The two parts of the Semrush API bill
The first part is access. Semrush's developer documentation says the Standard API is for SEO Toolkit users on the Business subscription, which in the current lineup maps to the top Advanced tier. That is a fixed monthly cost whether you pull one report or a million.
The second part is units. After you upgrade, your unit balance is zero. You buy a package on the Subscription info page or through sales, and every request spends units from that balance. The price per unit is not on the public pages, which is why most cost guides stop at the subscription number. For an agency the unit count is the number you can work out yourself, so that is the number worth doing before you talk to sales.
How Semrush API units are counted
Cost depends on the report and on how many lines come back. Semrush's worked example for the Domain Organic Search Keywords report charges 10 units per line of current data and 50 units per line of historical data. Empty responses cost nothing, and so do balance-check calls. A display limit parameter caps the lines returned, which caps the cost of a call.
Three things follow from that. Depth costs money, because asking for 500 keywords is 500 lines. History costs five times more than current data. And cost scales with clients, since every client domain is its own call.
Units used by 10, 20 and 50 client dashboards
Take one client dashboard that pulls the top 500 organic keywords of the client domain once a week, current data only. That is 500 lines at 10 units, so 5 000 units per refresh and about 20 000 units per client per month (four refreshes).
| Clients | Units per month, current data | Same with one year of history added once per client |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | 200 000 | 200 000 plus 250 000 |
| 20 | 400 000 | 400 000 plus 500 000 |
| 50 | 1 000 000 | 1 000 000 plus 1 250 000 |
Backlink, position and competitor pulls use their own reports with their own rates, so a real dashboard sits above these figures. Multiply the unit counts by the pack price Semrush quotes you and add the 549 USD subscription. That total is your true monthly cost. Do this with three real clients, not an average one, and price in the refresh frequency you promise in the retainer.
Ways to lower a Semrush API bill
- Lower the display limit to the lines the client actually sees. Showing the top 100 keywords instead of 500 cuts a refresh by 80 percent.
- Pull current data weekly and history once. A monthly history refresh costs five times a current pull.
- Cache results. A dashboard that is opened daily does not need a daily API call.
- Stop refreshing dormant clients.
These habits matter because the unit model rewards discipline and punishes growth. Every client you add raises the bill.
When a flat row quota costs less
A flat quota changes the question from units per report to rows per month. SeoData Agency costs 299 USD per month, or 149 USD per month on yearly billing, and includes 100 000 API rows, 10 seats, white-label PDF reports and the app for backlinks, keywords, positions and audits. One record is one row, and the remaining quota appears in every response. The 50-client example above, with 1 overview row, 50 new or lost backlinks and 150 tracked positions per client per week, uses about 40 000 rows a month, 40 percent of the quota.
Semrush wins on depth. Its keyword database, traffic analytics and Projects API are larger than ours, and a team that lives in Semrush reports has little reason to leave. The Semrush API pricing and alternative page sets the two side by side, and the SEO API page lists the endpoints. If you only want raw data and will build your own interface, compare it with the DataForSEO alternative breakdown too.
Cost is also about what you sell. Once the data bill is fixed, the next variable line in an agency budget is often paid media, and an AI media buyer such as adbot.ai can set up and run campaigns from a URL and a budget for clients who ask for ads next to SEO.
How to price your own workload before choosing
- List clients, items per client and the refresh frequency you sell.
- Multiply by lines per item and by the unit rate of each report.
- Ask Semrush for the unit pack price and add the subscription.
- Compare the total with a flat plan on SeoData pricing.