SEMrush vs Serpstat: An Honest Comparison After 4+ Years of Use

#SEMrush vs Serpstat: An Honest Comparison After 4+ Years of Use

• Try SEMrush FREE for 30 Days
• Try Serpstat FREE for 7 Days

When it comes to all-in-one SEO tools, both SEMrush and Serpstat offer excellent features. One tool offers almost every SEO feature and the other tool is affordable. So which one should you go for? Find it out below.

When it comes to SEO tools, there are too many choices out there and each one claims it’s the best.

Over the last 10 years, we’ve tried and tested a ton of SEO tools ranging from free to paid tools. The good news? We know the best SEO tools since we already have tested so many tools.

That said, investing in all-in-one SEO tools is a better choice since they offer a wide range of features including keyword research, competitor analysis, technical SEO etc.

When it comes to all in one SEO tools, there are two tools that offer excellent value for money and they are SEMrush and Serpstat.

One is used by millions of people worldwide and the other tool offers great features at affordable prices. So which one should you pick?

When it comes to SEMrush vs Serpstat: which SEO tool is worth your money? Let’s find it out.

SEMrush vs Serpstat: Which SEO Tool Is Worth Your Money?

Features List of SEMrush And Serpstat

Let’s talk about the features of both these SEO tools so you’ll get an idea about what they have to offer.

Features of SEMrush SEO Tool:

SEMrush gives you access to over 40 SEO tools and some of its amazing features include;

• Link building tool
• Backlink audit
• Website audits
• Keyword magic tool for keyword research
• Brand monitoring tool
• Domain vs domain comparison
• Keyword tracking
• Estimate traffic of any website in the world
• Analytics reports where you can find insights around organic search, paid search or link building
• Detailed competitor analysis
• PPC research
• Access to SEO reports (including the white label)
• Social media monitoring

Looking for a SEMrush free trial?

Grab SEMrush Pro Account (Free Trial for 30 Days)

Features of Serpstat SEO Tool:

When it comes to features, Serpstat is not too far from SEMrush as it offers a wide range of features which are listed below.

• Keyword research
• Search analytics
• Competitor analysis
• Backlink research
• On-page audits
• Rank tracking
• Market intelligence
• Paid advertising analysis
• Content marketing ideation
• Gives you access to reports
• Track position changes of domains
• Domain vs. Domain comparison
• You can perform batch analysis of up to 200 domains

Looking for a Serpstat free trial?

Grab Serpstat Account (Free Trial for 7 Days)

So who is the winner?

When it comes to features, SEMrush undoubtedly wins over Serpstat as it has an overwhelming list of tools (over 40 tools under one roof) ranging from SEO to social media to PPC.

Overview of Both The Tools

Here’s the quick overview of SEMrush and Serpstat.

SEMrush: SEMrush was founded in 2008 and became a popular SEO toolkit that is used by more than 6 million users worldwide.

Here are some of the amazing stats of SEMrush.

Serpstat: Serpstat was founded in 2013 as a keyword research tool and it has now grown into a full SEO suite offering everything from keyword research to competitor analysis.

Here are some interesting facts about Serpstat.

Try Serpstat for 7 days free trial

User Interface & Ease of Use of SEMrush & Serpstat

Let’s talk about the interfaces and see how easy they are to access.

Here’s how the SEMrush user interface looks like;

As you can see above, you’ll find everything starting from domain analytics to position tracking to backlink audits, site audits at one place. So you can easily find and analyse all the traffic changes on your site from SEMrush.

Here’s how the Serpstat user interface looks like;

Serpstat also offers you all the reports such as organic keywords, PPC keywords, site audit reports etc at one place so you can have a quick look at your website changes.

So who is the winner?

It’s a tie as both these tools offer almost similar interfaces where you can access each of their tools easily from the dashboard. Both these tools offer a wide range of features so there’s a learning curve with both the tools.

SEMrush vs Serpstat: Keyword Research Comparison

SEMrush offers the Keyword Overview feature which is the easiest way to get a quick analysis of your keywords.

It gives you a detailed summary of keyword metrics including

• search volume
• CPC
• Keyword difficulty
• SERP results data and search trend
• Keyword variations
• Questions
• Related keywords and so on

Here’s how it looks like;

Here’s the thing: SEMrush also offers an amazing keyword research tool called “Keyword Magic” that provides all the keywords you need to start building your SEO or PPC campaigns. We often use the keyword magic tool from SEMrush for our keyword research.

Here’s how you can use the keyword magic tool to find better keywords in your niche.

Step 1: To begin, click on the Keyword Magic Tool under the Keyword Research section. Enter a keyword of your choice to begin your keyword research.

As you can see, we took an example keyword of “WordPress SEO” and SEMrush is showing us 6,021 keyword suggestions for our focus keyword. You can also find other metrics like total volume for the keyword along with the average keyword difficulty score (KD).

Quick note: If you want to find PPC keywords for your ad campaigns, you can simply use their PPC keyword tool which can be used to organize keywords at the campaign and ad group level, set negative keywords and export the campaign to import into Google Ads Editor and so on.

Step 2: Finding a list of all the keyword suggestions.

As you can see, keyword magic tool offers you a wide range of keyword choices including;

• Broad match keywords (which include any variation of your seed keyword in any order)
• Phrase match keywords
• Exact match keywords

The keyword metrics include;

• Monthly search volume
• Search trend of the keyword
• Keyword difficulty score
• CPC value, competition etc

Step 3: Find the overall keyword overview for your focus keyword.

Just click on any of the keyword terms you are interested and SEMrush will show you the following data.

See that? There’s a huge data which includes a list of;

• Global search volume (along with local searches)
• Keyword variations
• Question based keywords, related keywords and so on

You can click on “View all keywords” to find even more keyword ideas around your focus keyword. So there you go!

Let’s now talk about how you can use Serpstat’s keyword analysis tool to find better keywords in your niche.

Step 1: To get started with it, go to the Overview section under the “Keyword Research” tool and enter your target keyword.

As you can see, we’re taking the same example keyword which is “WordPress SEO” where you can see it’s showing data;

• Search volume of 2400 monthly searches
• 20% competition (level of competition between domains in PPC ranging from 0 to 100)
• CPC value of $5.26

Step 2: The number of keywords along with PPC keywords.

As you can see above, the Serpstat keyword analysis tool is giving even more keywords data (around 8900 keywords) for the same keyword (whereas the SEMrush keyword research tool is offering around 6000 keywords). And yes, the number of keywords data depends on the keyword you pick. Sometimes, you may get more keywords in SEMrush and some other times with Serpstat.

Also, you can find a list of all the PPC keywords at one go whereas you need to access PPC keywords separately in SEMrush (it’s not a big deal though).

That said, just click on the “See all” button and you’ll find a list of all the keyword suggestions for your target keyword.

Step 3: You can scroll down to see the competitors’ data for your target keyword.

Have a look;

As you can see, you can easily analyse a list of all the top ranking competitors in organic search for your desired keyword term. You’ll also find a list of all keywords they are ranking for (including common keywords that contain your target keyword).

So who is the winner?

It’s a tie as both the tools offer an EXTENSIVE list of keyword metrics to help you with both organic and PPC keyword research.

SEMrush vs Serpstat: Backlink Analysis Comparison

Quick note: We’ll compare the data from the same domain (Backlinko.com in this example) and let’s find out which tool offers in-depth data.

SEMrush calls its backlinks analysis tool as “Backlink Analytics” which you can find under the “Link Building” section.

To get started, enter any domain of your choice (preferably your competitors’ domain) and you’ll instantly get an overview of it.

Have a look;

As you can see, SEMrush backlinks analytics tool offers you a plethora of things including;

• Total number of backlinks (along with their anchor texts)
• Referring domains and IPs
• Indexed pages
• Competitors
• Monthly visits
• All the organic keywords your competitors are ranking for and much more!

You can also scroll down to the end of the tool to discover all the top pages which help you find a list of all the pages with more number of links.

You can click on the View full report to find all the top pages of any domain you want. This section helps you find what type of content can attract more links in your niche (so you can create content around similar topics).

Serpstat offers a tool called “Backlink Analysis” where you can check any website’s referring domains and subdomains, links to the analyzed domain, referring home pages etc.

To begin, enter any of your competitors’ domain and hit enter as you’ll instantly find the overview of that particular domain. Here’s how it looks like;

As you can see, you’ll find backlink data including;

• Total number of backlinks (along with dofollow and nofollow links)
• Referring domains and IPs
• Anchor texts etc

You can also scroll down to find all the top pages (along with their anchor texts).

So who is the winner?

When it comes to backlink analysis, SEMrush is the clear winner as it offers much more in-depth data such as showing more backlink sources, referring domains along with the organic keywords your competitors are ranking for.

Serpstat is not bad either but it shows less backlink data when compared to the Backlink Analytics tool from SEMrush.

SEMrush vs Serpstat: Technical Site Audits Comparison

SEMrush offers an amazing tool called Site Audit which is a website crawler that allows you to analyze the health of your website. It will provide you with a list of all the issues your website has (so you can fix them to improve your site’s SEO).

To be able to use the site audit feature, you need to create a project by entering your website’s domain. Once you’re done with it, you can run the crawl function and it will give you an overview of your site’s overall health.

Here’s how it looks like;

As you can see, there are multiple things you’ll discover in the Site Audit overview including;

• Site Health (it’s a score out of 100 which is based on the number of errors and warnings found on your site, the higher the number, the better it is)
• Errors (The number of issues of the highest severity detected on your website, you should fix them as soon as possible)
• Warnings (The number of issues of medium severity detected on your website)
• Notices (The number of notices detected on your website, you can ignore them as well)

You can click on the “Issues” tab to find a list of all the errors, warnings, notices on your site along with the recommendations (so you’ll know how to fix them easily).

Make sure to start fixing all the “Errors” first to improve your site’s overall health score. SEMrush also provides you suggestions on how to fix your errors and warnings so anyone can fix them easily.

Let’s now talk about how Site Audits work in Serpstat.

Similar to the Site Audit tool from SEMrush, Serpstat also lets you add a project where you can add your website to perform a whole website audit.

Once you run the crawling, it shows you a full overview of your site. Have a look;

As you can see, Serpstat gives you an SDO score (Serpstat Domain Optimization Score). It shows how well a domain is optimized based on the correlation of the total number of errors and how critical they are to the number of possible errors.

Along with that, you’ll also get information on;

• High priority issues to fix
• Medium priority issues to fix
• Low priority issues to fix
• Viruses on your site (if any)

When you scroll down, you’ll also see a list of all the site audit recommendations.

From missing meta tags to AMP related issues, you can find and fix a ton of website issues on your site using the Serpstat site audit feature.

So who is the winner?

SEMrush is ahead of Serpstat when it comes to site audits as it gives you much more data and recommendations to fix your site issues.

Pricing Comparison

Let’s now talk about the pricing plans of both these SEO tools including their free plans and free trials.

SEMrush Pricing Plans

SEMrush offers THREE pricing options which include;

1. Pro
2. Guru
3. Business

Let’s briefly talk about them including the limits.

1. Pro plan is the starter plan from SEMrush which costs you $99.95 per month where you’ll get 10,000 results per report, 3000 reports per day, create up to 3 projects, track up to 500 keywords to track and up to 100,000 pages to crawl.

2. Guru plan costs you $199.95 monthly where you’ll get 30,000 results per report, 5000 reports per day, create up to 15 projects, track up to 1500 keywords to track and up to 300,000 pages to crawl.

3. Business plan costs you $399.95 monthly where you’ll get 50,000 results per report, 10,000 reports per day, create up to 25 projects, track up to 5000 keywords to track and up to 1,000,000 pages to crawl.

SEMrush also offers a free plan with limitations. Here’s what you get with a SEMrush free plan.

• You can set up 1 project
• You can track positions of up to 10 keywords (which are updated daily)
• You can perform a site audit for up to 100 pages per month
• You can track up to 5 social media profiles and post to 2 networks and schedule 10 posts
• On-Page SEO checker (where you can get recommendations for 10 keyword units per month)
• Domain & Keyword analytics (where you’ll get 10 results per report, 10 reports per day)

So what are you waiting for?

Grab SEMrush 30 Days Free Trail Now

Serpstat Pricing Plans

Serpstat offers FOUR pricing options which are;

1. Lite
2. Standard
3. Advanced
4. Enterprise

Let’s briefly talk about them including the limits.

1. The “Lite” plan is the cheapest plan from Serpstat as it costs you just $69 per month and you’ll get 4,000 queries per day and 10,000 results per report. With this plan, only 1 user can access your account and you will get access to mobile tracking, live chat support etc.

2. The “Standard” plan costs $149 per month and includes everything from the ‘Lite’ plan and you’ll get 5,000 queries per day and 30,000 results per report. With this plan, you can add up to three team members to your account and you’ll get access to branded reports.

3. The “Advanced” plan costs $299 per month and includes everything from the ‘Standard’ plan and you’ll get 8,000 queries per day and 50,000 results per report. With this plan, you can add up to five team members to your account and you’ll also get access to phone support.

4. The “Enterprise” plan is the ultimate plan from Serpstat which costs $499 per month and includes everything from the ‘Advanced’ plan and you’ll get 12,000 queries per day and 75,000 results per report.

With this plan, you can add up to seven team members to your account and you’ll also get access to white label reporting (which is extremely useful for those who are working on SEO projects on behalf of a client).

Serpstat also offers a free plan with limitations. Here’s what you get with the Serpstat free plan.

• Search analytics: 10 queries per day
• Backlink Analysis: 10 queries per day
• 10 pages for the site audit
• Create 1 project

So do you want to give a try to Serpstat?

Grab 7 Days Free Trial from Serpstat

So who is the winner?

Serpstat is the winner as it is much cheaper than the SEMrush SEO tool. Also, Serpstat has the following benefits over SEMrush free trial.

• Unlike SEMrush, Serpstat doesn’t ask credit card information for your free trial
• Serpstat doesn’t withdraw user’s funds automatically after the end of the trial period (whereas SEMrush does)
• Serpstat allows using their tool for free even after the end of the trial period (it’s NOT available in SEMush)

Pros & Cons

Let’s now talk about the pros and cons of both these SEO tools.

Pros & Cons of SEMrush:

Pros:

• Offers a lot of tools when compared to Serpstat (so you can do so much with SEMrush)
• It offers accurate keyword volume data
• It offers SEO reports with white-label access and custom reports
• Its competitive research is amazing where it shows you how much traffic a site gets, what keywords are generating more traffic to a website, what keywords they bid on in PPC, how many backlinks a site has etc
• Keyword research is excellent where you can find a lot of metrics including estimated monthly search volume, historical search trends, “keyword difficulty” scores etc
• Backlink audit feature which helps you discover all the links your site has (along with toxic links so you can use Google Disavow tool for getting rid of those bad backlinks)
• PPC analysis which helps you easily discover opportunities for advertising keywords and see what your competitors are doing in paid search
• Site audit feature which checks your site’s health so you can find and fix your website issues for better SEO
• Social media tracker which helps you leverage competitor analysis to create a solid social media strategy (this feature isn’t available in Serpstat)
• CPC Map feature which checks the average CPC in your niche across different regions

Cons:

• There’s a huge learning curve (there are over 40 SEO tools offered by SEMrush and it can be a little confusing to navigate when you’re getting started)
• Keyword or traffic volume accuracy is NOT that great

Pros & Cons of Serpstat:

Pros:

• Cheaper than SEMrush (and a great SEMrush alternative for beginners)
• It offers a free option where you can register for Serpstat for free to change your daily limit to 30 queries and get access to Site Audit feature
• It provides you detailed analytics at the URL level not only the domain level which is great
• Offers you more keyword suggestions when compared to SEMrush keyword magic tool
• It also offers you online chat support (which is missing in SEMrush)
• Excellent (and affordable choice) tool for conducting competitor analysis and website audits

Cons:

• It doesn’t provide as much backlink data as SEMrush does and sometimes its keywords data is inaccurate (especially monthly volume data)
• Unlike SEMrush, Serpstat doesn’t provide tools/features for social media

FAQs About SEMrush & Serpstat SEO Tools

Here are some of the frequently asked questions around SEMrush and Serpstat SEO tools.

How do I get SEMrush for free?

SEMrush is a premium tool and it offers a free plan with limited features where you can add only one project. If you are looking to get SEMrush for free, here’s a 30 day free trial you can try which is worth $99.95.

How much does SEMrush cost?

SEMrush has three pricing plans which include the Pro plan which costs $99.95 per month, the guru plan costs $199.95 per month and the business plan costs $399.95 monthly.

How can I cancel my SEMrush free trial?

If you’re not happy with SEMrush and looking to cancel your SEMrush trial, you can send a cancellation request email to mail@semrush.com. Usually, all the cancellation requests will be processed within 1 business day.

How do I cancel my Serpstat account?

To cancel your Serpstat account, you can contact their support team via online chat or at the email support@serpstat.com.

Is there any Serpstat free trial available?

Yes, you can use this special link to grab a 7 day free trial from Serpstat. Make sure to follow the instructions listed on the corresponding page to avail Serpstat free trial.

Is there any way to use premium tools like SEMrush or Serpstat for free?

Almost all the premium tools like SEMrush, Serpstat offer you free trials. SEMrush offers a 30 day free trial whereas Serpstat offers a 7 day free trial. With Serpstat free trial, you don’t need to enter your card number so the signup process is much more comfortable.

Read: Unbiased SEMrush Review with 30 Days Free Trial
Read: Serpstat Review with 7 Days Free Trial
Read: SEMrush vs Ahrefs: Which is the Best SEO Tool for 2020?
Read: Serpstat Promo Code: 7 Days Free Trial Plus 20% OFF All Plans

Final Thoughts: Which is Best SEMrush or Serpstat?

SEMrush is best for those people who are looking for an all in one SEO tool that lets you perform many things including SEO, SEM, PPC, brand monitoring, social media, content marketing and so on. If the budget is NOT your concern, SEMrush is the best choice.

If you’re on a tight budget and looking for an affordable SEO toolkit, Serpstat is the perfect choice for you and just like SEMrush, Serpstat also offers a ton of features under one roof.

So what are you going to pick? Did you find our SEMrush vs Serpstat review useful? Have any questions? Let us know in the comments.