Frase vs Semrush: Which One Do You Actually Need?
These two products get compared constantly, and the comparison is slightly wrong. They are not competing versions of the same thing. Frase is a content optimization tool. Semrush is an SEO research platform. Picking between them is really a question about which part of your process is broken.
The short answer
- Choose Frase if you already know what to write about and the problem is producing content that covers the topic properly. It is a fraction of the price and better at that one job.
- Choose Semrush if you do not yet know what to target, or you cannot tell whether your SEO work is doing anything. Keyword data, backlinks, rank tracking, and site audits are not things Frase does at all.
- Choose both only if you are publishing at enough volume that the research job and the writing job are genuinely separate work for separate people.
Pricing
Public list pricing, last checked 2026-08-08. Both vendors change tiers and credit limits regularly, so confirm on their own pricing pages before you buy.
| Tier | Frase | Semrush |
|---|---|---|
| Entry plan | Starter — $49/mo ($39 annual) | Pro — $139.95/mo ($117.33 annual) |
| Mid plan | Professional — $129/mo ($103 annual) | Guru — $249.95/mo ($208.33 annual) |
| Top plan | Scale — $299/mo ($239 annual) | Business — $499.95/mo ($416.66 annual) |
| Above that | Enterprise — custom | Enterprise — custom |
The gap is not a quality premium. Semrush maintains its own keyword and backlink indexes, which is genuinely expensive infrastructure. Frase does not, because it does not need to for what it does.
Feature by feature
| Capability | Frase | Semrush |
|---|---|---|
| Content brief generation from SERP data | ||
| AI writing built into the editor | ||
| On-page content scoring against competitors | ||
| Keyword database and volume research | ||
| Backlink index and link analysis | ||
| Rank tracking | ||
| Site audit / technical SEO crawler | ||
| Competitor traffic estimates | ||
| Publishes finished articles to your CMS |
Where Frase wins
- The brief-to-draft workflow is tighter. You go from SERP analysis to an outline to a scored draft without leaving the editor.
- Cost. A writer can be productive on Frase Starter at $49 per month against Semrush Pro at $139.95.
- Less to learn. Semrush is a large product and most teams use a small slice of it.
Where Semrush wins
- It answers "what should we write about?" with actual search data. Frase assumes you already decided.
- It answers "did it work?" with rank tracking and traffic estimates. Frase has no measurement layer.
- Backlinks and technical audits are entirely outside Frase's scope.
Who neither of these is right for
Both products assume someone on your side is going to do the work. Frase tells you what a good article looks like. Semrush tells you which article to write and whether it ranked. Neither writes the article, and neither puts it on your website. If nobody on your team has the hours, better tooling does not fix that. The output is still zero.
That is the gap FirstSearch fills: it researches, writes, and delivers finished articles straight to your CMS. It is not a better Frase or a cheaper Semrush. It is a different answer to the same frustration. Our own engine produced these results on hpspelet.se if you want to see the output before deciding.
See how it worksFrequently asked questions
Is Frase or Semrush better?
They solve different problems. Frase is a content optimization tool: it builds briefs from the SERP and scores your draft as you write. Semrush is a full SEO platform: keyword databases, backlink analysis, rank tracking, and site audits. If your bottleneck is writing content that matches search intent, Frase is the better and far cheaper buy. If your bottleneck is knowing what to target and tracking whether it worked, Semrush is the better buy. They are commonly used together rather than as alternatives.
Is Frase cheaper than Semrush?
Yes, but less than most articles claim. Frase's Starter plan is $49 per month against Semrush Pro at $139.95, so roughly a third of the cost at entry level. Be careful with older comparisons: Frase repriced during 2025-2026 and its entry tier moved from $15 to $49, so a lot of published advice understates it badly. The remaining gap reflects scope rather than quality. Semrush maintains its own keyword and backlink indexes, which is expensive infrastructure Frase does not need.
Can Frase replace Semrush?
No, not for keyword research, backlink analysis, rank tracking, or site audits. Frase does not maintain those datasets. It can replace Semrush's content-writing assistant and content template features, which are a small part of what Semrush sells.
Can Semrush replace Frase?
Partly. Semrush's SEO Writing Assistant and Content Template cover much of what Frase does, and if you already pay for Semrush you may not need Frase at all. Writers who spend most of their day inside a content editor generally find Frase's brief-and-score workflow faster and more focused for that specific job.
Do I need both Frase and Semrush?
Only if you are doing both jobs at volume. A common setup is Semrush for research and measurement and Frase for drafting against a brief. If you are a solo operator or a small team publishing a handful of posts a month, running both is usually more tooling than the output justifies.
Do either of these write and publish articles for me?
Neither does. Both are tools you operate: they tell you what to write and score what you wrote, but a person still has to write the article and put it on the site. That is the gap FirstSearch fills, and it is a different category of product rather than a better version of either tool.