Semrush Review for Ecommerce: Is It Worth It for an Online Store?

SemrushSemrushSEOSemrush is an online marketing suite built around SEO: keyword research, backlink checks, rank tracking and site audits, plus add-on toolkits for content, local listings, ads, social and traffic research. Free plan, 7-day trial.Click for Scout's full analysis is worth paying for if your store is ready to grow search traffic on purpose: it shows which keywords have demand, what competitors rank for and who links to them. At about $139 a month for the entry SEO plan, it is too much for a small store that mostly needs its product pages tidied up. That store is better served by a Shopify app like Avada SEOAvada SEO SuiteSEOAvada SEO Suite makes a Shopify SEO app (listed as Avada AI SEO Image Optimizer) covering image alt text, meta tags, structured data, sitemaps and speed. Free plan, paid from $34.95/mo, 7-day trial.Click for Scout's full analysis.

Quick comparison

*As listed on the Shopify App Store in November 2026.

What Semrush does

Semrush is an online marketing suite built around SEO. For an ecommerce store, the parts that matter most are:

• Keyword research: find search terms for your products and categories, with volume and difficulty data.
• Competitor research: see which keywords and pages bring traffic to competing stores.
• Backlink analysis: see who links to you and to competitors.
• Site audits: crawl your store for technical problems.
• Position tracking: daily rank tracking for a set number of keywords per plan.
• AI search visibility: on Starter and higher plans, track how your brand shows up in answers from Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini.

It also sells separate toolkits for content, local listings, advertising and social scheduling. Those are billed on top of an SEO plan.

What it does not do: it does not edit your Shopify store. Fixing alt text, meta tags or structured data still happens in Shopify or in an app such as Avada SEOAvada SEO SuiteSEOAvada SEO Suite makes a Shopify SEO app (listed as Avada AI SEO Image Optimizer) covering image alt text, meta tags, structured data, sitemaps and speed. Free plan, paid from $34.95/mo, 7-day trial.Click for Scout's full analysis.

Every plan and what it costs

Semrush's help center article comparing its plans lists these prices:

One inconsistency to know about. A second Semrush help article, on SEO Toolkit pricing, lists the older plan names: Pro at $139.95/month (5 websites, 500 tracked keywords, 10,000 results per report), Guru at $249.95/month (adds the SEO Writing Assistant, Topic Research and historical data) and Business at $499.95/month (adds Share of Voice and API access). Semrush's own pages disagree on names and upper-tier prices, so check the plan layout at checkout. The entry price is about $139 a month either way.

Add-ons listed by Semrush:

• Extra users: from $45/month each on SEO plans ($20 each on the Social, Local and Content toolkits)
• Lead Generation: $90/month
• Base Report: $10/month; Pro Report: $20/month
• Local Toolkit: priced per location

Annual billing saves up to 17%.

What it really costs at two store sizes

These use only Semrush's published prices.

Owner-run store, one person doing SEO:

• SEO plan, monthly: $139/month, or $1,668 a year
• SEO plan, billed annually: $117.33/month, about $1,408 a year
• One site and 500 tracked keywords is plenty for a single store.

Store with a two-person marketing team and AI search tracking:

• Starter plan: $199/month, or $165.17/month billed annually
• One extra user: $45/month
• Total: $244/month paid monthly, or about $210/month with the annual plan price plus the extra user. Semrush does not say whether the user add-on is also discounted on annual billing.

For comparison, Avada SEOAvada SEO SuiteSEOAvada SEO Suite makes a Shopify SEO app (listed as Avada AI SEO Image Optimizer) covering image alt text, meta tags, structured data, sitemaps and speed. Free plan, paid from $34.95/mo, 7-day trial.Click for Scout's full analysis Pro is $34.95/month and Plug in SEOPlug in SEOSEOPlug in SEO is a Shopify app that audits your store for SEO problems and helps fix them. Paid from $4.99/mo, 7-day trial.Click for Scout's full analysis Standard is $49.99/month. Those apps fix your store; they do not replace Semrush's research data.

Strengths

• Competitor data you cannot get from a Shopify app. Seeing which pages bring competitors their traffic is the main reason an ecommerce store pays for Semrush.
• One subscription covers research, audits and rank tracking. On the SEO plan you get keyword research, backlink analysis, site audits and daily position tracking for 500 keywords.
• AI search tracking. Starter and higher plans track brand visibility in AI answers from Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini, alongside your regular rankings.
• A real free plan. 10 reports a day is enough to check a few keywords before you commit.

Limits and watch-outs

• Price. At $139/month, Semrush costs more than most stores' entire app stack for SEO.
• Seats cost extra. Each additional user starts at $45/month.
• Toolkits are separate. Content, local, social and ad toolkits are billed on top.
• Trial limits. The 7-day trial disables exports, so you cannot pull a full keyword list out before paying.
• Inconsistent plan pages. Semrush's own help articles show two different plan layouts, as noted above.
• No on-store fixes. You still need Shopify's own settings or an SEO app to act on what Semrush finds.

Who should use Semrush

• Stores with a few hundred products or more, where category and collection pages can rank for real search terms.
• Stores publishing blog or buying-guide content and wanting to pick topics by search demand.
• Brands watching competitors closely or planning to grow beyond paid ads.
• Teams that want to track AI search visibility.

Who should skip it

• New or small stores still fixing basic on-page SEO. Start with Avada SEOAvada SEO SuiteSEOAvada SEO Suite makes a Shopify SEO app (listed as Avada AI SEO Image Optimizer) covering image alt text, meta tags, structured data, sitemaps and speed. Free plan, paid from $34.95/mo, 7-day trial.Click for Scout's full analysis (free, or $34.95/month for Pro) and use Semrush's free plan for occasional keyword checks. See our Shopify SEO app comparison.
• Owners who want an audit-and-fix checklist rather than research. Plug in SEOPlug in SEOSEOPlug in SEO is a Shopify app that audits your store for SEO problems and helps fix them. Paid from $4.99/mo, 7-day trial.Click for Scout's full analysis starts at $4.99/month and includes keyword analytics.
• Content-only teams whose main need is writing articles to rank. SurferSurferSEOSurfer is a content and SEO tool that helps you write and optimize articles so they rank in search, and it now also tracks visibility in AI answers. 7-day trial.Click for Scout's full analysis is built for that, though we could not confirm its current prices.

Verdict

SemrushSemrushSEOSemrush is an online marketing suite built around SEO: keyword research, backlink checks, rank tracking and site audits, plus add-on toolkits for content, local listings, ads, social and traffic research. Free plan, 7-day trial.Click for Scout's full analysis is the strongest research tool in our SEO category for an ecommerce store that is serious about organic growth. It is not a starter tool. If you are spending time on SEO every week and want to know which keywords and pages to go after, the $139 entry plan is justified. If you are still fixing missing alt text and meta descriptions, a Shopify SEO app gets you further for a fraction of the cost. For the broader picture, see our best SEO tools for ecommerce.

Common questions

How much does Semrush cost for a Shopify store? Semrush's help center lists the SEO plan at $139/month, or $117.33/month billed annually. A second help article lists the older Pro plan at $139.95/month. Extra users start at $45/month.

Does Semrush have a free plan? Yes. The free plan includes 1 demo project and 10 reports per day. There is also a 7-day trial of paid plans, but exports are disabled during the trial.

Does Semrush integrate with Shopify? Semrush is not in our tracked list of Shopify apps, and we did not confirm a Shopify App Store listing. It analyzes your store from the outside; changes are made in Shopify or with an SEO app.

Is Semrush better than a Shopify SEO app? They do different jobs. Semrush finds keywords and competitor gaps; apps like Avada SEO fix meta tags, alt text and structured data on your store. Many growing stores use one of each.

How we put this together

We did not test Semrush hands-on. Facts and prices come from Semrush's own help center articles on plan comparison and SEO Toolkit pricing, read in November 2026, plus our tracked fact sheet for Semrush. Comparison prices for Avada SEO and Plug in SEO come from their Shopify App Store listings, read in November 2026. Semrush's main pricing page could not be read directly, and its help articles disagree with each other on plan names and higher-tier prices, so confirm the current plans before you buy.