Semrush vs. AWR: Jack of All Trades vs. Master of Rankings
In SEO, precision isn’t optional. Strategies only succeed when powered by accurate rank tracking, granular keyword data, competitive insights, and reliable reporting.
Yet not every platform is built with depth at its core. Many offer the convenience of an all-in-one suite, but in doing so, they sacrifice the level of detail serious SEOs depend on.
Semrush is a jack-of-all-trades marketing platform, bringing SEO, PPC, content, and social tools together under one roof, ideal for teams that need a broad view across channels.
Advanced Web Ranking, on the other hand, is a dedicated enterprise-level rank tracker, built to deliver the precision, flexibility, and scalability agencies and in-house teams need to grow.
In this guide, we compare AWR and Semrush across the metrics that matter most. By the end, you’ll know exactly when to use each platform and which one gives you the reliable data and actionable insights your team can trust.
TL;DR
Semrush ≠ AWR. Semrush is a powerful all-in-one marketing suite (SEO, PPC, content, social, competitor research), but its SEO features are capped by project, user, and reporting limits.
AWR doesn’t replace Semrush, it complements it. Use Semrush for broad campaign management and discovery. Add AWR when your team scales and you need enterprise-level rank tracking, deeper SERP analysis, and unlimited reporting.
Scales with your agency. AWR includes unlimited projects, users, and white-label reports from day one. Costs rise only with keywords tracked. No surprise fees for extra seats, reports, or clients like in Semrush.
Built for precision. AWR features GPS-level location targeting, 4,000+ search engines, daily/weekly/on-demand updates, pixel-depth SERP feature tracking, and AI brand visibility across LLMs.
Enterprise features at a fraction of the price. What Semrush locks behind multiple tiers and add-ons (extra users, white-label reports, AI visibility add-on), AWR includes for one predictable price with API access, Looker Studio & BigQuery connectors, SEO forecasting, and market share insights.
Bottom Line
Use Semrush for broad marketing & discovery.
Add AWR for scalable, accurate rank tracking and unlimited reporting.
Together they cover the full SEO stack.
Who This Comparison Is For
Agencies with large client baseline, requiring faster, cleaner, and more reliable SEO reports.
In-house SEO teams tracking thousands of keywords across multiple markets and devices.
AWR vs Semrush: Quick Comparison
When evaluating SEO platforms, features can make or break your workflow. The right tool should scale with your projects, provide precise data, and simplify reporting.
Here is how Advanced Web Ranking and Semrush compare across the most important categories:
Scalability & Access
Feature | AWR | Semrush |
|---|---|---|
Projects | Unlimited in all plans | 5 (Pro), 15 (Guru), 40 (Business) |
Users | Unlimited in all plans | 1 included; $45 – $100 per extra seat |
Reports | Unlimited, white-label included | Limited; full white-label requires $20/report add-on |
Pricing Model | Based on keywords tracked | Tiered limits on projects, users, and reports; extra fees for add-ons |
Rank Tracking
Feature | AWR | Semrush |
|---|---|---|
Projects | On-demand, daily, weekly, monthly. | Scheduled updates from fixed keyword database |
Rank Tracking Frequency | GPS, ZIP code, city, region, country | Major city and region targeting; less hyperlocal coverage |
SERP Analysis
Feature | AWR | Semrush |
|---|---|---|
Search Engine Coverage | 4,000+ engines incl. YouTube, Amazon, Baidu, Naver | Primarily Google; limited coverage of other engines |
SERP Analysis | Historical archives, pixel-depth, volatility tracking | SERP feature presence only; no pixel-depth metrics |
Competitive Intelligence
Feature | AWR | Semrush |
|---|---|---|
Competitive Intelligence | Traffic-weighted market share, click share, keyword gap, up to 50 competitors | Competitor lists, visibility char |
AI Brand Visibility | Tracks brand presence in ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity with sentiment, topic visibility, and competitor share. | Monitors mentions in AI search, but lacks competitor overlap analysis |
Meet the Platforms
Advanced Web Ranking
A dedicated SEO platform built to do one thing exceptionally well: real-time keyword rank tracking.
It’s the kind of platform that doesn’t let you down, even if you’re:
Tracking hyperlocal keywords down to GPS coordinates.
Monitoring rankings in 4,000+ search engines (Google, Bing, Yandex, Baidu, YouTube, Amazon…).
Managing unlimited projects, users, and reports.
In a market crowded with multi-purpose marketing platforms, Advanced Web Ranking delivers total flexibility for tracking search performance at scale and stands apart with the best rank tracking tools. From local to global, desktop to mobile, it provides clear, pinpoint-accurate data.
Start a 7-day AWR free trial. No credit card required.
Semrush
Semrush is a jack-of-all-trades, offering a broad suite of tools for SEO, PPC, competitor research, content marketing, social media, and campaign reporting, all accessible from a single dashboard.
This all-in-one approach is convenient for marketers and digital teams who manage integrated campaigns and need to oversee multiple facets of their online strategy in one place. However, with such a wide scope, tools may lack the depth and precision found in platforms dedicated exclusively to SEO.
Scalability & Pricing
When business grows, so does the digital jungle you have to navigate. More content, more pages, more markets… and yes, more competitors crawling every keyword. Scaling should be exciting, not a budget nightmare. Here is how AWR and Semrush stack up on scalability essentials: projects, users, reports and pricing.
Projects
With Semrush, the more clients you have, the more you pay.
One of the many advantages of Advanced Web Ranking is that it treats your growth not as a premium but as a given. AWR offers unlimited projects from day one. No hidden fees, just the freedom to scale your business, whether you are handling five clients or fifty.
Semrush imposes strict limits:
Pro plan - 5 projects
Guru plan - 15 projects
Business plan - 40 projects
This is inconvenient for users who are otherwise satisfied with the features of a lower-tier plan but are forced to upgrade just to support a growing client base.
In the matter of scalability, AWR is truly the best alternative to Semrush: agencies and in-house teams can grow without hitting artificial ceilings or paying for an upgrade they don’t actually want.
Users
SEO only works as well as the team behind it, and team work best when everyone can get in.
Unlimited user access comes standard in AWR. Add your content team, your technical SEO, your boss, your boss’s boss, no extra charge. Every user gets their own login, so collaboration stays secure and organized.
Semrush is too expensive. See for yourself! It includes only one user per plan and charges extra for every additional seat. Even small teams can see costs climb quickly.
Here are the monthly plan costs for a single user ( additional user fees shown in brackets):
Pro: $140 [+$45]
Guru: $250 [+$80]
Business: $500 [+$100]
In a collaborative environment, it just makes sense to choose a platform built to scale with your team, without hiking the price every time your needs evolve.
Reports
AWR makes it simple to create professional, automated reports that look and feel like they were built in-house.
From day one it delivers exceptional value, offering:
✓ Unlimited reports with built-in scheduling and sharing via email, link, or cloud store.
✓ Fully customizable, white-label, with branding, logos, and domain.
✓ Option to send reports via your custom domain.
✓ Drag-and-drop dashboard builder for client-specific reports.
Semrush reporting is a bit like ordering a burger and finding the fries cost extra. Reporting comes with extra costs and restrictions.
Here is what you get:
Base Reports [+$10/month per client] with limited exports from only 20 tools
Pro Reports [+$20/month per client] for white-labeling, 35+ integrations, AI summaries, and scheduled delivery
Reporting is how SEO platforms communicate with clients, so it better do a good job. Depending on the plan, Semrush has limited reporting. With AWR, you can deliver unlimited, fully branded reports at scale. No counting, no extra fees.
Pricing
At first, Semrush’s plans can look similar to AWR’s, but the numbers shift once the extras start adding up: $20 here for reports, $45 there for an extra seat, one more client over your tier cap and you are bumped to the next plan.
AWR:
Semrush:
AWR vs Semrush: Monthly Pricing Comparison
AWR vs Semrush: Yearly Pricing Comparison
Rank Tracking
Rank tracking is the heartbeat of SEO. If it’s off, every other decision you make is based on the wrong signal.
Both AWR and Semrush are trusted position tracking software, so let’s take a closer look at how each handles the tracking game.
AWR: Live, Customizable Tracking Without Limits
AWR does rank tracking better than Semrush. You decide the keywords, the locations, the search engines, and AWR fetches live, on-demand data showing what is actually in the SERP right now.
You can:
Track anywhere: GPS, ZIP code, city, region, or country.
Monitor across 4,000+ search engines: Google, Bing, Yandex, Baidu, YouTube, Amazon, and more.
See pixel-level position, because being #3 above the fold is very different from #3 below two ads and a local pack.
Log SERP features, search intent, click share, and estimated visits.
Track ranking distribution to spot trends and volatility.
Break down competitor performance in detail.
Tracking features are structured around three core components:
Keyword Ranking
SERP Features - see if you’ve secured a featured snippet, image pack, video, local listing, or “People Also Ask” spot.
Search Intent - quickly spot if a term is informational, navigational, commercial, or transactional.
Click Share - measures the slice of traffic you are pulling in.
Keyword Difficulty - a color-coded score (green, yellow, red) to show how tough the competition is.
Pixel Position - find out exactly how far down the page your result lands.
Estimated Visits - see the traffic you can expect based on your rank and search volume.
Distribution
This metric tracks how your keyword positions are spread across the SERP and how that changes over time. You get a breakdown of how many keywords are sitting pretty at #1, holding steady in spots 2-5, clinging to page one in 6-10, or camping further down.
Ranking Distribution Chart - a quick visual showing how your keywords are spread across position ranges in your chosen timeframe.
Winners vs. Losers - who is moving up, who is sliding down, plus new arrivals and sudden dropouts.
Visibility Trends - your search visibility over time, expressed as a percentage of top 30 keywords.
Competitor Breakdown - a side-by-side look at where your rivals’ keywords rank, and whether they are gaining ground or losing it.
Search Engines & Keyword Comparison
Advanced Web Ranking tracks rankings across 4,000+ search engines, devices, and locations. It offers side‑by‑side rankings, performance gaps (mobile vs desktop), and change indicators (up/down arrows) making it easy to spot what is shifting.
Big campaigns? No sweat. AWR handles thousands of keywords efficiently, at the lowest cost per keyword.
Pro Plan - 7,000 keywords/week
Agency Plan - 14,500 keywords/week
Enterprise Plan - 35,500 keywords/week
Custom Plans - starting at 50,000 keywords/week
Semrush’s rank tracking runs from its massive, static keyword database. That means it delivers speed and volume, but not the hyperlocal precision or live accuracy you would need for volatile SERPs.
Daily keyword caps are:
Pro: 500 keywords/day
Guru: 1,500 keywords/day
Business: 5,000 keywords/day
Hit those limits, and your campaign costs rise substantially.
If your SEO strategy hinges on knowing exactly what is happening in the SERP at a given moment, such as during a Google algorithm update, AWR’s live custom tracking model is the clear winner. It is also a big reason why it is considered the best SEO rank tracker for agencies and in-house teams alike. Semrush is solid for broad monitoring, but it is less flexible when you need instant pinpoint accuracy.
SERP Analysis
The best SERP tools for professionals go beyond rankings, showing not only where you rank, but also why you are there, and what stands in your way.
AWR: Deep SERP Tracking
With Advanced Web Ranking, you can scroll back years and see exactly how a SERP looked for any tracked keyword. That means:
Top Sites reports for competitor benchmarking
SERP similarity and volatility tracking to catch subtle shifts
Full historical archives, not just rank lists
35+ SERP Features tracked, from snippets to image packs
Pixel-depth measurement for real visibility
AWR’s SERP analysis is built on four pillars:
Top Sites
Provides clear snapshots of SERP ownership. Measure Brand Ownership, Click Share, and Pixel Position Trends to see how visible your website is and if results are moving up or down.
For competitors, you’ll see ranking URLs, titles, and position shifts, while the Volatility Score highlights how stable or competitive the SERP really is.
SERP Similarity
Shows how alike two SERPs really are, comparing ranking URLs and search intent. It boils down to a single similarity score using four key signals: URL matches, position stability, overlap, and intent consistency.
This score makes it easier to spot the impact of algorithm updates, competitor moves, and shifts in user intent. The Top Changes Summary highlights the biggest movers and shakers: ranking jumps and drops, new entries, disappearing URLs, and changes in SERP features.
Together, these insights create a clear, data-driven snapshot of how the search landscape is shifting, helping pros react fast and make smarter strategic moves.
SERP Volatility
SERP URL Changes summary highlights key movements in URL rankings within a selected timeframe, showing which URLs improved, stayed stable, newly appeared, or dropped. Alongside this, the Volatility Trend tracks day-to-day ranking fluctuations, signaling major shifts or algorithm impacts that affect keyword performance.
Meanwhile, the Search Intent Changes metric reveals how user intent evolves for selected keywords, providing important context for ranking shifts. The Domain URLs in Time chart breaks down volatility by domain, helping you spot consistent ranking patterns or sudden spikes and drops for each domain over time.
SERP Features
With AWR you can see how your site performs across search features over time. Brand Ownership is showing what percent of physical space your brand takes up in the SERPs, while the SERP Features report breaks down exactly which elements, from Videos to AI Overviews, drive visibility to your site.
Semrush: SERP Analysis
Semrush strength lies in visibility charts, keyword gap analysis, and share-of-voice reports that show how competitors stack up at a high level. However, it doesn’t provide pixel-depth tracking, SERP similarity scores, or Forecasting. Its SERP feature tracking is also less granular, focusing more on whether a feature appears than on how much vertical space it occupies.
Choosing AWR over Semrush means seeing the shifts and signals that others miss. Agencies and in-house teams get deeper SERP context, historical insight, and precision tracking. All at a fraction of the cost.
Competitive Intelligence
Competitive intelligence helps understand website performance relative to competitors by measuring share of organic search traffic.
Semrush’s Position Tracking allows up to 20 competitor domains.
With AWR you can add up to 50 competitor domains per project.
See our guide to SEO competitor analysis for more details.
Advanced Web Ranking: Competitor Analysis
Market Share
It shows how much visibility your site owns compared to competitors, highlighting where you win traffic, clicks, and keyword presence.
Here is a breakdown of the key market share metrics:
URLs: number of unique pages ranking in the top 20
Keywords: count of unique top 20 keywords your site ranks for
Click Share: percentage of clicks captured from rankings.
Estimated Visits: projected visits based on CTR and search volume
Keyword Gap Analysis
It reveals how your site’s rankings overlap with (or miss) competitor opportunities, helping see where to defend, expand, or improve.
Key metrics:
Keyword Intersection - common keywords shared with competitors
Unique Opportunities - keywords competitors rank for but you do not
Estimated Visits Distribution - compares projected traffic per competitor
Competitive Insights - spot overlaps, gaps, and areas to prioritize
Additionally, Estimated Visits Distribution shows projected search traffic for each competitor’s top 20 keywords, combining click share and search volume. It highlights where rivals gain the most traction and helps spot overlaps or gaps to refine content strategies.
Semrush: Wide Coverage, Less Precision
Semrush provides competitive insights through tools like Domain Overview, Organic Research, and Keyword Gap. While it offers strong coverage and discovery, its competitive analytics are more generalized than AWR’s.
Domain Overview: snapshot of up to 100 top keywords, organic traffic estimates, intent distribution, and traffic cost
Organic Research: competitor keywords, landing pages, historical trends, and SERP feature tracking
Keyword Gap: compares up to four competitors with filters (Missing, Weak, Strong, Unique, Untapped), but without click-share estimates tied to ranking positions
Together, these tools give marketers a wide-angle view of the market, but less precision in the top-20 rankings.
API & Integrations
Advanced Web Ranking offers robust API access, giving SEO teams and agencies the ability to programmatically stream rank tracking insights into their own systems, no more manual exports or fragmented reporting.
The AWR API delivers:
Live SERP Data at Scale
Pull rankings from over 4,000 search engines with support for daily, weekly, or real-time updates - perfect both for local and international campaigns.Granular Location Support
Track performance at any level, whether that’s a single ZIP code or a global market.Rich SERP Metadata
Access pixel-based ranking positions, click-through rate estimates, and feature ownership (snippets, maps, videos).Flexible Output Formats
Export as JSON, CSV, or PDF and pipe data directly into Google Looker Studio, Google Drive, BigQuery, or an FTP server.
Whether you’re enriching an internal reporting system or building white-labeled dashboards for clients, AWR’s API architecture ensures scalable, accurate, and fully automated SEO data delivery.
Semrush also provides an API, but its functionality is primarily tailored to accessing data from its internal keyword and domain databases.
While it’s useful for pulling high-level SEO, PPC, and competitive research metrics, it lacks the flexibility of on-demand rank tracking. The API does not offer live SERP snapshots or pixel-level positioning, and keyword data is drawn from a fixed index rather than real-time queries. For teams needing granular, localized rank data delivered into custom dashboards, Semrush’s API may require additional workarounds or third-party tools.
Integrations
AWR offers direct integrations with core analytics and reporting platforms:
Google BigQuery
AWR enables teams to pipe raw ranking and visibility data into a cloud warehouse environment. This supports massive datasets, custom SQL queries, and integration with enterprise BI environments that require advanced query analysis and scalable storage.Google Analytics & Google Search Console
AWR connects directly with GA and GSC, ensuring forecasts, visibility trends, and traffic impact are grounded in verified user and search data. This allows marketers to merge ranking information with actual clicks, impressions, and conversion rates.Google Looker Studio
AWR offers a native connector for building branded dashboards that merge SEO metrics with other marketing datasets. Users can design interactive reports, segment by project or client, and place SEO side by side with paid media, analytics, and CRM data for a unified performance view.
AI Brand Visibility
AWR’s AI Brand Visibility gives SEOs a 360° view of how brands and competitors appear in AI-generated results. Unlike traditional rank data tied to country-specific SERPs, AWR goes straight to the source by querying selected LLMs directly: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or Perplexity, and compiles a global snapshot of brand visibility in AI-driven conversations.
Its Brands AI Visibility report shows the first 10 topics and top 10 brands mentioned by each LLM. You can filter this data by all topics, automatically retrieved AI topics, custom “My topics,” or drill into individual topics. This flexibility makes it easy to track not only your brand but also how competitors are positioned across emerging AI layers.
Key capabilities include:
Pixel-level SERP integration, linking AI mentions with organic visibility.
Competitor overlap and gap analysis to see which rivals surface alongside your brand.
Custom topic tracking covering brand names, industry terms, or trends.
Visibility scoring and sentiment analysis to measure both strength and tone of mentions.
Search intent trend tracking to reveal the context behind AI citations.
Together, these insights give SEOs early warning signals when AI layers reshape discovery, ensuring no shift in visibility goes unnoticed.
Semrush
AI Brand Visibility exists in Semrush as well, and it provides a useful overview of brand presence and relative share of voice, helping marketers see whether they are being surfaced in AI-generated results alongside competitors. However, this feature is not included in the core SEO plans. It sits under the Base AI Visibility add-on, priced at $99/month per domain (billed annually). That means agencies tracking multiple clients need to budget separately for each domain.
The package includes:
AI visibility reports for any domain
Mentions from ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini, and Perplexity
Prompt tracking and competitive benchmarking
Site audit for AI crawlability
Weekly data updates
It still does not offer sentiment analysis, competitor overlap, intent context, or pixel-level integration with SERPs. In other words, you can see if you’re mentioned, but not with the same depth or actionable clarity that AWR delivers.
Forecasting
AWR empowers SEO teams with an SEO forecasting feature that proves the value of SEO and guides their strategy.
It projects traffic, conversions, and ROI up to 24 months into the future. Projections are refreshed monthly and adjust automatically for seasonality, so plans remain realistic even in volatile markets. Unlike static models, forecasts evolve as performance data changes.
By integrating directly with Google Analytics and Google Search Console, AWR grounds its forecasts in metrics that matter to the business: impressions, clicks, and conversions. This ensures projections are tied to measurable performance indicators.
For SEO leaders, this means walking into budget meetings with evidence-backed growth scenarios, showing both the upside of SEO and how it compares to equivalent paid media spend.
Semrush also offers traffic forecasting, but it works differently. Projections are modeled from its keyword database and visibility trends rather than being grounded directly in GA or GSC data. Without automatic seasonality adjustments or integration with verified performance metrics, Semrush’s forecasts tend to remain helpful for spotting opportunities, but not as actionable or precise as Advanced Web Ranking’s models.
Final thought
In a great SEO strategy, clarity is non-negotiable. The real difference lies in having data that can be trusted and insights you can act on. For teams that thrive on precision and actionable insights, that standard is already here.
If you have read this far, you already have a good image of what you need to take your SEO further. The next move is simple. Keep pushing, keep testing, keep climbing. The SEO game waits for no one.
And remember: the sharpest strategies deserve the sharpest tools.
Ready to get started? Start a 7-day free trial now.
Access accurate data from the world's most reliable rank tracker.
And if you don't fall in love with AWR within 30 days, we'll give your money back. No questions asked.
Frequently Asked Questions
Article by
Philip Petrescu
Philip is the CEO and Co-Founder of Caphyon, managing the team that is building Advanced Web Ranking since 2003.
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