Three-way comparison
Semrush vs Ahrefs vs Moz (2026): Pricing, Limits and Which to Pick
A side-by-side comparison of Semrush, Ahrefs and Moz Pro using each vendor's published November 2026 pricing, plan limits, trial terms and data sources, plus who each tool fits best.
Semrush, Ahrefs and Moz Pro are the three names that come up most often when someone asks "which SEO tool should I pay for?" All three cover the same core jobs — keyword research, competitor research, backlink analysis, rank tracking and site audits — but they package, price and limit those jobs very differently.
This comparison is built from each vendor's own public pricing and documentation pages, checked as of November 2026. Every price and limit links to its source so you can verify it. We have not invented usage stories or test results; where a vendor makes a claim about its own data, we say so.
Quick answer
- Pick Semrush if you want one platform that also reaches into PPC, content, local and AI-search visibility, you care about daily rank updates, and you want to try it before paying (it offers a 7-day free trial on its main plans).
- Pick Ahrefs if backlink and competitor research is the center of your work and you are comfortable paying without a trial. Its rank tracker updates weekly on every plan, and it states plainly that it never runs discounts.
- Pick Moz Pro if you want the lowest entry price of the three, extra user seats included on the mid and upper plans, or you already rely on Moz's Domain Authority metric.
Pricing at a glance (as of Nov 2026)
All prices are in US dollars per month as shown on the vendors' pricing pages. "Annual" is the per-month equivalent when billed yearly, where the vendor publishes it.
| Tier | Semrush (source) | Ahrefs (source) | Moz Pro (source) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free option | Free plan: 1 demo project, 10 reports/day | Ahrefs Free (limited Site Explorer and Site Audit for your own sites) | Free Moz Community account (limited MozBar, Keyword Explorer, Link Explorer) |
| Entry | SEO: $139 monthly, or $117.33/mo billed annually | Starter: $29/mo (keyword and competitor lookups) | Starter: $49/mo (single website) |
| Core | Starter (SEO + AI Search): $199 monthly, or $165.17/mo annually | Lite: $129/mo | Standard: $99/mo, or $79/mo yearly |
| Mid | Pro+: $299 monthly, or $248.17/mo annually | Standard: $249/mo | Medium: $179/mo, or $143/mo yearly |
| Upper | Advanced: custom pricing (talk to sales) | Advanced: $449/mo | Large: $299/mo, or $239/mo yearly |
| Enterprise | Semrush Enterprise: custom | Enterprise: talk to sales | Moz Enterprise: talk to sales |
| Annual saving | "Save up to 17%" | "Save up to 17%" | "Save 20%" |
A few things jump out:
- Moz has the cheapest full plan at $99/mo ($79/mo yearly), and the lowest paid entry for a single site at $49/mo.
- Ahrefs Starter at $29/mo is the cheapest paid door into any of the three, but it is a lookup tool for keyword and competitor research rather than a full suite with projects and tracking.
- Semrush has no self-serve plan above $299/mo. Its Advanced tier (which adds API data integration and SEO Share of Voice) is sales-quoted, while Ahrefs publishes its $449 Advanced price.
- Ahrefs notes that its prices exclude tax, which is added separately.
Plan limits that actually matter
Price per month only tells part of the story. The limits below are the ones most likely to push you onto a more expensive tier.
Rank tracking: how many keywords, how often
| Semrush | Ahrefs | Moz Pro | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry / core | 500 keywords tracked daily (SEO and Starter) | 750 tracked keywords (Lite) | 300 tracked keywords (Standard) |
| Mid | 1,500 daily (Pro+) | 2,000 (Standard) | 1,500 (Medium) |
| Upper | 5,000 daily (Advanced) | 5,000 (Advanced) | 3,000 (Large) |
| Update frequency | Daily | Weekly on all plans, including Enterprise | Not stated on the pricing page |
This is one of the clearest differences between the three. Ahrefs' pricing table lists its Rank Tracker update frequency as weekly for Lite, Standard, Advanced and Enterprise. Semrush describes its tracked keywords as tracked daily. If you report rankings to clients every week, weekly data may be all you need; if you watch rankings move after a release or algorithm update, daily data is the more useful default.
Ahrefs does give you more tracked keywords at each price step (750 on the $129 Lite plan versus 500 on Semrush's $139 SEO plan), so "more keywords, less often" versus "fewer keywords, every day" is the real trade-off.
Projects, sites and users
| Semrush | Ahrefs | Moz Pro | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sites / projects | 5 websites to monitor (SEO, Starter), 15 (Pro+), 40 (Advanced) | Unlimited verified projects; 5 / 20 / 50 non-verified (Lite / Standard / Advanced) | 3 / 10 / 25 tracked sites (Standard / Medium / Large) |
| Users included | 1 (additional users "starting at $45/mo") | 1 on every self-serve plan | 1 / 2 / 3 (Standard / Medium / Large) |
| Extra users | From $45/mo each | Up to 2 at $40, up to 5 at $60, up to 10 at $80 per user per month | Available; see Moz's pricing FAQ |
Ahrefs' "unlimited verified projects" means you can add as many sites as you can prove you own (for example via Google Search Console). Agencies and consultants who research sites they do not own will care more about the non-verified number.
Moz is the only one of the three that includes more than one user on its standard plans (two on Medium, three on Large), which can tilt the math for small teams.
Usage caps and history
- Ahrefs Lite caps usage at 1,000 credits per user per month; Standard and above are listed as unlimited credits. Lite also limits historical data to 6 months, versus 2 years on Standard and 5 years on Advanced (Ahrefs pricing).
- Semrush lists "Historical SEO data" as a Pro+ feature, along with content optimization, keyword cannibalization analysis and multi-location/device tracking, so the cheaper SEO and Starter plans do not include it (Semrush pricing).
- Moz sets monthly query caps by plan: 150 / 5,000 / 15,000 keyword queries and 5,000 / 20,000 / 70,000 backlink queries per month on Standard / Medium / Large (Moz pricing). The 150 keyword queries on Standard is low if keyword research is your main job.
Free trials and free plans
How you can test each tool before paying differs a lot:
- Semrush offers a 7-day free trial on its SEO + AI Search plans. According to its subscriptions knowledge-base article, data exports are disabled during the trial, each toolkit trial can be activated once per account, and you can cancel before the trial ends. Its pricing page says it places a nominal charge on your card to check validity and refunds it immediately. There is also a permanent free plan limited to 10 reports per day and 1 demo project.
- Ahrefs says on its pricing FAQ: "We never run discounts." It points site owners to Ahrefs Free for limited free access to Site Explorer and Site Audit instead of a trial of the paid plans. Ahrefs also states it does not issue refunds in general, though monthly subscribers can request one if they have not used the service.
- Moz offers a free trial (the Medium plan is marked "Try it free"), plus a free Moz Community account with limited access to MozBar, Keyword Explorer and Link Explorer.
If being able to try the full product before committing matters to you, Semrush and Moz both offer trials; Ahrefs does not.
Data: what each vendor says about its index
All three companies publish headline numbers about the size of their databases. These are the vendors' own claims, measured in different ways, so they are not a like-for-like scoreboard. They are still useful for understanding what each company emphasizes.
| What the vendor says (as of Nov 2026) | |
|---|---|
| Semrush | Over 28.8 billion keywords, 43 trillion backlinks, 808 million domains and 142 geographic databases; keyword and ranking data collected through third-party SERP data partners; backlinks from its own crawler, which it says processes about 10 billion pages a day (Semrush data article) |
| Ahrefs | 35 trillion external backlinks in its history, 494 billion pages in its index, 29 billion keywords (filtered) and 217 locations; backlink index updated every 15–30 minutes (Ahrefs big data page) |
| Moz | A keyword index of 1.25 billion+ keywords and "over 40 trillion links" in Link Explorer (Moz) |
A bigger index is not automatically better for your site: what matters is how accurate the data is for your market and niche. The practical way to judge is to look up a site you own in each tool and compare the reported keywords and backlinks with what you see in Google Search Console.
AI search visibility
All three vendors now sell AI-search ("AI visibility" or "GEO") tracking alongside classic SEO, and it shows up in their plan limits:
- Semrush: the Starter plan includes 50 prompts tracked daily across Google Search, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini, 1 domain for AI brand performance and an AI-ready Site Audit; Pro+ raises that to 100 prompts tracked daily. The entry SEO plan includes AI visibility reports but no dedicated prompt-tracking quota (Semrush subscriptions KB).
- Ahrefs: tracked AI prompts through Brand Radar, at 150 / 300 / 600 checks per month on Lite / Standard / Advanced, updated daily; Brand Radar AI is also sold separately from $199/mo (Ahrefs pricing).
- Moz: 150 / 300 / 600 tracked prompts on Standard / Medium / Large across GPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode, with weekly prompt tracking (Moz pricing).
If AI-search tracking is a priority, compare the tracking frequency as well as the prompt count: Semrush and Ahrefs describe daily tracking, while Moz lists weekly.
Beyond organic SEO
Semrush is the broadest of the three. Its plans are organized into toolkits, and besides SEO and AI Visibility it sells Traffic & Market, Local, Content, Social, Advertising and AI PR toolkits, which you can add or remove separately (Semrush subscriptions KB). Reporting add-ons start at $10/mo for a Base Report and $20/mo for a Pro Report with white-labeling (Semrush pricing).
Ahrefs also sells add-ons: Traffic Analytics ($99/mo) for competitor traffic sources beyond organic search, a Content Kit (from $99/mo), Report Builder ($99/mo) and per-project "Project Boost" upgrades (Ahrefs pricing).
Moz keeps Moz Pro focused on SEO and sells Moz Local, STAT (enterprise SERP tracking) and the Moz API as separate products.
Total cost examples
Using only published prices (monthly billing, before tax, as of Nov 2026):
- Solo site owner, light research: Ahrefs Starter ($29) or Moz Starter ($49) are the cheapest paid options. Semrush's free plan (10 reports/day) is an alternative if you can live with the cap.
- Freelancer tracking a handful of client sites: Moz Standard $99 (3 sites, 300 keywords) vs Ahrefs Lite $129 (750 keywords, weekly, 6 months of history, credit-capped) vs Semrush SEO $139 (5 sites, 500 keywords daily).
- Small team of three: Moz Large includes 3 users for $299. Ahrefs Standard at $249 plus two extra users at $60 each comes to $369. Semrush Pro+ at $299 plus two additional users (from $45 each) comes to at least $389.
Your real number depends on add-ons, annual billing and which limits you hit first, so treat these as starting points rather than quotes.
Which should you choose?
Choose Semrush if…
- You want one subscription that can grow into PPC, local, content, social and market research through add-on toolkits.
- Daily rank tracking matters to you.
- You want to try before you buy — the 7-day free trial is the lowest-risk way to see whether the data fits your market.
Choose Ahrefs if…
- Backlink research and competitive analysis are the core of your work.
- You are happy with weekly rank updates in exchange for more tracked keywords per dollar.
- You can commit without a trial (or Ahrefs Free covers what you need for your own sites).
Choose Moz Pro if…
- You want the lowest price for a full plan ($99/mo, or $79/mo yearly).
- You need 2–3 users without paying per seat.
- Your reporting already relies on Domain Authority, Moz's own metric.
FAQ
Is Semrush or Ahrefs better for beginners? Neither vendor's pricing page settles that, but the trial terms matter: Semrush lets you test the full plan for 7 days, while Ahrefs offers a free account for sites you own and a $29 Starter plan. Trying the workflow you will actually use most is the best test.
Which is cheapest? Ahrefs Starter ($29/mo) is the cheapest paid plan, Moz Starter ($49/mo) is the cheapest for a single website, and Moz Standard ($99/mo) is the cheapest full plan of the three.
Does Semrush have a coupon? We do not publish coupon codes. Semrush's official offer is a 7-day free trial on its SEO + AI Search plans and a free plan with daily limits.
Do these prices include tax? Ahrefs states its prices exclude tax. Check the checkout page of whichever tool you choose for the final amount in your country.
Sources
All checked November 13, 2026:
- Semrush, Plans & Pricing
- Semrush Knowledge Base, Subscription plans & toolkits
- Semrush Knowledge Base, Data and metrics
- Ahrefs, Plans & pricing
- Ahrefs, Big data
- Moz, Moz Pro pricing