Semrush vs Yandex Wordstat (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 Yandex Wordstat if

• Fits if your site or ads are aimed at searchers in Russia and nearby countries
• Works for checking demand on Yandex before you buy Yandex Direct ads

Look elsewhere if

• Skip it if your readers search on Google, as it counts Yandex searches only
• Not for you if you'd rather not make a Yandex account, as you must be signed in to use it
• Watch out: a CAPTCHA may appear if you query often or are outside the CIS
• Tight if you want daily figures, which cover only the last 60 days; weekly and monthly views reach back to January 2018, five years at a time
• Too light for judging how hard a keyword is to rank for, as there's no difficulty score on record

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.

Yandex Wordstat

• Counts only searches made on Yandex, so it says nothing about Google or other engines.
• You must be signed in with a Yandex account to use it.
• Yandex's FAQ says a CAPTCHA may appear if you query too often or are outside the Commonwealth of Independent States.
• Daily figures cover only the last 60 days; weekly and monthly views reach back to January 2018, five years at a time.

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.

Yandex Wordstat

Dynamics

Charts the number of searches containing a phrase and its share of all Yandex searches, by month, week or day, back to January 2018.

Regions

Splits the last 30 days of searches by region or city, with each place's share of queries and an interest index against the national average.

Top queries

Lists last month's most frequent searches that contain the phrase, plus queries Yandex treats as similar to it.

Search operators

Operators such as -, !, +, quotes, square brackets and grouping fix word forms, word order or word count, or exclude words from the count.

Device filters and CSV export

Every report can be narrowed to desktops, smartphones or tablets, and each one downloads as a CSV file.

Wordstat API

Wordstat data can also be pulled as JSON through an API, with daily and per-second request quotas tied to each OAuth token.

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.

Yandex Wordstat

• Free$0

  The Dynamics, Regions and Top queries reports, filters by region and device, search operators and CSV export.

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.

Yandex Wordstat

No public discounts listed.