Comparison
OpenSEO vs Semrush
Semrush is a large marketing suite on a monthly plan. OpenSEO is free software where you pay per lookup. Here is how they differ, and when Semrush is the better buy.
Starting price
Semrush Pro: $139.95 a month
- 1 user
- Guru $249.95 and Business $499.95 a month
- Some toolkits sold separately
List prices on monthly billing, checked in October 2026. Semrush sets its own prices and changes them; check its pricing page for current figures. OpenSEO prices are YepAPI's at the time of writing; see Pricing.
| Semrush | OpenSEO | |
|---|---|---|
| Price model | Monthly plan from $139.95 | Free software; pay YepAPI per call, from $0.01 |
| Scope | SEO plus ads, content, social and more | SEO: keywords, ranks, backlinks, audits, AI visibility, local |
| Keyword and backlink data | Own databases with long history | Commercial dataset through YepAPI |
| Rank tracking | 500 tracked keywords on Pro | Per check: $0.01 per results page fetched, stops at your page |
| AI agents | Check their current plans | 60 MCP tools and a REST API on every install, spending capped per call |
| Source code | Closed | Open source (MIT), self-hostable |
Choose Semrush if
- You run paid search, content and social from one place as well as SEO.
- You rely on years of historical data for trend analysis.
Choose OpenSEO if
- You want SEO only, without paying for the rest of a marketing suite.
- Your usage is uneven: some busy weeks, many quiet ones.
- You want an AI agent to work with your SEO data under a spending cap.
FAQ
Questions
Is the data as good?
OpenSEO’s data comes from YepAPI, which resells a large commercial SEO dataset. It covers keyword volume, rankings, backlinks and SERPs well, but the big suites run their own crawlers and keyword databases, which are larger. For most site owners the difference matters less than the price; for agencies doing link research all day it can matter more.
What does OpenSEO actually cost?
Nothing for the software. You pay YepAPI per call with your own key: about $0.08 for a keyword search of 150 ideas, $0.01 for a rank check that finds you on page one. New YepAPI accounts get $5 in free credit. A small site tracking 100 keywords weekly spends a few dollars a month.
Semrush is a trademark of its owner. OpenSEO is not affiliated with or endorsed by Semrush.