Semrush's API is a paid add-on billed in units. Most teams switch to DataForSEO for raw SERP data, SE Ranking for a like-for-like swap, or the free GSC API for their own data.

Why people look for a Semrush API alternative
How we compared them
The best Semrush API alternatives, by use case
Semrush API alternatives compared
Is there a free alternative to Semrush?
Who are Semrush's biggest competitors?
You don't always need an API
How to choose
FAQ

Why people look for a Semrush API alternative

The biggest reason is the billing model. Semrush's Standard API (the SEO and Projects APIs) is an add-on to a Business subscription, and every call spends API units that you buy separately. How many units a request costs depends on the endpoint, and for the analytics reports it grows with the rows you pull. A script that pulls 10,000 keyword rows costs far more than one that pulls 100.

The second reason is access. If you're on a Pro or Guru plan, the Standard API isn't available to you at all. A solo consultant or small agency that wants to automate one keyword pull ends up looking at a Business plan plus unit packs, which often costs more than the automation is worth.

The third reason is fit. Many teams don't need a full SEO suite API. They need SERP data, or backlink rows, or (most often) their own Search Console data pulled and analyzed. Paying suite prices for one data type is what sends people looking.

Does Semrush have an API?

Yes. Semrush documents four APIs:

SEO API: domain, organic, keyword and backlink reports (CSV or JSON).
Projects API: Position Tracking and Site Audit campaigns.
Trends API: traffic and market data, sold as its own subscription.
Local API: listing management and Map Rank Tracker.

The catch is eligibility. The SEO and Projects APIs need a Business subscription plus purchased units. The Trends API has its own plans. The Map Rank Tracker API is the one piece open to every Semrush user.

Is the Semrush API free?

No. Apart from the Map Rank Tracker API, production use costs money: a Business plan for the Standard API plus the units each request consumes, or a Trends API subscription. Your cost scales with how much data you pull, not just how many calls you make.

How we compared them

We looked at four things that decide whether you'll still be using an API after the first month: data coverage, pricing model, rate limits and integration effort.

Coverage is which data you get: SERP results, keyword volumes, backlinks, competitor domains, ad data. A cheap API that only returns SERPs is no use if you need backlink rows.

Pricing model matters more than the headline price. Per-request, per-row and per-search billing produce very different bills for the same job, so estimate your real monthly volume before comparing.

Rate limits decide whether bulk jobs are practical. At 10 requests per second, 1 million SERP requests take about 28 hours. That's fine for a scheduled job and useless for anything on demand.

Integration effort is mostly documentation: a simple auth scheme, consistent JSON, runnable examples, and errors that say what went wrong.

The best Semrush API alternatives, by use case

DataForSEO: cheapest raw SERP and keyword data

DataForSEO is the usual answer for teams that need raw SERP and keyword data at volume. It's pay-as-you-go with no subscription: you top up a balance (minimum $50) that never expires, and new accounts get a $1 trial credit. Each API is billed in its own units (tasks, results or rows), and queued "Standard" requests cost less than "Live" ones.

The trade-off is that you get data, not analysis. SERP, keyword, backlink and on-page APIs return structured JSON, and you build the interpretation yourself. For a rank tracker or a keyword database that's exactly right. For a team that wanted Semrush's ready-made reports, it's more work.

SE Ranking API: closest feature-for-feature swap

If you want the closest thing to a drop-in Semrush replacement, look at SE Ranking. It covers keyword research, rank tracking, competitor analysis, backlinks and site audits, the same areas Semrush's API exposes. Regional coverage in smaller markets can be thinner, so check your target countries before you commit. For agencies that mainly need rank tracking and keyword data in a familiar shape, it's the least disruptive migration.

Ahrefs API: backlink data at scale

Ahrefs is the other incumbent, and its API is the strongest choice when backlinks are the priority. Its link index is the one most SEOs benchmark against, and the API exposes referring domains, backlinks and anchors.

The catch is the same as Semrush's: API access sits on Ahrefs' top plans, priced for heavy users rather than occasional pulls. Plenty of teams run Ahrefs for links and DataForSEO for SERPs instead of paying one vendor for everything.

SerpApi and Bright Data: SERPs without the SEO suite

SerpApi and Bright Data solve a narrower problem: getting search results reliably without running your own proxies. SerpApi returns structured JSON for Google, Bing and many other engines, handles CAPTCHAs and location, and bills per successful search (a response with 100 results counts as one search, and failed searches aren't counted). It has a free plan for testing. Bright Data is the heavier scraping infrastructure, with proxy networks and ready-made SERP datasets.

Neither gives you keyword volumes or backlinks. What they give you is clean SERP data at a predictable price, which is often all a rank-tracking or content-gap workflow needs. If your Semrush API use was mostly "pull the top 10 for these 500 keywords", SerpApi can replace it.

Google Search Console API: the free option most people skip

The Search Console API is free and returns the data that matters most for your own site: queries, pages, clicks, impressions, CTR and position. A Search Analytics request returns up to 25,000 rows, and the quotas are generous (1,200 queries per minute per site and per user, 30 million per day per project). For anything about your own domain, it's the right data source, not a compromise.

The limits are scope. It only covers properties you've verified, only Google organic search, and only the last 16 months. It won't show a competitor's keywords or backlinks. But for "what do my pages rank for, and where am I losing clicks", it beats any third-party estimate because it's first-party data.

The gap is analysis. The API returns rows. It doesn't tell you which queries are split across two of your pages, which page-two queries are worth pushing, or what to fix first.

Moz, SpyFu and Serpstat: the budget middle

Moz API: domain authority and link data, useful for link prospecting.
SpyFu API: strongest on PPC and competitor ad history, a fit if your Semrush use leaned toward paid search.
Serpstat API: broad coverage (keywords, competitors, backlinks, audits) on a credit model.

None matches Semrush's database breadth, but each covers one need at a price smaller teams can live with.

Semrush API alternatives compared

Prices change often, so this table compares billing models and coverage rather than quoting rates. Check each vendor's pricing page against your own volume.

Tool	Billing model	SERP data	Keyword volumes	Backlinks	Free way to try
Semrush API	Business add-on + API units	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
DataForSEO	Pay-as-you-go balance ($50 min)	Yes	Yes	Yes	$1 trial credit
SE Ranking API	Paid plans	Yes	Yes	Yes	Trial
Ahrefs API	Top-tier plans	Yes	Yes	Best-in-class	No
SerpApi	Per successful search	Yes	No	No	Free plan
Bright Data	Usage-based	Yes	No	No	Trial
Search Console API	Free	Your site only	Your site only	No	Free
Moz API	Paid plans	Limited	Yes	Yes	Check plans
SpyFu API	Paid plans	Limited	Yes	Limited	Check plans
Serpstat API	Credits	Yes	Yes	Yes	Check plans

The pattern: the further you move from suite APIs toward raw-data APIs, the cheaper each row gets, down to zero for your own data in Search Console. The trade is always the same. You give up the ready-made reports and build or buy the analysis separately.

Is there a free alternative to Semrush?

Yes, with one caveat. The free alternative that works at scale is the Search Console API, but only for your own site's Google organic data. No free API returns competitor keyword volumes or backlink profiles at production volume. Anyone offering that is scraping (against most engines' terms) or reselling someone else's paid data.

What the Search Console API gives you for free

For properties you've verified:

Search analytics: queries, pages, countries and devices, with clicks, impressions, CTR and average position.
16 months of history, enough to see seasonality and year-over-year change.
Up to 25,000 rows per request from the Search Analytics endpoint.
URL Inspection and Sitemaps endpoints for technical checks.

Where free data stops

Free data stops at your property line. The moment you need a competitor's keyword list, volumes for keywords you don't rank for, or a backlink profile, you're paying. Search Console covers "my site"; paid APIs cover "the market".

The stack most cost-conscious teams land on: the Search Console API for their own performance, DataForSEO or SerpApi for competitor SERPs, and a paid backlink source only when link building is active work. That usually costs a fraction of a Business plan plus API units.

Who are Semrush's biggest competitors?

On the suite side, Ahrefs and Moz, with SE Ranking, Serpstat and SpyFu as the value challengers. On the API side, DataForSEO and SerpApi compete for the raw-data jobs that used to run through Semrush.

The market has split in two. Suites (Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz) compete on database breadth and built-in reports. API-first vendors (DataForSEO, SerpApi, Bright Data) compete on price per row and reliability. Most teams now buy from both, which is why the question has shifted from "which suite replaces Semrush" to "which API replaces this one Semrush workflow".

You don't always need an API

Here's what most of these lists skip: many people searching for an API alternative don't need an API. They want an outcome, usually "look at my site and tell me what to fix", and assume an API is the only way to get it.

An API is infrastructure. It's the right call when you're building a product, running scheduled bulk jobs or feeding a data warehouse. It's the wrong call when you just want a prioritized plan for your own site, because building the analysis layer costs more engineering time than the analysis is worth.

When a raw data API is the right call

Buy an API when you are:

Building a product that needs SEO data as an input (a rank tracker, a content tool, a dashboard).
Running scheduled bulk pulls of thousands of keywords or domains.
Feeding a warehouse and running your own models on the data.
Collecting competitor data at scale, which no free source provides.

In those cases DataForSEO or SerpApi is the right buy, and for bulk work the bill usually comes out well below a Business plan plus API units.

When you need the analysis, not the rows

If your goal is "tell me what's holding my rankings back and what to fix first", an API is the long way round. You'd pull the rows, then build the interpretation yourself: split-query detection, page-two opportunities, CTR gaps, indexing checks, and ranking all of it by impact.

That interpretation is what DadSEO does. Give it any URL and it audits the site and returns a plan: blockers, foundations and boosters, ranked by impact, with each fix tracked on an action board and re-checked on the next audit. Connect Search Console and the plan is weighted by your real clicks and impressions, using fixed rules to find page-two queries, low-CTR queries and queries split across your pages.

It also has an API, just a different kind: a REST API and an MCP server that run audits and return findings and actions, not raw keyword volumes. If you need search volume for keywords you don't rank for yet, you still need a data API like DataForSEO. Pricing is one-time credit packs, one credit per audit, and new accounts start with 3 free credits.

The honest split: if you're an engineer building a data product, buy the data API. If you're a practitioner who wants the analysis done, buy the analysis. Many Semrush API searches are the second case dressed as the first.

How to choose

Work through these in order:

Name the data you actually pull. SERPs, keyword volumes, backlinks or your own Search Console data. Most teams need one or two, not all four.
Estimate monthly volume. Keywords × frequency × rows per query. This decides whether per-row, per-request or per-search billing wins.
Check rate limits against your job size. One million requests at 10 per second is about 28 hours: fine on a schedule, too slow on demand.
Try the docs before you commit. Spend an hour on the free plan or trial credit. If auth and the first endpoint take more than an afternoon, treat that as a warning.
Decide build or buy for the analysis. If you'll build the interpretation yourself, budget the engineering time. It usually costs more than the API.
Start with Search Console if the data is your own. It's free, it's better data for your site, and it may remove the need for a paid API.

FAQ

Is there a free alternative to Semrush?

Yes. The Google Search Console API is free and covers your own site's Google organic queries, clicks, impressions, CTR and position, with 16 months of history and up to 25,000 rows per request. It doesn't give competitor keyword volumes or backlinks; for those you need a paid API such as DataForSEO, SE Ranking or Ahrefs.

Is the Semrush API free?

No. The SEO and Projects APIs are an add-on to a Business subscription and every call spends API units you buy separately. The Trends API is a separate subscription. Only the Map Rank Tracker API is open to all Semrush users without units.

Does Semrush have an API?

Yes: the SEO API, Projects API, Trends API and Local API. They return CSV or JSON depending on the endpoint. The SEO and Projects APIs need a Business subscription plus API units, so they aren't available on the Pro or Guru plans.

Who are Semrush's biggest competitors?

Ahrefs and Moz are the biggest full-suite competitors, with SE Ranking, Serpstat and SpyFu as the value challengers. For API work specifically, DataForSEO and SerpApi compete for raw SERP and keyword data, and the Search Console API covers your own site's data for free.