Semrush vs Writesonic (2026): which should you pick?

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

Pick Writesonic if

• Fits if you want the gaps found and the articles to fill them written in one place
• Works for solo marketers, since Starter is built for one user and one project

Look elsewhere if

• Skip it if Perplexity, Claude or AI Mode matter, as all need Enterprise
• Pricey if your team grows, at $50 a month for each extra user, up to 5 in all
• Tight if you want sentiment, which starts at Growth for $399 a month
• Watch out: the full Action Center is Enterprise only, and Growth gets just a limited trial of it
• Too light for more than one market or project, as Starter allows one of each

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.

Writesonic

• Self-serve plans track only ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews; Perplexity, Claude, Copilot, Grok and AI Mode need Enterprise.
• Extra users cost $50 a month each, up to 5 users in total on Basic and Growth.
• Growth can add 20 articles for $100; the full Action Center is Enterprise-only.
• Starter is limited to 1 user, 1 project and 1 market.

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.

Writesonic

AI visibility tracking

Tracks set prompts daily on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews on self-serve plans, with ads monitoring included.

AI article writer

Writes articles aimed at both search and AI answers: 15 a month on Starter, 25 on Basic and 50 on Growth.

Site audits

Crawls the site for problems, from 10 audits of 100 pages on Starter to 50 audits of 2,500 pages on Growth.

Action Center

Prioritized on-page, off-page and technical actions. Growth gets a trial of 5 off-page and 5 on-page actions a month; Enterprise gets full access.

Agentic workflows

Agents that run content and SEO tasks; self-serve plans get a set number of trial runs, from 10 to 100.

Sentiment and AI search tools

Growth adds sentiment analysis; Enterprise adds AI search volume, Brand Explorer, Prompt Explorer, Page Tracker and alerts.

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.

Writesonic

• Starter$79

  per month for 50 prompts, billed annually ($99 billed monthly)

  ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews tracked daily, 15 AI articles and 10 site audits of 100 pages a month, 1 user and 1 project.

• Basic$199

  per month for 100 prompts, billed annually ($249 billed monthly)

  300 answers tracked daily, 25 articles and 20 site audits of 1,200 pages a month, 2 users and 1 project.

• Growth$399

  per month for 200 prompts, billed annually ($499 billed monthly)

  Adds sentiment analysis and a limited Action Center trial, with 50 articles and 50 site audits a month, 3 users and 2 projects.

• EnterpriseCustom

  All 9 AI platforms, custom prompts, regions and languages, the full Action Center, Looker Studio, SSO/SAML and an AI search strategist.

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.

Writesonic

• Annual discount

  Save 20% with annual billing

  Writesonic's pricing page lists a 20% saving on annual billing: Starter is $79 a month instead of $99, saving $240 a year.