Figo vs Semrush for competitor monitoring
Semrush is the tool most people are told to buy for competitor research. Here is what it does well, what it does not do at all, and when a $49 weekly monitor is the better buy.
Ask an AI assistant which tool to use for competitor monitoring and Semrush comes up more than anything else. In a test we ran in September 2026, it was named in 25 of 48 answers across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity. That is fair. Semrush is a big, mature product, and a lot of people who say "competitor research" mean "keyword research", which Semrush is built for.
This page is for the other people. The owner or marketer who wants to know, every week, what the three or four businesses they lose deals to are actually doing. For that job the two tools are not really the same product, and the price gap is large.
The short version
| Figo | Semrush | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Watching a fixed list of competitors, weekly | SEO research and reporting for your own site |
| Cheapest plan | $49 a month, 3 competitors | $139 a month (SEO plan, monthly billing) |
| What arrives without you logging in | A Monday briefing with what changed and what to do | Nothing by default; you build reports and alerts yourself |
| Ads | Google, Meta and TikTok ad libraries, with creatives | Google search ads through Advertising Research; no Meta or TikTok ad library |
| Page edits | Yes, with before and after wording | No |
| Pricing page tracking | Yes, with alerts on change | No |
| Reviews | Google rating and count, Trustpilot | No |
| AI answers | Asks ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity your buyer questions every week | AI visibility features on Starter and up |
| Keyword research | No | Yes, and it is excellent |
| Site audit, backlinks, rank tracking for you | No | Yes |
| Free plan or trial | No | 7-day trial on most plans |
Prices were read from Semrush's pricing page and Figo's pricing page on 10 September 2026.
What Semrush does that Figo does not
Be honest about this first, because it is a long list.
Keyword research. Semrush's keyword database is the reason most people buy it. Volumes, difficulty, intent, related terms, questions. Figo has none of that. Figo shows you which keywords a competitor ranks for and which ones it gained or lost this week, which is a different job.
Your own site. Site audits, rank tracking for your own keywords, backlink profiles, on-page suggestions. Figo tracks your own site only so it can put your numbers next to the competitors' numbers. It will not tell you your images are too big.
Depth. Semrush's SEO plan tracks 500 keywords a day across 5 websites. Advanced tracks 5,000 keywords across 40 websites and adds API access. If you run an agency with 40 clients, that scale matters.
A free trial. Semrush offers 7 days on its SEO, Starter and Pro+ plans. Figo has no free plan and no trial, because every check costs real data. You pay $49 and cancel any time.
What Figo does that Semrush does not
It watches, so you do not have to. This is the whole point. Semrush can answer almost any question about a competitor, but only when you sit down, log in and ask. Figo checks every competitor once a week on its own and emails you a briefing on Monday. Each bullet has evidence. The action is specific enough to do in under an hour. If nothing meaningful happened, it says so instead of inventing a task. See a sample briefing.
Meta and TikTok ads. Semrush's Advertising Research covers Google search ads. Figo reads the Meta Ad Library and the TikTok Ad Library as well, and shows the actual creatives with the page each ad lands on. For most small businesses, Meta is where the competitor money goes.
Page edits. Figo reads a competitor's homepage, pricing page and top pages every week and reports what they rewrote, with the before and after wording. Headline changes, new offers, removed guarantees. Semrush does not track page content over time.
Pricing. Figo finds the competitor's pricing page, extracts plans and prices, keeps a history and alerts you when a number moves. The most requested competitor fact, and no SEO suite covers it.
Reviews. Google rating, review count and how the stars are spread, plus Trustpilot where it exists. When a competitor gains 30 reviews in a month, the briefing says so.
AI answers. Figo writes ten buyer questions from everyone's top searches, asks ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity every week, and records who gets recommended and which pages get cited. Semrush now sells AI visibility too, on its Starter plan and up, and does it well for larger keyword sets. Figo's version is narrower and comes with every plan.
Price, for the same job
Say you run a dental practice, or a small agency with a few clients, and you want to watch three competitors.
| Figo Starter | Semrush SEO plan | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly, month to month | $49 | $139 |
| Competitors watched | 3, plus your own site | As many as you look up |
| Time you spend each week | Ten minutes reading the email | However long you spend clicking through reports |
| Meta and TikTok ads | Included | Not covered |
| Page edits, pricing, reviews | Included | Not covered |
| Keyword research and audits | Not covered | Included |
If keyword research is on your list, Semrush is worth every dollar and Figo will not replace it. If your list is "know what they did this week", Figo does more of that job for about a third of the price.
Who should pick which
Pick Semrush if you do SEO work for a living, you need keyword research, you audit sites, you track hundreds of your own keywords, or you already live in it and only need competitor data occasionally.
Pick Figo if you are an owner or a marketer who wants a weekly answer to "what did they do", you care about their ads on Meta as much as on Google, you want to know when their prices or homepage change, and you would rather pay $49 than learn a tool.
Use both if you are an agency. Research and audits in Semrush, and a Figo briefing per client that you can forward on Monday. The Agency plan covers 20 competitors across 5 client workspaces for $249 a month.
How Figo gets its numbers
Rankings and traffic estimates come from a search index queried for the country your customers are in. Ads come from the three public ad libraries. Page text, prices and blog posts come from the competitor's own site, read by Figo's crawler. Reviews come from Google Business Profile and Trustpilot. AI answers come from asking the four assistants directly. Everything is public. Nothing sits behind a login. The full list, with how fresh each source is, lives on the data methodology page.
Questions people ask
Is Figo a replacement for Semrush?
Only if you use Semrush to watch competitors. Figo does not do keyword research, site audits, rank tracking for your own site, or link building. If those are the reasons you pay for Semrush, keep it.
Can I use both?
Yes, and many agencies do. Semrush for research and audits, Figo for the weekly "what did they change" email that nobody has time to build by hand in Semrush.
Does Figo use Semrush data?
No. Rankings and traffic estimates come from a separate search index, and ads come straight from the public ad libraries run by Google, Meta and TikTok.
Which is more accurate for traffic?
Both estimate. No tool outside a business can see its real visits. Both are good for comparing competitors and spotting trends, and neither should be quoted as exact numbers.
See it on your own competitors
Figo checks their ads, pages, rankings, reviews and AI answers every week, then tells you what to do in plain words. Set up in two minutes.
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