Semrush SaaS Credits

Semrush is an online marketing research platform best known for search engine optimisation (SEO). You type in a website or a keyword, and it shows you who ranks on Google for what, how much traffic those pages are likely getting, which sites link to them, and what ads competitors are running. For a founder, it answers practical questions: which searches your customers actually make, why a competitor shows up above you, and what is broken on your own site.

Over time Semrush has grown from a single SEO tool into a set of toolkits. Its help centre lists SEO, AI Visibility, Traffic & Market, Local, Content, Social, Advertising and AI PR. The newer AI Visibility side tracks how often your brand appears in answers from AI assistants and in Google's AI Overviews, which matters as more people search by asking a chatbot.

Its keyword data is large and international. Semrush says it has over 28 billion keywords across 142 geographic databases, and India is one of the countries it covers. That means you can research Indian search demand directly rather than guessing from US numbers, which often differ sharply.

This perk is a free trial, not a discount. You get the paid product for a week, then decide whether it is worth paying for.

Keyword research

The Keyword Magic Tool expands one seed term into thousands of related searches, with search volume, intent and a difficulty score that tells you how hard a term will be to rank for. You can filter the list down to the opportunities that fit your goals, and the Keyword Strategy Builder groups keywords into topic clusters you can turn into a content plan.

Competitor research

Enter any competitor's domain to see their organic rankings, top pages, estimated traffic and the ads they run. Keyword Gap shows the searches where competitors rank and you don't, which is often the fastest way to find content worth writing.

Technical site audit

Site Audit crawls your website and lists issues that hurt search visibility: broken links, slow or blocked pages, missing tags and duplicate content. The output works as a technical to-do list you can hand straight to a developer.

Rank tracking

Position Tracking monitors where your pages rank for chosen keywords across locations, devices and search engines. For places outside its standard databases, Semrush says Position Tracking can report rankings for any location you choose, which helps if you sell in a specific Indian city.

Backlink analysis

See which sites link to you and to competitors, and which sources AI assistants cite when they mention your brand. Useful for planning outreach and spotting link opportunities.

AI visibility

Measure how often your brand shows up in AI assistant answers and AI Overviews, see the prompts people use, and check how AI tools describe you compared with competitors.

Content, ads and reporting

Other toolkits cover drafting SEO articles from a brief, advertising research, local listings and reviews, social media, digital PR, and branded reports you can schedule for a co-founder or investor.

This trial is a good fit if organic search is, or should be, a real customer channel for you:

• SaaS and B2B startups that win customers through blog content, comparison pages and product-led search.
• D2C and ecommerce brands that want to rank category and product pages instead of paying for every click.
• Content-led startups and marketplaces where traffic is the product.
• Founders hiring an agency or a first marketer who want to understand the landscape before they brief someone, or check what an agency is promising.
• Teams planning paid ads who want to see what competitors bid on before spending.

You can probably skip it if:

• You sell mostly through offline channels, enterprise sales or referrals, and search plays little part in how buyers find you.
• You are pre-product and don't yet have a website or a clear list of competitors. A week of trial access goes to waste without something to analyse.
• You only need basics. Google Search Console is free and shows your own site's queries and clicks.
• You can't commit a few focused hours during the trial week. The value comes from running the audits and research, not from browsing dashboards.

Be realistic about the price after the trial too. Semrush's paid plans are priced in US dollars, which is a real monthly cost for an early-stage Indian team.

This perk gives you a 7-day free trial of Semrush's paid plans, offered as the Pro or Guru tier. During the trial you get the paid feature set, so you can run competitor research, keyword research, a full site audit and rank tracking on your own site rather than working inside the limited free account.

A few terms to know before you start, all from Semrush's own help pages:

• A card is needed. You add a valid payment card to activate the trial. Semrush states that your first payment is charged automatically at the end of the trial unless you cancel beforehand.
• Cancel any time during the week at no charge. If Semrush isn't right for you, cancel before the trial ends.
• One trial per toolkit per account. If you have already had a trial or a paid SEO subscription on your account, you may not be eligible again.
• Exports are switched off during the trial. Semrush's help centre says exporting data is disabled in the trial period, so plan to read results on screen, take notes, or screenshot what you need.

There are no eligibility requirements for this perk. Any founder with a website to analyse can use it.

One thing to check at sign-up: Semrush has recently renamed its plans, so the tiers shown on its checkout may use different names. Pick the plan that matches what you need and note the price it will convert to.

If you don't cancel, the trial converts to the plan you picked. At the time of writing, Semrush's pricing page lists these plans, billed monthly in US dollars:

• SEO: $139 a month, with 5 websites to monitor and 500 keywords to track daily.
• Starter (SEO + AI Search): $199 a month, adding AI search tracking.
• Pro+ (SEO + AI Search): $299 a month, with 15 websites to monitor and 1,500 keywords to track daily.
• Advanced: custom pricing on request.

Paying annually lowers the price; Semrush says you can save up to 17%. There is also a free plan with 1 demo project and 10 reports per day, which is enough for occasional checks.

On refunds, Semrush's policy says refunds are not available for month-to-month subscriptions. Its 7-day money-back guarantee applies only to initial purchases with a commitment of twelve months or more, bought directly with a credit card. So if you don't want to pay, cancel during the trial rather than counting on a refund.

1. Tap the apply button on this page. It takes you to Semrush's sign-up page with the trial attached.
2. Create your Semrush account, or log in if you already have one. Note that a previous trial or subscription on the same account can make you ineligible.
3. Choose the plan you want to trial, offered as Pro or Guru. If the names on screen differ, compare the limits and pick the one closest to what you would actually pay for.
4. Add a valid payment card to verify the account. You won't be charged during the trial week, but the card will be billed automatically when the trial ends unless you cancel.
5. Set a reminder a day before the trial ends so you can decide calmly whether to keep it.
6. To cancel, log in and submit Semrush's cancellation form. Semrush then emails a confirmation link that is valid for 24 hours; you must click it, or the cancellation won't go through and billing will continue.

Keep the confirmation email once the cancellation is processed, in case you need to show it later.

A week goes fast. Do the set-up work on day one:

• Start Position Tracking immediately. Add your site, your target keywords and two or three competitors. Semrush notes that the sooner you set it up, the more ranking data you collect during the trial.
• Run Site Audit on your own site early, then work through the error list. Fixing technical issues is the most concrete thing you will get out of the week.
• Use Keyword Gap against your closest competitors to find searches they win and you don't. Note the 20 or 30 most relevant ones by hand, since exports are switched off.
• Set the database to India (or your target market) before running keyword research, so volumes reflect your actual buyers.
• Write up a 90-day content plan from what you find before the trial ends. That document keeps its value even if you cancel.

• Ahrefs: The closest direct rival, especially strong on backlink data and site exploration. It suits teams focused on link building and content, though it doesn't cover advertising research as broadly as Semrush.
• Moz Pro: A long-standing SEO suite with keyword research, rank tracking and its own domain authority score. Often seen as simpler to learn, with a smaller overall feature set.
• SE Ranking: An all-in-one SEO platform popular with small businesses and agencies for rank tracking, audits and white-label reporting, generally positioned as a lighter, more affordable option.
• Ubersuggest: A beginner-friendly keyword and site audit tool. Good for founders who want the basics without the depth, or the learning curve, of the larger suites.
• Google Search Console: Free from Google. It shows the searches your own site appears for, clicks and indexing problems. It can't show competitor data, but every startup should set it up regardless of which paid tool it picks.