Semrush vs Asky: the full breakdown for SEO and AI search

Semrush vs Asky comes down to how much of your work is research and whether your team must ship the changes. Asky (askylabs.com), the AI-native SEO and GEO platform from Asky Labs AB, ranks SEO and AI search work and publishes approved changes to your CMS. If you are pricing the Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit or a Semrush alternative, our AI visibility tool selection framework covers wider criteria. Semrush, an Adobe company, calls itself "the leading platform that unifies SEO authority and AI visibility."

Last checked: 30 September 2026. Every Semrush fact below comes from Semrush's own pages or named third-party sources. If something has changed, tell us at [email protected] and we will update the page.

Semrush or Asky: what's the short verdict?

Research depth against self-serve execution is the biggest trade-off: a mid-market team whose bottleneck is shipping changes lands on Asky. A team already on Semrush can add the AI Visibility Toolkit from $99 a month per domain (billed annually) and keep one login. Semrush is built for teams whose work runs on keyword, backlink and market data, and adds an AI Visibility Toolkit, WordPress publishing and, on Enterprise, site fixes. Asky ranks SEO and AI search work in one list and publishes the approved changes to Webflow, WordPress or Sanity.

• Choose Semrush if your team lives in keyword, backlink, rank tracking or PPC research, or wants AI benchmarks for any domain without setup.
• Choose Asky if you want SEO and GEO work ranked together, approved changes published to your CMS and no per-seat fees.

How do Semrush and Asky compare side by side?

This table compares Semrush's self-serve plans, with Enterprise where noted, and Asky on eight criteria as of September 2026.

Sources: Semrush pricing, AI toolkit, homepage, Site Audit, Backlink Gap, AI data, Enterprise, AIO, Copilot assistant, AI opportunities, Content Toolkit, log analyzer, bot analytics, users, MCP, GBP agent; Asky pricing, audit issues, crawler logs, WordPress, Webflow, Sanity, MCP docs; all checked 30 September 2026.

Semrush and Asky both track AI answers because rank data misses many AI sources. In a study of 55,936 queries, 37% of domains cited by LLM-based search engines were not found by traditional search engines, according to a paper on arXiv.

Semrush

Overview

Semrush is a search marketing suite sold as toolkits for SEO, content, local, PPC, traffic analytics and reporting. Semrush's 317-million-prompt database covers any domain and updates daily. Prompt Tracking checks your own prompts daily, and Brand Performance reports on sentiment and share of voice in AI search from a database that updates weekly.

Strengths

• SEO data at scale: 28 billion keywords, 43 trillion backlinks, 142 geo databases and daily rank tracking.
• Market-wide AI data with no setup: the 317M+ prompt database benchmarks any competitor's AI visibility on day one.
• Breadth and a free way in: PPC, local SEO, reporting and an AI Traffic dashboard share one account, with a free plan of 10 reports a day.
• An enterprise path: Enterprise AIO adds more engines, unlimited prompts, prioritized content recommendations, log analytics, ROI attribution and SSO, and an offering built with Adobe deploys fixes without developers.

Weaknesses

• Costs stack: each extra user who needs AI reports pays a $99 AI license on top of the seat fee, and extra prompts and Brand Performance domains cost more.
• Microsoft Copilot and Claude are listed only on Enterprise AIO, which matters because visibility differs by engine.
• Self-serve AI crawler data comes from logs you upload to the Log File Analyzer, per Semrush's log file guide; Enterprise documents ingestion of up to 10 GB a day.
• Publishing centers on WordPress: the Content Toolkit publishes to up to 100 WordPress sites. Its docs do not say whether an update replaces a whole post or single blocks, or describe Webflow or Sanity; ask in a demo.

Best for

Semrush fits SEO and paid search teams whose daily work is keyword, backlink and competitor research, with AI benchmarks in the same login. It also suits large brands buying fixes on an enterprise contract.

Asky

Overview

Asky is built for teams treating SEO and generative engine optimization as one job. Every plan measures visibility, share of voice, sentiment and citations against your competitors and ranks the next actions.

In a Salesforce survey of nearly 4,500 marketers, high performers were 2.2 times more likely than underperformers to have optimized for AI search. Asky writes, refreshes and translates pages and publishes them once you approve. Asky is designed to increasingly run that work itself, building toward autonomous SEO and GEO.

Strengths

• One ranked queue: content, refresh, technical, third-party and discussion items share one list, so finding AI search opportunities ends with a clear next action.
• Self-serve CMS edits: a refresh writes back only approved passages through Asky's CMS integrations for AI visibility, down to one WordPress block, Elementor widget, Webflow CMS field or Sanity field.
• Crawler logs three ways: a live snippet on Cloudflare or your own server, CSV or JSON log uploads, or a daily import from a connected WordPress site. AI crawling triggered by users' questions grew more than 15x in 2025, according to Cloudflare.
• Unlimited seats and a writable Asky MCP server: a team can add prompts or start audits from Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor, within plan and role.

Weaknesses

• Built for SEO and GEO execution rather than research: Asky has no standalone backlink index and no keyword database at Semrush's scale.
• A narrower remit: PPC, local SEO and competitor traffic estimates sit outside Asky, while Semrush keeps them in one account.
• Your prompts, not the market: Asky reports AI visibility only for prompts you track, so sizing a new market starts with choosing prompts.
• Approval-first: content changes need an approval click, and only supported technical fixes write automatically; Webflow's non-CMS pages and some Elementor widgets come back as copy-ready changes.

Best for

Asky fits mid-market teams where a few people own SEO and AI search and need the work ranked and shipped, without per-seat fees.

How much do Semrush and Asky cost?

As of 30 September 2026, Semrush's paid AI visibility starts at $99 a month per domain for the standalone AI Visibility Toolkit (billed annually, 25 prompts, no free trial). Semrush One bundles it with SEO as Starter ($199, 50 prompts), Pro+ ($299, 100) or Advanced ($549, 200) a month. The SEO plan ($139 a month) includes AI visibility reports and custom prompts. Asky's Core, Scale and Momentum cost €99, €399 and €899 a month before VAT.

Semrush prices are in US dollars with no tax basis stated, and annual billing saves up to 17%. Extra users cost $45, $80 or $100 a month by tier ($20 with the standalone toolkit), plus $99 each for AI access. Another 50 prompts cost $60 a month, another Brand Performance domain $99. SEO, Starter and Pro+ come with a 7-day free trial, and Enterprise is quoted.

Asky's Core includes 50 tracked prompts and 250 monthly credits, Scale and Momentum 200 prompts and 1,000 credits. Enterprise is on request, and annual billing gives two months free. Extra prompts cost €0.75 each a month, and a tracked prompt is one question in one location, across all your engines.

Take one brand tracking 200 prompts daily in one country on ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Gemini (the engines Prompt Tracking offers). Five people need AI reports. Semrush sets each target to one engine and location and allows several targets per campaign only from Pro+. Its docs do not say whether a prompt on three targets counts once or three times.

If a prompt counts once, the cheapest documented route is Pro+ at $1,135 a month: $299, two 50-prompt packs and four extra users at $179. If each engine counts, the need is 600 prompts: $1,435 on Starter with one folder per engine. The standalone toolkit monitors one website, so its docs show no route to three engines.

A team already on the SEO plan with five users pays $816 a month more for Pro+, two prompt packs, higher seat fees and AI access for four colleagues. If each engine counts, Starter adds $1,116 a month. Each total also buys the prompt database, Brand Performance and Semrush's keyword and backlink data.

Asky Scale covers the same need for €399 a month before VAT, with ChatGPT, AI Mode and Gemini as its three included engines. A fourth, such as AI Overviews, adds €50 a month (€0.25 per prompt). A new article costs 80 credits, so Scale's 1,000 monthly credits cover about 12 a month.

When should you choose Semrush or Asky?

Choose Semrush for research breadth or an enterprise contract that covers execution, and Asky when a small team must publish changes on a self-serve plan. Both assume AI answers matter to buyers: Forrester's Buyers' Journey Survey for 2025 found generative AI search had become the source B2B buyers rated most meaningful.

Choose Semrush when

• You already pay for Semrush SEO and want AI reports in the same login.
• Paid search, local listings or competitor traffic analysis belong to the same team.
• You want an enterprise contract with unlimited prompts and fixes deployed at the CDN edge.

Choose Asky when

• A few people own SEO and GEO and need one ranked list covering both.
• Approved refreshes should land in the right field or block of a Webflow, WordPress or Sanity site.
• Several people need access without per-seat fees, or you want an MCP connection that can make changes.

What should you check before you commit?

Semrush says its prompt database comes from real requests, not LLM APIs. Asky captures six engines from consumer interfaces and Claude through its official API. Compare answers for the same prompt, market and day in both, a check that applies to all platform comparisons we publish.

• Run the same 25 to 50 prompts in both tools, in the same country and language.
• Confirm which engines each plan includes and what extra engines, prompts and seats cost.
• Publish one real change to your own CMS from each tool and check what else on the page moved.
• Check security and procurement needs, such as SOC 2, SSO and a DPA, with both vendors.

Research depth points to Semrush; ranked, self-serve execution points to Asky, alongside Semrush if you keep its data.