Free Semrush alternative

Semrush is a paid marketing suite that helps you build and measure brand visibility in search and AI search, sold as toolkits with a free plan. SEO Skill is free: web tools for the everyday lookups, and your own Search Console, Google Analytics and keyword data in your AI agent.

Get started free

Run it in a terminal, then sign in with Google.

Or run it on your machine

Installs the CLI, signs you in and adds the skill to your agents. Site crawls and Bing data run this way, on your own machine. A crawl fetches many pages, and Bing blocks our hosted server.

At a glance

The four things most people compare first, from each product's own pages.

SEO Skill

Free use: Every on-demand tool, no usage cap
Paid: $50 a month per site, for the weekly audit
Works in web chat: Yes
Get started: Free web tools with no account, or one URL in your AI agent

Semrush

Free use: Free plan, 10 reports a day
Paid: $139 a month (SEO)
Works in web chat: Yes, on Starter, Pro+ or plans with API units
Get started: Create an account

Free tools for the jobs you use Semrush for

No account and no key. Each one opens in your browser.

Competitor keyword research

See the keywords a competitor ranks for, or the sites that compete with any domain.

Open competitor keyword research

SERP checker

See who ranks in Google for a keyword right now, and where your own domain sits.

Open the SERP checker

Website traffic checker

Estimate a website's monthly organic traffic, ranking keywords, and position changes by country.

Open the website traffic checker

Backlink checker

See the sites that link to a domain or page, with anchor text, followed links and a year of history.

Open the backlink checker

Pick Semrush if

From Semrush's own pages.

you want keyword, backlink and traffic research for competitor domains, not only your own site.
you want monthly SEO history back to 2012 for the main databases.
you want one account to also cover local, social, content and advertising toolkits.
you want its MCP server in ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity on a plan you already pay for.

Pick SEO Skill if

Free SEO tools in your browser, and your own search data in your AI agent.

You want the everyday lookups for free: backlinks, Domain Rating, competitor keywords, SERPs and traffic estimates, with no account.
You want your AI agent to answer from your own Search Console and Google Analytics data, not only from an index estimate.
You already pay for keyword data: SEO Skill uses your own DataForSEO or Ahrefs key, so you pay that provider and nothing on top.
You want a weekly crawl, daily index checks and drop alerts for $50 a month per site, with no seats to buy.

Side by side

Every fact we compared, with Semrush's taken from the sources at the end of this page.

SEO SkillSemrush

Get started

SEO Skill: Use the free web tools with no account. For your own data, add https://seoskill.dev/mcp to your AI agent and sign in with Google (read only).

Semrush: Create a Semrush account with an email and password. The Free plan needs no credit card. Paid plans start with a 7-day free trial that needs card details and turns into the paid plan unless you cancel. Each toolkit trial is available once per account. The Advanced plan is by demo request.

What it does

SEO Skill: Free web tools: backlink checker, Domain Rating, competitor keywords, SERP checker, traffic estimates, robots.txt, sitemap, schema and more. In your AI agent: Search Console reports (quick wins, low CTR, striking distance, content decay, cannibalization, traffic drops), page checks, index checks, before and after comparisons, and keyword research with your own key. A site crawler and internal links in the CLI.

Semrush: Keyword research, competitor analysis, backlinks, Site Audit, Position Tracking (rank tracking), AI search visibility and prompt tracking, plus separate toolkits for traffic and market data, local, content, social and advertising. The Semrush MCP server is listed on Starter and Pro+ (also SEO Classic Pro and Guru), with 50,000 API units a month. Advanced and SEO Classic Business need an API units package. MCP reads the SEO API, Trends API and read-only Projects API methods.

Data

SEO Skill: Google Search Console, Google Analytics, URL Inspection, Clicky, and DataForSEO or Ahrefs with your own key. Bing Webmaster Tools in the CLI. Free Domain Rating by Ahrefs on research rows.

Semrush: Semrush's own keyword, ranking and backlink databases, Semrush traffic and market estimates (Traffic & Market toolkit), AI search visibility data (Google Search, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and more), Google Search Console (SEO Dashboard and other tools), Google Analytics (SEO Dashboard and other tools)

Where you use it

SEO Skill: Your browser for the web tools. Claude Code, Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, Cursor, VS Code, Gemini CLI, Windsurf, Le Chat and any remote MCP client for your own data.

Semrush: Web app, ChatGPT, Claude, Claude Code, Microsoft Copilot, Cursor, VS Code, Perplexity, Lovable, Notion, Antigravity

In Claude or ChatGPT on the web

SEO Skill: Yes

Semrush: Yes, on Starter, Pro+ or plans with API units

Free

SEO Skill: Every on-demand tool, with no usage cap and no time limit.

Semrush: Free plan at $0 a month with no credit card: 1 demo project and 10 reports a day across the main tools. Its free account guide lists 10 queries a day each for Domain Overview, keyword research, competitor research and backlinks, a 100-page Site Audit and 10 tracked keywords. No MCP. Paid plans also have a 7-day free trial that needs a card.

Paid plans

SEO Skill: The weekly site audit is $50 a month per site: weekly crawl, daily Google index checks, stored history, drop and return alerts, and a Monday email and webhook. Cancel any time.

Semrush: SEO $139 a month, or $117.33 a month billed annually. Starter (SEO + AI Search) $199 a month, or $165.17 a month billed annually. Pro+ $299 a month, or $248.17 a month billed annually. Advanced is custom, by demo. Annual billing saves up to 17%. Prices in USD. Add-ons include extra users from $45 a month, Base Report $10 a month and Pro Report $20 a month. Enterprise is custom pricing.

Can it change your site

SEO Skill: Read-only Google sign-in. Your agent can start the paid audit for a site, which returns a Stripe Checkout link for you to open.

Semrush: Not through the MCP: it only uses read-only Projects API methods, so it cannot create projects or change settings. No changes to your site or to Google are stated.

Your data

SEO Skill: Search Console and analytics rows are fetched on each request and never stored, except what the paid weekly audit keeps for its sites. Your linked accounts and saved keys are kept, encrypted.

Semrush: No. Its SEO Dashboard help says Semrush will never store data from a connected Google Analytics or Google Search Console account.

History

SEO Skill: Google's 16 months, read live. With the weekly audit, crawl and index history for the sites you audit.

Semrush: SEO data goes back to January 2012 for select databases, on Pro+ (or SEO Classic Guru) and higher. Traffic & Market data goes back to January 2017 with that toolkit.

Licence

SEO Skill: Hosted service, with the CLI and local MCP server open source (Apache 2.0)

Semrush: Hosted service

Move from Semrush in a few minutes

Nothing to migrate: SEO Skill reads your accounts live. When you are done, remove Semrush from your agent and revoke its access.

Add SEO Skill to your agentUse the setup box above, or the steps for your client on the integrations page.
Check your access
Ask "list my Search Console properties". Every Google account you link shows up.
Add your research keySave a DataForSEO or Ahrefs key on your account page if you use keyword research.
Keep what you still need
Projects and history you built in Semrush stay there. SEO Skill reads Search Console live, so you can run both while you decide.

More comparisons

Other ways to give your agent search data, next to SEO Skill.

AccuRanker

Free: No. Paid: $249 a month (Professional).

Free AccuRanker alternative

Ahrefs

Free: Free account, verified sites. Paid: $29 a month (Starter).

Free Ahrefs alternative

AnswerThePublic

Free: Free, 3 searches a day. Paid: US$20 a month (Starter).

Free AnswerThePublic alternative

Majestic

Free: Free account, limits not stated. Paid: $49.99 a month (Lite).

Free Majestic alternative

Questions about Semrush

Yes. Every SEO Skill tool your agent calls on demand is free with no usage cap. Semrush: Free plan at $0 a month with no credit card: 1 demo project and 10 reports a day across the main tools. Its free account guide lists 10 queries a day each for Domain Overview, keyword research, competitor research and backlinks, a 100-page Site Audit and 10 tracked keywords. No MCP. Paid plans also have a 7-day free trial that needs a card.

Sources for Semrush, read 3 November 2026: Plans, prices, Free plan, MCP access on Starter, add-ons, Free account limits, no card for Free, card for trial, 7-day trial, once per toolkit per account, charge after trial, MCP plans, API units, clients, read-only Projects API, Google Analytics and Search Console connection, no storage, Historical data range and plans.