Semrush Pro is a complete SEO toolkit that helps you to optimize your website performance on Google – keyword research, competitor research, link building, and on-page and technical SEO.
It costs $139.95 monthly, but with the yearly discount deal, you pay $117.33 monthly, saving $23.62 monthly and $270 yearly.
Semrush One Starter is the first-level premium plan for Semrush One, Semrush’s AI visibility tool.
Semrush One has everything that Semrush Pro has, plus you can now track how your website and competitors’ websites are performing on AI search platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini.
It costs $199 monthly, but with the yearly discount deal, you pay $165 monthly, saving $34 monthly and $406 yearly.
I tested the new Semrush One product to see how it compares to Semrush Pro.
Read on to learn more about my findings.
What is Semrush Pro?
Semrush Pro is the entry-level premium plan for Semrush SEO, the traditional SEO solution we know.
It contains all the essential toolkits and features for keyword research, competitor analysis, Google website ranking and executing on-page, off-page, technical, and local SEO.
It’s very easy to use Semrush Pro for SEO if you take the time to study this Semrush guide.
Semrush Pro price starts at $139.95 per month and is suitable for freelancers, marketers, startups, and small businesses.
What is Semrush One Starter?
Semrush One Starter is the first-level plan in the newly launched Semrush One solution.
It contains all the essential tools and features you need for effective SEO and AI visibility tracking.
You can use Semrush One to measure and grow your brand’s performance across Google Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and other AI search platforms.
Semrush One includes every SEO and content toolkit in Semrush Pro, plus AI visibility, under one subscription. This gives you the data, insights, and workflows to win in every search, whether it’s on search engines or AI platforms.
The Semrush One pricing starts at $199 per month and is built for SEO and content marketers, agencies and small businesses seeking visibility beyond Google.
How does Semrush Pro compare with Semrush One Starter?
Semrush Pro offers a complete suite of tools to help you win with SEO and content marketing.
Semrush Pro toolkits
The Semrush Pro has four core toolkits that cover every major area of SEO:
Competitor Research Toolkit:
This SEO toolkit helps you uncover detailed insights into your competitors’ strategies, including their top keywords, backlinks, and traffic sources.
Keyword Research Toolkit
The keyword research toolkit helps you identify high-performing keywords that can boost your rankings, drive traffic, and help you reach your target audience more effectively.
Link Building Toolkit
This toolkit helps you build and manage authoritative backlinks with ease to improve your site’s credibility and search visibility.
On-Page & Technical SEO Toolkit
This is an important SEO toolkit that helps you optimize your content and fix technical SEO issues to improve site performance and user experience.
What does Semrush Pro offer, and what are the limitations?
Below are the specific offerings and limits of the Semrush SEO Pro plan:
Add up to 5 websites for SEO monitoring
The Semrush Pro allows you to track up to five websites. This is good for tracking your website’s progress and your competitors’ progress.
For example, you can add 4 of your competitors’ websites to your Semrush Pro dashboard to monitor their SEO strategies and how they affect their online visibility.
This gives you the opportunity to compare your site with theirs to see what you’re doing right and what you need to improve.
You can also add or remove any website at any time. This comes in handy when you want to track more than 5 competitors.
Track up to 500 keywords per project with daily updates
You can track 500 keywords per project and receive daily ranking updates on the Semrush Pro plan.
I think 500 keywords are enough for a new or small website to track.
Simply list out the best keywords you need to boost your visibility and track them consistently.
Generate up to 3,000 reports per day
With the Semrush Pro plan, you can generate up to 3,000 reports per day.
Reports here mean data queries. So, making enquiries about a competitor’s domain could involve several queries or reports.
For example, if you enter a domain, that’s a report; if you want to know its keyword performance, that’s another report. Also, if you want to know its backlink profile, you’ve generated another report.
But don’t worry; 3,000 reports per day will give you more than enough data to run comprehensive research on your brand.
Access 10,000 results per report
Every report you generate on Semrush Pro can return up to 10,000 rows of data.
That’s a substantial amount of information to analyze, from keyword opportunities and backlinks to competitor data.
For most users, this provides more than enough depth to make informed marketing decisions.
Refresh up to 250 keyword metrics each month
Semrush updates its database frequently, but some keyword data may still be a few days or weeks old.
With the Semrush Pro plan, you can manually refresh up to 250 keyword metrics per month to get the most current numbers.
This is especially useful for campaigns where timing and trend shifts are critical.
Crawl up to 100,000 pages per month in site audits
The Site Audit tool can crawl up to 100,000 pages per month across all your projects.
This allows you to identify technical SEO issues like broken links, missing tags, or slow-loading pages.
For most small websites, this limit is more than sufficient.
If you’re analyzing competitors with very large websites, you might need to focus on specific sections or run separate audits.
Create up to 5 automated PDF reports
You can schedule and generate up to five PDF reports per month. This is automatically sent to your email or shared with team members and clients.
This is perfect for small businesses and freelancers who collaborate with SEO specialists or content creators.
What extra features does the Semrush One Starter have over Semrush Pro?
Semrush One Starter includes everything the Semrush Pro plan offers, but with increased limits across all core toolkits.
With this upgrade, you can:
- Track 50 AI prompts + your regular 500 keywords daily
- Track AI visibility alongside traditional SEO metrics.
- Gain competitor insights from Google and generative AI platforms.
- Access an AI-ready site audit
- Manage your content and brand insights from a single, unified dashboard.
Semrush One Starter’s extra toolkits
AI Visibility Toolkit
Semrush One Starter introduces AI-powered features through the AI Visibility Toolkit, which helps you track how your brand or content appears across AI platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity, not just Google.
Semrush One Starter’s extra offerings
AI visibility tracking
This feature helps you monitor how your brand or content appears within AI search platforms such as AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity.
While Semrush Pro toolkits focus only on search engine rankings, AI Visibility Tracking shows how AI assistants mention, recommend, or summarize your website or brand in their responses.
It’s a powerful way to understand your presence in AI search ecosystems, helping you measure brand authority and visibility beyond Google.
For example, you can see whether ChatGPT includes your brand in responses about “best SEO tools” or how your content is referenced in AI-generated summaries.
Prompt tracking
As AI tools become a more common method for people to search for information, Prompt Tracking helps you understand where your brand appears in AI prompts (questions or topics).
You’ll be able to:
- Identify popular AI-generated prompts that mention your products or competitors.
- Discover content gaps where you could improve visibility.
- Track AI search intent and adapt your marketing strategy accordingly.
This feature essentially acts as keyword tracking for AI queries, giving you insight into how generative AI platforms interpret and deliver your content.
Enhanced data integration
This is another area Semrush One Starter truly stands apart.
While Semrush Pro gives you access to only SEO data, Semrush One Starter merges SEO and AI visibility data into one seamless dashboard.
You can now analyze organic rankings, keyword performance, AI mentions, and visibility trends side by side.
The platform also supports stronger integrations with tools such as Google Analytics 4 and Google Search Console. This lets you view all your performance metrics in one place.
Who should choose which plan?
Semrush Pro
- Choose Semrush Pro if you’re a freelancer, startup, or small business focused primarily on improving your Google rankings and website performance.
- It’s ideal for users who want access to essential SEO tools — keyword research, competitor tracking, and backlink audits — without the added cost of AI-driven analytics.
- In short, if your marketing strategy revolves around traditional search optimization, the Pro plan gives you everything you need to grow your visibility efficiently and affordably.
Semrush One Starter
- Choose Semrush One Starter if your goals go beyond SEO and into the broader world of AI-powered visibility.
- This plan is for marketers, agencies, and brands that want to understand not just how they rank on Google, but how they appear across AI search platforms like AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity.
- It’s the right choice for future-focused businesses eager to stay ahead of search marketing changes and ready to integrate both SEO and AI insights into one cohesive growth strategy.
- Also, considering that the Semrush One Starter is essentially the Semrush Pro plus extra AI tools, you’ll have no doubt why it’s the better choice for you.
Semrush Pro and Semrush One Starter value for money: which delivers more?
At first glance, Semrush Pro is the better deal at $139/month, offering a wide range of tools for traditional SEO.
It’s more affordable and sufficient for most small websites and blogs.
However, given the direction digital search is heading, Semrush One Starter offers better overall value, both now and in the future.
For just $60 more per month, you gain access to AI visibility data, prompt tracking, and cross-platform insights.
You can even sign up for the Semrush One Starter yearly discount deal to get a much-discounted offer.
Semrush One Starter is an invaluable tool for your online growth strategy. Considering that Semrush will continuously update the tool, you’ll keep gaining more value.
Pros and cons of Semrush Pro and Semrush One Starter
Semrush Pro
Pros:
- Affordable entry point for individuals and small businesses.
- Comprehensive toolkit covering keyword research, competitor analysis, and site audits.
- Reliable and accurate SEO data to help grow your search visibility.
Cons:
- Focused solely on traditional SEO – no AI visibility tracking.
Semrush One Starter
Pros:
- Combines SEO and AI visibility tracking in one subscription.
- Offers expanded limits across all toolkits for more in-depth data.
- Ideal for forward-thinking marketers, brands, and agencies preparing for AI-driven search.
- Enhanced data integration streamlines reporting and cross-platform insights.
Cons:
- Slightly higher monthly cost compared to Semrush Pro.
- AI visibility data is still evolving and may take time to mature fully.
Final verdict: Semrush Pro vs Semrush One Starter
Semrush One Starter is basically Semrush Pro plus AI visibility and more expanded limits as add-ons.
Semrush Pro remains one of the best SEO tools in the market, but when it comes to AI visibility tracking, it’s limited.
That’s where the upgrade comes in.
If your focus is strictly on SEO, Semrush Pro is still a great choice.
But if you want a tool that prepares your brand for the future of search and gives you visibility across both Google and AI platforms, Semrush One Starter delivers more value for the money.
