Semrush’s own pages disagree about whether tax is already in the price
Semrush itself collects and remits US sales tax, with nexus established through offices in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Texas, across twenty-four jurisdictions, at rates running from one percent in Connecticut up to fifteen percent in Chicago. Its Terms of Service state the price is exclusive of tax, while its own FAQ states tax is already included — two pages, two answers, and this profile does not pick one. The only exemption it recognizes is for nonprofits.
Ahrefs taxes you too, it just won’t say how many states
Ahrefs adds sales tax on top of its listed US price, in a state list that names Texas, New York, and Washington DC among others, but the table listing the rest of the states was too illegible to count on the page tested. No local rate is published anywhere, and nexus responsibility is left entirely to the buyer, with no calculation tool offered on either side of that gap.
Ahrefs states three different sizes for the same keyword index
Ahrefs publishes three contradictory keyword-index sizes depending on which of its own pages you read: twenty-eight point seven billion, twenty point four billion, or twelve billion, with only Google documented and no stated reason for the gap. Semrush states a single number, twenty-seven point three billion keywords, with automatic semantic clustering and difficulty recalculated against your own domain.
One vendor folds the API into the plan, the other bills it on top
Ahrefs includes API access from its Lite tier upward, a hundred thousand units a month with a fifty-unit minimum per request, though overage itself carries no published rate. Semrush instead sells its API and MCP server as a separate charge, added on top of whatever plan the account already pays for.
Two ways of not taking a purchase order
Ahrefs opens non-card billing only at Enterprise, one thousand four hundred ninety-nine dollars a month on an annual commitment — and its own help center names invoice or wire as options there, while its pricing page names only wire, both versions reported here rather than settled. Semrush keeps every self-service tier on card only, opens check or wire to annual subscriptions alone at a threshold it never states beyond “depends on account value,” and reserves an actual invoice for a signed Order carrying one and a half percent monthly late interest.
The entry price sits far apart before either vendor’s tax rule even applies
Ahrefs’ Starter tier costs twenty-nine dollars a month: two hundred credits, two hundred fifty rows per report, no export, and no additional users. Semrush’s Pro tier costs a hundred thirty-nine dollars and ninety-five cents a month, or one thousand four hundred eight dollars the first year on annual billing, for five tracked websites and five hundred keywords — and neither number yet reflects whichever version of its own sales-tax policy actually applies to the account paying it.
