of a small database. But Semrush tells you far more about where its numbers come from. For popular keywords in big markets, both will give you a volume and a difficulty score. For long-tail terms, smaller countries and backlink work, the better documented database is the safer one to rely on.

Pick Ubersuggest if

• You own one or two sites and do your own SEO a few hours a month.
• Your budget is under $30 a month, or you want to pay once.
• You need simple keyword ideas, a rank check and a site audit, not deep link work.

Pick Semrush if

• You do SEO for clients, or across more than a handful of sites.
• You need daily rank tracking at volume, link research or Google Ads data.
• You want detailed, documented data you can defend in a client report.

Pick something in between if Ubersuggest feels thin and Semrush feels dear. Serpstat starts at $50 with an API on its $100 plan (Serpstat vs Semrush). For the same question against Ahrefs, see Ubersuggest vs Ahrefs, and the Ubersuggest alternatives page lists the rest. If you are mostly after competitors' keywords, the competitor keyword research guide shows how far free tools get you.

The weekly version

If what you actually need is to know what competitors changed each week, rather than to research keywords, Figo checks each competitor once a week (rankings and estimated traffic, new pages, Google, Meta and TikTok ads, pricing and reviews) and emails a Monday briefing, from $49 a month. Ours, so judge accordingly. It has no keyword research or site audit, so it is not a substitute for either tool.