Short answer, because you probably want it before anything else. Semrush has a free account that never expires, and a free trial that gives you the full paid product for a week. They are two different things, and most of the confusion online comes from people mixing them up.
I have used both. Below is exactly what each one lets you do, where the free version stops being useful, and how to decide which route fits your situation.
The free Semrush account
You can create an account with just an email address. No card, no trial timer, nothing to cancel. It stays free forever.
What you get is real, just small:
- 10 searches a day across the reports
- 10 results per report, so you see the top of the list and nothing else
- 1 project
- 100 keywords in position tracking
- 100 pages crawled in the site audit
- No exports
Those ten daily searches vanish faster than you expect. On my first free day I checked my own domain, two competitors, three keywords and a backlink profile, and I was locked out before lunch. That is not Semrush being unfair. It is the free tier doing its job, which is to show you what is behind the wall.
Who the free account is genuinely good for
It works if you need a quick number now and then. Checking the difficulty of one keyword before writing, looking up a competitor’s top pages once a week, or seeing roughly how much traffic a site gets. For that rhythm it is fine and it costs nothing.
It stops working the moment you want to do a project properly. You cannot export a keyword list, you cannot crawl a real site, and you cannot see the gap reports that make the tool special.
The free trial
The trial is the paid product with no payment. For 7 days, and sometimes 14 days through a partner link, you are a Pro or Guru customer in every way that matters. Thousands of reports a day, ten to thirty thousand results per report, full crawls, exports, gap analysis, all of it.
A card is required at signup. Nothing is charged while the trial runs. If you cancel before the last day, no payment ever happens. I explain the exact cancel steps in this short guide, and it takes under two minutes.
| What matters | Free account | Free trial |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | $0 forever | $0 for 7 to 14 days |
| Card needed | No | Yes, not charged during the trial |
| Searches a day | 10 | 3,000 to 5,000 |
| Results shown | 10 | 10,000 to 30,000 |
| Keyword gap report | Locked | Open |
| CSV exports | No | Yes |
| Site audit | 100 pages | 20,000 pages and up |
Use the paid version without paying
The trial is the only way to see the reports that actually change your plan: keyword gap, backlink gap and a full crawl of your site. Seven days is enough if you go in with a plan.
Start my free trial Takes about 60 seconds. Card needed to verify, no charge during the trial.The free Semrush tools anyone can use
Separate from the account, Semrush publishes a set of tools that need no login at all. These are worth bookmarking even if you never pay:
- A keyword generator that returns a decent starter list
- A backlink checker limited to the first hundred links
- A website traffic checker for rough estimates
- The SEO Writing Assistant with a limited number of checks
- The free courses at Semrush Academy, which are better than most paid courses I have bought
The academy point is not filler. I sent a junior writer through the keyword research course and she came back able to build a brief on her own. It cost nothing.
So which should you choose
Here is how I would decide if I were you.
Take the free account if you only need occasional numbers, you are not ready to act on a full research project, or you are simply not comfortable entering a card. Nothing wrong with any of those.
Take the trial if you have a week where you can actually sit down and work. The value is not in poking around the dashboard. It is in finishing the week holding a keyword list, an audit, a gap report and a backlink export that you can act on for the next three months.
I have done both, in that order. The free account made me curious. The trial is what made me a customer, because on day four the gap report showed me eleven topics a competitor was quietly ranking for that I had never considered writing about.
Common questions
Is the free account a trial that expires later?
No. It stays free. The limits never loosen, but they never tighten either.
Can I use the free trial twice?
Not on the same card and email. Semrush checks. People try clever workarounds and mostly end up with a locked account, which is a bad trade for a second week of access.
Is there a free Semrush alternative?
Google Search Console and Google Keyword Planner are free and genuinely useful, though neither shows you competitor data. I compare the paid options properly in my piece on Semrush alternatives.
Will I be charged if I forget to cancel?
Yes, the plan renews at the normal price when the trial ends. That is why I cancel on day five out of habit, keep access until the last day, and let the calendar do the worrying for me.