Free Semrush Alternatives That Small Sites Can Actually Use

The best free Semrush alternative is not one tool but a small set: Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools for your own data, a free crawler for audits, an open-source rank tracker, and a few limited free accounts for peeking at competitors. Semrush itself also has a free plan, which is worth knowing before you replace it. Below, each Semrush job is matched with a free tool, with limits checked on October 16, 2026, plus an honest list of what free tools still can't do.

Published: 2026-10-16 · 6 min read · Satelo

Is Semrush free?

Partly. The Semrush pricing page lists a $0 plan that needs no credit card, and Semrush's subscription help page says it includes one demo project and 10 reports per day across its core tools. That is enough for a couple of domain overviews or keyword lookups a day, not for regular work.

The cheapest paid plan on the same page, called SEO, was shown at €134 a month billed monthly (€112.52 a month billed annually) on the day we checked, with 5 websites to monitor and 500 keywords tracked daily. Prices are localized, so you may see dollars. There is also a seven-day trial.

So the real question for a small site is: which Semrush jobs do you actually need every week? For most solo owners it's four or five, and each has a free substitute.

Semrush job by job: the free replacement

The 10 tools, and what each one is good for

1. Google Search Console

The foundation. Search Console shows "which queries bring users to your site," with impressions, clicks and average position, plus index coverage and URL Inspection. For your own site, this is real Google data, which no third-party tool has. Its weakness: it only covers sites you verify, and only queries you already appear for. If you have impressions but almost no clicks, our guide to impressions without clicks explains what to look at first.

2. Bing Webmaster Tools

The most underrated free Semrush substitute. Bing's own announcement of the current version describes a Backlinks tool that "lists backlinks for any site, including similar sites," a Keyword Research tool filterable by country, language and device, and Site Scan, "an on-demand site audit tool which crawls your site." That's three Semrush jobs in one console, from a search engine's own data.

3. Google Keyword Planner

Google's keyword tool lives inside Google Ads. Google's help page says you need to complete your Ads account setup, including billing information, to use it. Use it for keyword ideas and rough demand, not for precise numbers.

4. Google Trends

Good for one question Semrush answers poorly for small niches: is interest in this topic growing, seasonal or fading? Compare two or three phrasings of the same idea before you write.

5. Screaming Frog SEO Spider (free version)

A desktop crawler. The Screaming Frog page says the free version is limited to 500 URLs per crawl, and some advanced features are reserved for the paid licence. For a blog with a few hundred posts, 500 URLs covers the whole site: broken links, redirects, missing titles, duplicate descriptions.

6. Lighthouse and PageSpeed Insights

Lighthouse is Google's open-source (Apache-2.0) auditing tool with categories for performance, accessibility, best practices and SEO. It's built into Chrome DevTools and powers PageSpeed Insights. It audits one page at a time, so pair it with a crawler.

7. Ahrefs Free (formerly Ahrefs Webmaster Tools)

For sites you verify, Ahrefs Free includes Site Audit with 5,000 crawl credits per project per month, Site Explorer with up to 1,000 backlinks and keywords visible at once, and web analytics. Competitor sites need a paid plan. It's the closest free thing to Semrush's backlink and audit reports, as long as you only look at yourself.

8. SerpBear (open source)

If you searched for a "Semrush open source alternative," this is the honest answer for one job. SerpBear is an MIT-licensed rank tracker you host yourself (Docker image available). It doesn't scrape Google directly: it uses a third-party scraping API or your own proxies, and most of those services are paid or pay-as-you-go. It can connect to Search Console to show real visits for tracked keywords. Good for tracking 20–50 keywords if you're comfortable deploying a small app.

9. Semrush's own free plan

Don't skip it. Ten reports a day is enough to check a competitor's top pages or a prospect's Authority Score once in a while. Use it for the jobs that free Google and Bing tools can't do: looking at other people's sites.

10. Satelo free check

For the narrow question "is this site any good?" (before a guest post, partnership or purchase), Satelo's free check gives a 0–100 Quality Score built mostly from open data, such as Tranco rank, Common Crawl presence, domain age and page speed, without an account. It doesn't do keywords or rank tracking. It answers one question quickly and shows the evidence behind the number.

Open-source Semrush alternatives: what exists and what doesn't

There is no open-source project that replaces Semrush as a whole, because the expensive part of Semrush isn't the software. It's the data: a crawled backlink index and keyword databases collected at scale. Open-source tools can do the jobs that run on your data or on a crawl you run yourself:

• Rank tracking: SerpBear, with a paid or self-run scraping source.
• Page audits: Lighthouse.
• Popularity lists: open datasets like Tranco and Common Crawl, which you can query yourself. Our Tranco rank explainer shows how to read one.

Anything that tells you a competitor's keywords or backlinks needs someone's index, so it will be either a vendor's free tier or a paid plan.

A zero-budget weekly routine (illustrative)

Illustrative example for a 150-post blog with no SEO budget:

1. Monday, 15 minutes: Search Console Performance, last 28 days vs. previous period. Note pages with rising impressions.
2. Monday, 10 minutes: Bing Webmaster Tools, new backlinks and Site Scan issues.
3. Wednesday, 20 minutes: Keyword ideas for the next post from Search Console queries you rank for on page 2, cross-checked in Keyword Planner and Trends.
4. Monthly: a full Screaming Frog crawl (fits under 500 URLs), fix broken links and missing titles.
5. As needed: Semrush free reports or the Satelo check when you're evaluating another site.

When paying for Semrush (or something cheaper) is worth it

• You do competitor research every week and keep hitting the 10-report limit.
• You track keywords for several sites or clients.
• You need exports and history for reports.
• Your time spent stitching five free tools together costs more than a subscription.

If you're at that point but Semrush's price is too high, compare the entry plans in our roundup of cheaper Ahrefs alternatives; most of those tools cover the same jobs as Semrush.

How this differs from our free Ahrefs alternatives list

Our free Ahrefs alternatives article is organized around backlinks first, because that's why people use Ahrefs. Semrush users usually come for keywords, rank tracking and competitor traffic, so this list adds Bing's keyword tool, an open-source rank tracker and Semrush's own free plan. For traffic estimates specifically, see our test of free website traffic checkers.

What free tools won't give you

• Exact search volumes. Free tools give ranges or relative interest.
• Competitor keyword lists at scale. That's the core of what Semrush sells.
• One dashboard. You'll switch between tabs.
• History. Search Console keeps a limited window; export monthly if you want long trends.

None of that matters much for a small site in its first year, when the main job is publishing useful pages and getting them indexed.

What to do next

1. Verify your site in Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools today if you haven't.
2. Run one free crawl and fix the top five issues.
3. Save Semrush's free reports for competitor questions.

When you need to size up another site fast, run Satelo's free check: one Quality Score from mostly open data, with the evidence behind each number, in about 30 seconds and with no signup.

FAQ

Is there a free version of Semrush?

Yes. Semrush's pricing page lists a $0 plan with no credit card required, which includes one demo project and 10 reports per day across core tools. There is also a seven-day free trial of paid plans.

What is the best free alternative to Semrush?

For your own site, Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools together cover performance data, keyword research, backlinks and a site scan. For other sites, combine Semrush's free plan with limited free tiers from other vendors.

Is there an open-source alternative to Semrush?

Not for the whole suite, because Semrush's value is its keyword and backlink data. Open-source tools cover single jobs, such as SerpBear for rank tracking and Lighthouse for page audits.

Can free tools replace Semrush completely?

Not completely. Free tools cover your own site well, but competitor keyword lists, large backlink indexes and history are mostly behind paid plans.

Is Bing Webmaster Tools useful if my traffic comes from Google?

Yes. Its backlink and keyword tools give a second data source, and its Site Scan finds technical issues that affect any search engine.

How much does Semrush cost per month?

On October 16, 2026 the cheapest paid plan, SEO, was shown at €134 a month billed monthly or €112.52 a month billed annually. Prices are localized, so check the pricing page for your currency.

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