SpyFu vs Semrush comes down to what you are buying for. If you want to see what your competitors bid on in Google Ads and which organic keywords they rank for, on a small budget, SpyFu does that from $39 a month with ten plus years of history. If you need competitor data plus content, local, site audit and agency tooling across many countries, Semrush is the broader platform, and it costs more: $139 a month for its SEO plan and a separate $99 a month for its Advertising Toolkit.
Every price below was read off the vendors' own pricing pages and help centers in September 2026, not copied from another comparison. That matters for this pair in particular, because the SpyFu vs Semrush results on page one include a 2023 post and several that quote plans or country counts that have since changed.
SpyFu vs Semrush pricing, side by side
The two vendors package things differently. SpyFu sells one product in three sizes, with organic and paid competitor data in every plan. Semrush now sells toolkits: the SEO plans cover organic research, and paid search competitor research sits in the Advertising Toolkit, priced separately.
| Plan | Monthly | Billed annually | What it is for |
|---|---|---|---|
| SpyFu Basic | $39 | $29/mo | 10,000 row results and exports, 5,000 weekly tracked keywords, 1 user |
| SpyFu Pro + AI | $59 first month, then $119 | $89/mo | Unlimited results and exports, 15,000 tracked keywords, 10 projects |
| SpyFu Team / Agency | $249 | $187/mo | Unlimited data, 50,000 tracked keywords, 5 users |
| Semrush SEO | $139 | $117.33/mo | Organic research, 5 websites, 500 keywords tracked daily |
| Semrush Advertising Base | $99 | not quoted | Advertising Research, PLA Research, ad copy assistant |
| Semrush Advertising Pro | $220 | not quoted | Base plus AdClarity for display, video and social ads |
Put those together and the gap is wide. A team that wants both organic and paid competitor data pays SpyFu $39, or $119 once the row cap bites. The same team on Semrush pays $139 for SEO plus $99 for advertising, $238 a month before any extra seats. SpyFu's annual billing saves 25 percent; Semrush's saves about 16 percent on the SEO plan.
Two details are easy to miss. SpyFu's $59 Pro + AI headline is a first month price, and the plan renews at $119, so a year paid monthly costs $1,368 against $1,068 billed annually. And SpyFu offers no free trial, only a 30 day money back guarantee, while Semrush runs a 7 day trial that asks for a card. More on how that trial works in our Semrush free trial breakdown.
Which has better competitor PPC data, SpyFu or Semrush?
For Google Ads history on a budget, SpyFu. Its whole product grew out of recording which keywords domains buy and which ad copy they run, and every plan includes more than ten years of it. You can open a competitor and see the ads they tested, the ones they kept running, and roughly what they spend, which is the question most PPC managers are actually asking.
Semrush's Advertising Research covers the same ground with a broader geographic spread, and the Pro toolkit adds AdClarity for display, video and social ads, something SpyFu does not sell. But AdClarity on that plan is limited to one location, three months of history and one channel, so it is a sampler rather than a research archive. If your rivals advertise mostly on Meta or TikTok rather than Google, a dedicated tool that can watch a rival's ads, pricing and site changes week to week fills that gap more directly than either.
Is SpyFu better than Semrush for SEO keyword research?
Not overall, though it is closer than its reputation suggests for US research. SpyFu publishes a claim that its database holds more SEO and PPC keywords than Semrush for the markets it covers, and its help center lists 32 countries, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. Several roundups still quote a much smaller country count, which is out of date. Semrush's own documentation describes a Keyword Magic Tool database of more than 27 billion keywords, and it covers far more countries.
Where Semrush clearly wins is everything around the keyword: SERP features, intent labels, topic research, local rankings, site audits and reporting. Where SpyFu wins is price per row. Pro + AI gives unlimited search results and unlimited exports for $119 a month. Semrush meters results and exports by plan, and seed keyword lookups in the Keyword Magic Tool are capped per hour.
Neither tool clusters the keywords it finds into pages. Both give you lists. If the slow part of your week is turning a 5,000 row export into a content calendar, that is a separate job. We built KeywordPilot as the planning step after a SpyFu export: upload the CSV, get intent clusters, one page per cluster, in a publishing order.
SpyFu vs Semrush for agencies
Seats change the math more than headline prices. SpyFu Team / Agency includes five users for $249 a month and charges $30 for each extra seat. Semrush charges per additional user on every plan, from $45 a month, so a five person team on the SEO plan adds $180 or more on top of $139 before anyone touches the Advertising Toolkit.
SpyFu also lists white labeled reporting and sales lead exports (250 to 1,000 leads by plan) in its plan table, which is why PPC agencies in particular stay with it for years. Semrush has deeper client reporting and a Lead Gen add on at $90 a month, but its agency setup is the more expensive of the two by a wide margin. For a full breakdown of what the agency tiers across the category cost, see our SEO software for agencies guide.
Who should buy which
| If you are | Buy | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A small business running Google Ads | SpyFu Basic | Competitor ads and keywords for $39, no toolkit add on |
| A PPC agency | SpyFu Team / Agency | Five seats, unlimited exports and white label reports for $249 |
| An in-house SEO team with a wide remit | Semrush SEO | Audits, local, content and intent data in one login |
| A marketer running paid and organic across many countries | Semrush SEO plus Advertising | Broader geography on both sides, at $238 a month |
| A content team with exports it never acts on | Either, plus a planner | Neither tool groups keywords into pages or orders them |
Is SpyFu worth it compared to Semrush?
Yes, if paid search is part of your job and your markets are on SpyFu's list of 32 countries. Four months of SpyFu Pro + AI at the renewal price costs about the same as two months of Semrush SEO plus Advertising, and for Google Ads competitor work you give up little. If your work is mostly organic, spread across many countries, or you need audits and local rank tracking, Semrush earns its higher price.
A reasonable way to test both without much risk: take Semrush's 7 day trial for the breadth question, and SpyFu's 30 day money back guarantee for the ad history question, then keep the one you opened more often. If you are also weighing Ahrefs, our Ahrefs vs Semrush comparison uses the same primary source pricing.
Common questions
Is SpyFu cheaper than Semrush?
Yes. SpyFu Basic costs $39 a month and includes paid and organic competitor data. Semrush's SEO plan costs $139 a month, and its Advertising Toolkit is another $99. Even SpyFu's Pro + AI plan at $119 costs less than Semrush's cheapest SEO plan, and it includes unlimited exports.
Does Semrush have more data than SpyFu?
Across the world, yes. Semrush covers far more countries and more data types, including local, SERP features and display ads. For Google results in the US and the 31 other countries SpyFu lists, the gap is much smaller, and SpyFu's ten plus years of ad history is deeper than most of what Semrush shows by default.
Can I use SpyFu and Semrush together?
Many teams do, usually SpyFu for Google Ads competitor history and Semrush for site audits, local and content work. At $39 plus $139 a month, that pairing costs less than Semrush SEO with the Advertising Toolkit added.
Put it into practice
The fastest way to apply this article: run your own niche through the free KeywordPilot demo. One seed keyword, twenty seconds, a clustered mini content plan. No account.