Semrush SEO Ideas Units pricing per On Page SEO Checker keyword on Pro, Guru and Business

Semrush SEO Ideas Units cost about 28 cents each on Pro ($139.95 for 500 a month), about 31 cents on Guru ($249.95 for 800) and about 25 cents on Business ($499.95 for 2,000). One unit is one keyword paired with one page in On Page SEO Checker, and every time the ideas refresh, the units are spent again. So the real limit is keyword pairs times refreshes: on Pro, 125 pairs refreshed weekly uses the whole month.

Every number here comes from Semrush's own knowledge base, read on 19 September 2026: article 1406 for the units, article 292 for how On Page SEO Checker spends them, and article 1547 for the plan prices. The per-unit figures are our division, and they ignore everything else each plan includes, which matters and which we come back to. We also sell an on-page SEO tool, so weigh our conclusions with that in mind.

If you are here because the units ran out and the idea list is still waiting to be acted on, the quicker test is to run one of those pages through an audit that writes the fix.

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What an SEO Ideas Unit is

SEO Idea Units are the meter on Semrush's On Page SEO Checker. The tool pairs a keyword with one of your landing pages, pulls the top 10 results for that keyword in the location you picked, and returns a list of ideas: content, semantics, strategy, backlinks, user experience, SERP features and technical SEO. Semrush's rule is short: one keyword entered is one unit. Put two keywords on one page and that page costs two.

The detail most pricing roundups miss is that the units are not spent once. Ideas are built from the results at the moment they are collected, so to keep them current the tool re-collects on a schedule, and each re-collection spends the units again. Semrush's own example is 100 keywords analyzed ten times in one paid month, which needs 1,000 units. That is twice what Pro includes.

Semrush SEO Ideas Units pricing by plan

This is the table the ranking pricing posts leave out. It divides each SEO Toolkit plan's monthly price by its unit allowance, then shows how many keyword and page pairs you can keep fresh if you re-collect weekly, about four times a month.

Two things stand out. Guru is the most expensive per unit of the three, so upgrading from Pro to Guru for On Page SEO Checker alone is the wrong move: you pay $110 more a month for 300 more units. And the free allowance is a preview, not a tier. Ten units that never refresh is ten pairs, collected once.

Semrush One, the newer ladder, also lists "SEO Idea Units per month" in its pricing page markup, but the numbers are drawn in the browser rather than shipped in the page, so we are not quoting them here. If you are weighing a move to that ladder, the plan-by-plan prices are on our Semrush One vs SEO Classic page.

What a real account uses

Units get spent by pairs times refreshes, so the right plan depends far more on how often you re-collect than on how big your site is. Four typical setups:

The in-house team is the telling row. Refreshing monthly, Pro covers it with room to spare. Refreshing weekly, the same 300 pairs need about 1,200 units, which is past Guru and into Business at $499.95. Nothing about the site changed, only the schedule. Before upgrading, try refreshing less often: ideas based on the top 10 rarely change enough in a week to justify four times the spend.

And units do not roll over. They renew on the first of each month, so the local business on Pro pays for 500 and uses 25.

The cost that is not on the meter

At 28 cents a pair, On Page SEO Checker is cheap. What it hands you is a list, and every item on that list is work. "Add semantically related words", "reach the target length", "improve readability": each one ends with somebody opening the page and rewriting it.

Put a number on that. If a marketer at $45 an hour spends 20 minutes turning one page's ideas into a new title, meta description and heading outline, 50 pages a month is about $750 of labor. That is five times the Pro subscription, and it is why the idea lists in so many Semrush accounts keep growing while the pages stay the same.

It is also the right frame for the upgrade question. More units give you more ideas. If the ideas you already have are not getting done, more of them will not help. And a page that finally ranks still has to turn visitors into buyers, which is a separate job: a conversion rate audit of the page's copy and CTAs is the natural next step once the traffic arrives.

When to stay, upgrade or switch

Stay on Pro if you refresh monthly and your pairs fit in 500. Most single-site businesses do. Move to Business if you are an agency refreshing client pages weekly and you also use the API and Share of Voice, because then the units come with tools you need anyway. Skip Guru for units. Buy it for Topic Research and the SEO Writing Assistant, which we price on our Semrush Guru plan price page, not for On Page SEO Checker.

Switch if the bottleneck is writing rather than ideas. That is the job SEOMake does. Paste a live URL and the keyword it should rank for. It scores the page, lists the issues with the evidence for each, and writes the fix: a title under 60 characters with the keyword first, a meta description at the length Google shows, a heading outline built around the query and an opening paragraph. Paid plans add a 400 to 700 word draft. There is no unit meter on audits, and Starter is $49 a month.

It is not a like-for-like replacement. SEOMake does not benchmark against the live top 10, suggest backlink prospects or import pairs from Search Console. We compare it honestly with Moz, SE Ranking, Search Atlas and Surfer on our Semrush On Page SEO Checker alternative page, and every plan is on our pricing page.

Frequently asked questions

How many SEO Ideas Units do I get with Semrush?

Semrush knowledge base article 1406 sets it by plan: Pro gets 500 SEO Idea Units a month, Guru 800 and Business 2,000, renewed on the first day of each month. An account without the SEO Toolkit gets 10 units for its whole lifetime, and those never refresh.

What uses SEO Ideas Units in Semrush?

On Page SEO Checker. Each keyword you pair with a landing page costs one unit, so two keywords on one page cost two. Every time the tool re-collects ideas for those pairs, the units are spent again. Semrush's own example is 100 keywords analyzed ten times in a month, which uses 1,000 units.

Can I buy more SEO Ideas Units?

Yes. Semrush says extra limits are added from the subscription summary page in your account. Its knowledge base does not publish a per-unit add-on price, so check the figure there before you commit. For most teams the comparison is between that add-on and the next plan up.

Is upgrading to Guru worth it for more SEO Ideas Units?

Not for the units alone. Guru adds 300 units for $110 more a month, which works out at about 31 cents a unit against 28 cents on Pro. Guru is worth it for Topic Research, the SEO Writing Assistant and historical data. If units are the only constraint, Business or an add-on is better value.

Do SEO Ideas Units roll over?

No. Semrush says all SEO Idea Unit limits renew on the first day of every month, which means unused units do not carry forward. A Pro subscriber who uses 25 units in a month has paid for 500 and loses the other 475 on the first.

SEO Idea Unit allowances were read from semrush.com/kb/1406-seo-idea-units, usage rules from semrush.com/kb/292-on-page-seo-checker, and plan prices from semrush.com/kb/1547-seo-toolkit-pricing-and-plans, on 19 September 2026. Per-unit costs are the plan price divided by the allowance. The $45 hourly rate is an assumption for illustration. Vendor prices change. If yours differs, trust the checkout.