HubSpot AEO vs Semrush (2026): which should you pick?

Pick HubSpot AEO if

• Fits if you already pay for Marketing Hub Professional or Enterprise, which include it
• Works for one brand watched on ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity and nothing else

Look elsewhere if

• Skip it if you need Claude, Copilot or Google's AI Overviews, as the pages name only ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity
• Pricey if you run several brands, since each one needs its own $50 a month subscription
• Tight if 25 prompts won't cover it, as each extra 10 prompts and 1,000 answers costs $20 a month
• Watch out: HubSpot labels it a beta, and there's no API or MCP server listed

Pick Semrush if

• Fits if you want research, rank tracking and audits in one account and can pay $117.33 a month or more
• Works for agencies that need keyword data for many countries and compare client sites with competitors

Look elsewhere if

• Pricey if you're one person with one site, at $117.33 a month even yearly, and the trial checks your card with a small charge
• Tight if your team is more than just you, since every extra user is from $45 a month
• Skip it if AI answer tracking is the point, as the SEO plan leaves it out and Starter is $165.17 a month
• Watch out: the API and share of voice need the custom-priced Advanced plan, and scheduled PDF reports are $10 to $20 a month extra
• Watch out: local, content, social and ad tools are separate toolkits with their own prices, and the free plan allows 10 reports a day

HubSpot AEO

• Only ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity are tracked; the pages name no other AI engines.
• The $50 plan covers 25 prompts; each pack of 10 more prompts and 1,000 more answers is $20 a month.
• Each brand needs its own $50 a month subscription.
• Marketing Hub Professional includes 25 prompts and Enterprise 50, with recommendations that draw on CRM data.

Semrush

• Each plan includes one user; extra users start at $45 a month each, priced by plan level.
• Scheduled PDF reports are an add-on at $10 a month, or $20 with white-labeling; Advanced includes reporting.
• API access and share of voice come only with the custom-priced Advanced plan.
• Local, content, social, advertising, AI PR and traffic tools are separate toolkits with their own prices.

HubSpot AEO

Brand visibility score

A daily score for how often the brand appears in AI answers across tracked prompts, shown as a trend per engine beside competitors' share of voice.

Prompt tracking and suggestions

Shows each tracked prompt's full answer per engine, filterable by buyer's journey stage, and suggests prompts based on the company, its rivals and its industry.

Citation analysis

Breaks down which domains, pages and source types (owned, competitor, social, user-generated, affiliate) AI answers cite for the brand and its rivals.

Sentiment analysis

Rates how positively or negatively AI answers describe the brand, on a scale from -100 to +100.

Prioritized recommendations

Turns visibility gaps into actions such as a new blog post, an update to an existing page, a LinkedIn post or outreach to a third-party site.

Semrush

Keyword research

Look up search volume, difficulty and intent from a database Semrush puts at 29 billion keywords across 142 country databases.

Competitor and backlink analysis

See which keywords and pages bring a rival site its traffic, and inspect any domain's backlink profile.

Position Tracking

Track daily rankings for 500 to 5,000+ keywords depending on the plan; Pro+ adds tracking by location and device.

Site Audit

Crawl your sites for technical SEO problems. From the Starter plan the audit also checks how ready a site is for AI search.

AI visibility tracking

Starter and above track daily whether set prompts in AI chat tools mention your brand, with sentiment monitoring. The SEO plan has none of this.

MCP and API access

Starter and above can query Semrush data from AI assistants through MCP; the API itself comes with the Advanced plan.

HubSpot AEO

• HubSpot AEO$45

  per month for 25 prompts, billed annually ($50 billed monthly)

  Each prompt runs daily on ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, up to 2,500 answers a month, with citations, share of voice and recommendations.

Semrush

• Free$0

  1 project, 10 analytics reports a day and 10 tracked keywords, for trying the tools.

• SEO$117.33

  per month, billed annually ($139 billed monthly)

  1 user, 5 websites, 500 keywords tracked daily, basic keyword and competitor research, and Site Audit. No AI search tracking.

• Starter$165.17

  per month, billed annually ($199 billed monthly)

  5 websites and 500 keywords, full keyword research tools, MCP access, 50 AI prompts tracked daily and 300 AI visibility reports a day.

• Pro+$248.17

  per month, billed annually ($299 billed monthly)

  15 websites, 1,500 keywords, historical data, content optimization, cannibalization checks, multi-location tracking and 100 AI prompts.

• AdvancedCustom

  40+ websites, 5,000+ keywords, share of voice, API access, team users, reporting and unlimited AI prompts. Sold after a demo.

HubSpot AEO

• Annual discount

  10% off with annual billing

  HubSpot's AEO page lists the plan at $45 a month when paid annually instead of $50 billed monthly, a saving of 10%.

Semrush

• Annual discount

  Save up to 17% with annual billing

  Semrush's pricing page lists annual billing at up to 17% less: Starter is $165.17 a month billed annually instead of $199 billed monthly.