Semrush Free Trial 2026: Length, Card and Free Options

Semrush's standard free trial runs seven days on its marketing toolkits, and it asks for a credit card. Semrush charges a nominal amount to check the card, refunds it at once, and bills the first payment only if you stay past the trial. The free account costs $0 and needs no card, but it allows one demo project and 10 reports a day. Ahrefs offers no free trial. SE Ranking gives 14 days with no card.

Every term on this page comes from the vendor's own website, read on 10 October 2026, and prices are the US dollar figures shown on Semrush's pricing page. Several guides that rank for this query disagree on the trial length, so we used each vendor's own wording wherever it exists.

Toolradar data: of the 200 SEO tools Toolradar ranks as of October 2026, 85 (43%) have a free plan, so a free entry point is the norm in this category, not the exception.

Semrush free trial and the alternatives at a glance

The table answers the three questions most readers bring: how long, whether a card is needed, and what you actually get. Read the card column first. Semrush and Moz both take a card before the trial starts, while SE Ranking and Mangools do not on their current pages.

Option	Length	Card at signup	What you get	Source
Semrush trial	7 days	Yes, a nominal charge refunded at once	Marketing toolkits, one trial per toolkit per account	Semrush pricing
Semrush free plan	No trial, free plan	No	1 demo project, 10 reports a day	Semrush pricing
Semrush partner promo	14 days	Not stated on the page we read	Semrush PRO promo, eligibility not stated	Semrush partner page
Ahrefs	None: "We don't provide any free trials"	No card for Ahrefs Free	Free account for sites you can verify	Ahrefs help
SE Ranking	14 days	No ("No credit card required")	Starter-level usage: 10 projects, 750 tracked keywords a day, 20 AI prompts a day	SE Ranking pricing
Moz Pro	Not stated on Moz's pages we read	Yes, required	Trial on Medium-level plans, with a charge of up to $1 that is voided	Moz help
Mangools	Not stated on the current page	No	Free plan with no card, Free+ sign-up with no card	Mangools sign-up

Moz and Mangools do not state their trial length on their current pricing and trial pages, so the table says so instead of guessing. The only Mangools length we found in writing is a 10-day Free+ period in a June 2023 post. Treat that as dated until Mangools states it again. SE Ranking's 14 days with no card is the longest verified card-free trial in this table, which makes it the better pick if you want a longer test without a card.

What the seven-day Semrush trial includes

Semrush's help center lists a "7-day free trial available for all plans" across its toolkits, covering SEO with AI Search, Traffic & Market, Local, Content, Social, Advertising and AI PR. The trial page offers "free 7-day access to our marketing toolkits." Three rules decide what you actually get.

Each toolkit gets one trial per account. The help center says "Each toolkit trial can be activated once per account." You can start an SEO trial this week and an Advertising trial later, but you cannot repeat the same one.

Past customers do not get the SEO trial. The help center says that if you "currently have, or previously had, a trial or paid subscription for one or more toolkits, you aren't eligible for free access to the SEO or Traffic & Market Toolkits." If you paid for Semrush before, expect the paywall on day one.

Exports are the open question. The help center says "exporting data is disabled during the trial period." A Semrush blog post says "you can also export much of what you find during your trial." Test an export in the first hour, so you know early whether the data can leave the platform.

Why some pages say 14 days

Two Semrush pages use the number 14, and neither is the standard trial. The partner page for Semrush PRO says "Try Semrush free for 14 days. Cancel anytime." beside an activation button, but it does not say whether a card is needed or who qualifies. The help center also lists a 14-day free trial for the Agency Partners Platform add-on. A reader who lands on either page may think the standard trial is two weeks, so check which offer your sign-up link gives you before you enter a card.

The card, the charge and the cancellation window

Semrush's pricing page is the clearest statement of the card rule: "We will charge a nominal amount to your credit card to check its validity; once confirmed, it will be immediately refunded. Until your Semrush trial period ends you won't be charged." The card is on file from day one. The trial is free of charge, but it is not free of a payment step.

Cancellation has three moving parts, and they run against you if you wait. First, submit the Cancellation Form while signed in to the account that holds the trial. Second, Semrush emails a confirmation link that is valid for 24 hours, and you must click it: "If you do not confirm your cancellation within 24 hours, it will not be processed, and billing will continue." Third, Semrush's refund policy says cancellation of an unpaid trial takes effect "within 3 business days of receipt of your request." A request sent on the final day can therefore land after the charge date. Send the cancellation by day five at the latest, and check your spam folder for the link.

If you do pay, the money-back guarantee has limits. The help center says the guarantee for initial subscription purchases "applies only to subscriptions with a commitment of 12 months or longer." A monthly plan that starts when the trial ends sits outside that guarantee.

What the Semrush free account gives you

The free plan is the no-card path into Semrush. The pricing page lists it as "Free. $0/mo. For trying out the platform. No credit card required." It includes one demo project and 10 reports a day across the tools. Semrush's free-account guide spells out the daily and monthly caps:

Tool	Free account limit
Domain Overview	10 queries a day
Keyword Research	10 queries a day
Backlinks	10 queries a day
Site Audit	100 URLs a month
Position Tracking	10 keywords
On-page SEO Checker	One campaign of up to 10 pages or keywords
AI writing tools	3 uses a day each

The daily caps decide whether the free account is enough for your job. Each new keyword search counts toward the 10-a-day limit, so vetting 50 candidate keywords takes five days at one search per keyword. A sweep of 20 competitor domains through Domain Overview takes two days. Position Tracking covers 10 keywords on the free plan, enough to watch a handful of pages and nowhere near a full campaign. A full campaign needs the trial or a paid tier.

Free alternatives when the trial is not enough

Three free options need no trial, and each has a catch stated on the vendor's own page.

Ahrefs Free. Ahrefs says the account "allows free-forever, limited access to our core tools," and its FAQ answers the card question with "No credit card, no trial period, no hidden charges." Site Explorer, Site Audit and Web Analytics need proof that you own the site. The limits include 5,000 Site Audit crawl credits a month per project and 1,000 backlinks and keywords visible at once in Site Explorer. Because those tools need ownership, the free account cannot run a competitor sweep the way a paid plan can.

Google Keyword Planner. The tool is free to use, but Google's help article says "You must complete your account setup by entering your billing information to access basic features like 'Get ideas for new keywords'." You need a Google Ads account with billing details first. So it is free to use, but it is not a card-free trial.

Mangools Free. The FAQ says "Our Free plan is completely free, and we don't require a credit card to activate it." The current sign-up page offers a Free+ tier with "No Credit Card Required," but it does not state how long Free+ lasts.

For a one-off check of your own site, Ahrefs Free needs no card and no deadline. For a full test of Semrush's toolkits across the week, the seven-day trial is the more complete option, as long as you plan the cancellation before you sign up. If your evaluation reaches beyond SEO, see our roundup of free email marketing software and our best brand monitoring tools.

How to use the seven days

Pick the one job the trial must prove: a competitor comparison, a site audit, or a rank check on your own keywords. Run that job on day one, and test the export in the same session. Keep the middle days for the work that needs the most data, then set a reminder for day five. That reminder covers the 24-hour confirmation link and the 3-business-day cancellation window, and it leaves time to fix a bad sign-up before the charge date. If the trial shows a content gap rather than a ranking gap, our best content optimization tools roundup covers the on-page side.

What you pay after the trial

If you keep Semrush, the US dollar prices on the pricing page are the following. The SEO plan costs $139 a month, or $117.33 a month billed annually. Starter costs $199 a month, or $165.17 billed annually, and adds 50 prompts a day to track. Pro+ costs $299 a month, or $248.17 billed annually. Advanced costs $549 a month, or $455.67 billed annually.

The annual rate changes the arithmetic. Starter billed yearly comes to $1,982.04 a year ($165.17 times 12), against $2,388 a year on the monthly plan. That is a $405.96 difference. The saving requires a 12-month commitment, and that is also the term the money-back guarantee covers. Our Semrush review covers what each tier adds beyond the trial, and our Mailchimp pricing breakdown works through plan costs for an email tool the same way.

Who should start the trial and who should skip it

Start the trial if you need Semrush's toolkits for a defined job within a week, and you can cancel by day five without fuss. Agencies and marketing teams that want to check how several toolkits behave before committing fit this pattern best, because each toolkit trial runs on its own clock.

Skip the trial if your question is about backlinks and index depth rather than the toolkit as a whole. The Ahrefs pricing breakdown and our Ahrefs vs Semrush comparison cover that choice in detail. Skip it too if you already used Semrush on a paid plan, because the free SEO and Traffic & Market trials are closed to you. If you need one suite for marketing automation rather than an SEO toolkit, start with our best marketing automation software roundup.

How we checked

Each term comes from the vendor's own pages, blog posts or help centers, read on 10 October 2026, with prices shown in US dollars on the vendor's pricing page. Where a vendor states no trial length, the table says so. This page reports published terms only, not a trial we signed up for. The one first-party figure, the free-plan share, comes from Toolradar's SEO ranking, updated October 2026, which counts 253 tools evaluated and 200 ranked. For the vendor-level data software buyers use, Toolradar keeps profiles for Semrush, Ahrefs, SE Ranking, Moz Pro and Mangools.

FAQ

How long is the Semrush free trial in 2026?

Seven days. Semrush's pricing page says "Try Semrush free for seven days. Cancel anytime." A 14-day offer shows up only on a Semrush partner page and for the Agency Partners Platform add-on, so check which offer your sign-up link gives you.

Do I need a credit card for the Semrush free trial?

Yes. Semrush says it will charge a nominal amount to check the card and refund it immediately, and it does not charge you until the trial ends. The free plan needs no card at all.

Can I get a second Semrush free trial?

Not for the same toolkit. Each toolkit trial can be activated once per account, and anyone who had a trial or paid subscription for a toolkit is not eligible for free access to the SEO or Traffic & Market toolkits.

Does Semrush have a free plan?

Yes. The free plan costs $0 and needs no credit card. It includes one demo project, 10 reports a day, and 10 queries a day each for domain overview, keyword research and backlinks.

Is there a free trial of Ahrefs?

No. Ahrefs says "We don't provide any free trials." Its no-card option is Ahrefs Free, a permanent but limited account where the site tools need you to verify the site first.

How do I cancel the Semrush trial without paying?

Submit the Cancellation Form while signed in to the account that holds the trial, then click the link in the confirmation email within 24 hours. Semrush says an unpaid trial cancellation takes effect within three business days of the request, so send it several days before the trial ends.

Cite this: MarketingShot, "Semrush Free Trial 2026: Length, Card and Free Options", October 2026.

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