Semrush AI toolkit alternative: ShownInAI vs Semrush

The short answer

Choose Semrush if your team already pays for Semrush, runs SEO in it every day and has someone who will turn AI visibility data into content. The AI Visibility Toolkit costs $99 a month per domain on its pricing page, tracks 25 custom prompts daily, includes 300 AI analysis reports a day and an AI-readiness site audit, and sits next to the SEO tools you already use. Its help centre says there is no free trial of the toolkit itself.

Choose ShownInAI if you are a founder, a small SaaS team or an agency with small clients, and nobody has time to turn a dashboard into pages. For $9 in the first month we check 10 real buyer questions, show which competitors AI names instead of you and which sources it trusts, and write the 3 pages most likely to get you named. After that it is $29 a month, with 3 new pages every month. If AI answers still do not name you within 60 days, you get everything you paid back.

Semrush is a measurement and research platform with an AI module. ShownInAI is a done-for-you service in software form: it measures less, and spends the effort on writing the pages. The rest of this page covers prices, features and the cases where each one is the better buy.

What Semrush's AI tools cost in 2026

Semrush sells AI visibility in three ways, all listed on its own pricing pages, which we checked on 22 October 2026. The first is the standalone AI Visibility Toolkit at $99 a month per domain. Its help centre lists what that buys: 1 project, 1 domain for Brand Performance analysis, 300 daily queries in AI Analysis reports, 1,000 daily queries in Prompt Research, 25 prompts for Prompt Tracking, AI search checks in Site Audit for up to 100 pages and 10 CSV exports a day. With the toggle on Monthly the price is still $99, so annual billing brings no discount on this toolkit.

The second is Semrush One, which bundles the SEO Toolkit and the AI Visibility Toolkit. On monthly billing, Starter is $199 a month (5 websites, 500 keywords tracked daily, 50 prompts tracked daily) and Pro+ is $299 a month (15 websites, 1,500 keywords, 100 prompts, plus historical SEO data and content optimization). Billed annually those fall to $165.17 and $248.17 a month. Advanced is a custom price behind a demo request. Semrush One plans come with a 7-day free trial. The plain SEO plan, $139.95 a month on monthly billing, includes AI visibility reports for any domain but, according to Semrush's subscription guide, no dedicated prompt-tracking quota.

The third route is add-ons. 50 more tracked prompts cost $60 a month, each extra domain or location in Brand Performance costs $99 a month, and the help centre says every teammate who needs the toolkit needs their own $99 licence. If you want Semrush to write content too, the Content Toolkit is a separate subscription at $60 a month, which lists 10,000 generated articles and 5 SEO content boosts a month.

ShownInAI has one plan for a single brand. Starter is $9 for the first month, then $29 a month, and includes the scan, 3 written pages, 3 new pages every month and tracking every 14 days. The Agency plan is $99 a month for up to 10 client sites with white-label PDF reports. The $49 AI Visibility Report is a one-time purchase if you only want to see where you stand.

Put simply: tracking plus AI-written drafts on Semrush starts at $159 a month ($99 toolkit plus $60 Content Toolkit), before anyone edits a word. ShownInAI is $29 a month after the first month, with the pages already chosen and written for the buyer questions where you are missing.

What Semrush does better

• One login for SEO and AI search. If you already use Semrush for keywords, rank tracking and audits, the AI toolkit adds a new layer without a new vendor, and Semrush One bundles both.
• Prompt research. Semrush describes Prompt Research as keyword research for AI, with topic-level volume, difficulty and intent. ShownInAI picks your buyer questions for you but does not publish volume estimates.
• Visibility reports for any domain. You can benchmark competitors and prospects without setting each one up as a project, within 300 reports a day.
• More prompts, tracked daily. 25 custom prompts daily on the toolkit, 50 to 100 on Semrush One, and 220+ countries and territories for prompt tracking, against our 10 buyer questions every 14 days.
• Brand perception analysis. Brand Performance reports cover share of voice, sentiment and the narratives AI repeats about you, refreshed weekly, with AI-generated recommendations.
• Technical checks. The AI-readiness Site Audit flags issues that could stop AI crawlers reading your pages, and the wider Semrush suite covers backlinks, local SEO, ads and PR.
• A free plan to look around, and a 7-day trial on the Semrush One bundles.

What ShownInAI does better

• It writes the pages. Semrush can tell you that a competitor wins a buyer question. Somebody still has to decide which page answers it, write it and publish it. ShownInAI writes 3 publish-ready pages straight after payment, with FAQ schema, and 3 new ones every month, aimed at the exact questions where AI names someone else.
• It costs far less. $9 for the first month and $29 a month after that, against $99 a month for the toolkit alone, $159 with the Content Toolkit or $199 for Semrush One Starter.
• No prompt list to build. Semrush tracks the prompts you enter. We choose the unbranded buyer questions that matter for your category, such as "best [category]", "[competitor] alternatives" and "X vs Y", so you are not guessing what to track.
• It puts money on the result. If AI answers still do not name you within 60 days, we refund everything you have paid. If the first month is not useful, email us within 7 days and we refund the $9.
• It is cheaper for agencies with many small clients. $99 a month covers 10 client sites with white-label PDF reports, about $10 a client. On Semrush, each extra Brand Performance domain is another $99 a month.
• It is quick to start. Give us your website address and the scan runs in about a minute. No projects to configure, no seats to assign and nothing to install.

Why the written pages matter

We ran unbranded buyer questions such as "best [category]", "[competitor] alternatives" and "X vs Y" through AI search for 50 software brands. 39 of the 50 were never named in any answer to their own category's buyer questions, and all 30 brands that had launched in the previous month scored 0.

The sources explain why. In 33 of the 50 cases, the most cited source was a competitor's own website: its comparison pages, docs and help centre. Review sites were the top source for only 6 of 50 brands. The pages that decide who gets recommended are mostly pages companies wrote about themselves and their rivals.

That is the gap between an SEO suite and what a small brand actually needs. Good keyword and prompt data will confirm that you are missing and show which rival pages are being quoted. What changes the answer is a page of your own that answers the same buyer question clearly and honestly: a comparison page, an alternatives page, a plain answer page. A generic article generator will not pick those topics for you. ShownInAI starts from the questions you are losing and writes those pages.

Which one fits you

1. 01Solo founder or small SaaS team with no content person: ShownInAI Starter. $9 to start, pages written for you, and a 60-day guarantee if it does not work.
2. 02In-house SEO team already paying for Semrush, with writers who publish every week: add the Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit ($99 a month) or move to Semrush One. You get AI data next to your SEO data, and your team does the writing.
3. 03Larger brand tracking hundreds of prompts across regions and products: Semrush One Advanced or Semrush Enterprise. ShownInAI does not try to compete at that scale.
4. 04Agency selling AI visibility to many small clients: ShownInAI Agency at $99 a month for 10 sites, white-labelled, with pages written for each client. Agencies already standardised on Semrush may prefer to keep everything in one suite and pay per domain.
5. 05Not sure yet: buy the $49 ShownInAI report, or open a free Semrush account and look at the limited AI visibility reports, and see what your own buyer questions return before committing.

Can you use both?

Yes, and it is a common setup. Plenty of teams keep Semrush for SEO and add ShownInAI to get AI-ready pages written each month, instead of paying for a second Semrush toolkit and the writing time behind it. Nothing in either tool locks you in. The deciding question is simple: is your problem a lack of data, or a lack of pages?

How to move from the Semrush toolkit to ShownInAI

1. 01Export your tracked prompts and the competitors and cited sources from Semrush (the toolkit allows 10 CSV exports a day).
2. 02Start ShownInAI for $9 with your website address. The scan runs straight after payment and takes about a minute.
3. 03Compare our competitors and sources with your Semrush data. They are usually similar, because both tools read real AI answers.
4. 04Publish the 3 pages we write on your own site, then link to them from your pricing page, docs or blog so they are easy to find.
5. 05Keep your Semrush SEO plan if you use it for SEO, and drop the AI toolkit add-on if our 14-day checks are enough for you.

How we checked these facts

Semrush's prices and plan contents on this page come from Semrush's own public pages, checked on 22 October 2026: the AI Visibility Toolkit pricing page (with the billing toggle on Monthly and on Annually), the Semrush One and SEO pricing page, the Content Toolkit pricing page, the AI Visibility Toolkit help-centre article (limits, add-ons, licences, no free trial) and the subscriptions guide. Prices are in US dollars as shown to us and may differ by region or change, so check the source before you buy. ShownInAI's numbers come from our own pricing page. If anything here about Semrush is wrong or out of date, email [email protected] and we will correct it.