SEO & marketing · checked 2026-10-14Can I vibecode Semrush?
NOT REALLY· don't bother
What Semrush sells is its databases: keyword volumes and difficulty, competitor traffic and keywords, and a backlink index for any domain, kept current by continuous collection. The software around them is ordinary. For your own sites, much of it can be rebuilt from Google Search Console, a crawler and the PageSpeed API, and the prompt below does exactly that. But monitoring is not research: competitor keywords, link gaps and market estimates need Semrush, a competitor or a paid data API, and no coding session produces them.
$139/moprice
$1,668it costs you a year
multi-daybuild time
—people replaced it
What you need on hand.
DifficultyIntermediate · Some system setup or keys.
TimeAn afternoon for the monitor; the Semrush databases can't be built
- Claude Code, Codex or CursorAny of them can run the prompt.
- A Google Cloud service accountAdd its email as a user on each Search Console property.
- A PageSpeed Insights API keyFree, created in the Google Cloud console.
- Node.js 22better-sqlite3 compiles a native module, so build tools must be installed.
- A machine that runs cronA laptop works if it's awake at night; a small VPS is steadier.
Before you buildTry Search Console and Ahrefs Webmaster Tools first: both are free for sites you verify and cover audits, queries and your own backlinks.
- 1. Install one agent: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor.
- 2. Make an empty folder and open it in the agent.
- 3. Paste the prompt below, press enter, and answer its questions as it builds.
The prompt
Build me a self-hosted SEO monitor for my own sites, covering the part of Semrush that I can collect myself. Requirements: - Node.js 22 + TypeScript: a nightly CLI plus a small web UI on http://localhost:4950 (Fastify, Eta templates, uPlot charts). Sites are listed in ./sites.yml and all history lives in better-sqlite3 at ./data/seo.db. - Search Console: read queries, pages, clicks, impressions, CTR and average position per day from the Search Console API (`googleapis`, service account JSON path in .env). Backfill 16 months on the first run, then fetch the last 3 days every night to cover the data lag. - Position tracking from that data: choose up to 100 tracked queries per site, chart average position and clicks over time, and flag any query that moved more than 3 positions week on week. - Opportunities page: queries with high impressions at an average position of 8 to 20, and pages whose CTR is far below the site median for their position. - Site audit: crawl each site with `crawlee` (CheerioCrawler, 2,000 pages max, robots.txt respected, 1 s delay). Record status, redirect chains, title, meta description, H1 count, canonical and missing alt text. List 4xx/5xx links, chains over 2 hops, duplicate titles and orphan pages (in sitemap.xml with no inbound link). - Core Web Vitals: call the PageSpeed Insights API (PSI_API_KEY in .env) weekly for the 20 most-clicked pages on mobile and desktop and store LCP, INP, CLS and the score. - Weekly HTML digest in ./report/ listing what changed, optionally mailed through SMTP from .env. - Single user. No accounts, no telemetry, local-first. - Out of scope: competitor data, backlink indexes, keyword volume and difficulty, traffic estimates, AI-visibility tracking. Do not scrape Google results. - README: the Search Console service-account steps (budget 30 minutes in the Google Cloud console), API quotas, and a list of what cannot be known without a paid data source.
Opens your agent with the prompt filled in, you press enter. Or copy it and paste it into an empty folder.
Then keep going
Next prompts, same folder.
The first prompt builds the core. Run these one at a time in the same folder to grow it into your own Semrush.
Add alerts to the SEO monitor in this folder. Requirements: - After the nightly Search Console fetch, find pages whose clicks over the last 7 days fell more than 30 percent against the previous 7, with at least 50 clicks before. - Send one message per night through an ntfy topic (NTFY_URL in .env) listing the page, both click totals and the queries that lost the most. - Ignore pages changed by a redirect in the last crawl; list them separately. - Add a --dry-run flag that prints instead of sending. - Update the README.
Add internal link suggestions to the SEO monitor in this folder. Requirements: - From the last crawl, build the internal link graph and count inbound links per page. - For pages with fewer than 3 inbound links and with impressions in Search Console, suggest up to 5 source pages whose text mentions the target's top query. - Show the suggestion as anchor text plus the sentence it would go in, on a new page. - Never edit sites; output only. Update the README.
Add PDF reports to the SEO monitor in this folder. Requirements: - A weekly report per site as PDF, rendered from an HTML template with `playwright` (print to PDF). - Sections: clicks and impressions trend, top gained and lost queries, new technical issues, Core Web Vitals changes, and three suggested actions chosen by simple rules. - A site-level setting for a logo and accent color. Save PDFs under ./report/pdf/. - Update the README.
What you lose
- Keyword volume, difficulty and trends for any keyword
- Competitor organic keywords, ads and traffic estimates
- Backlink analytics and link-gap checks for any domain
- Tracking of how your brand appears in AI answers
- Historical data and ready-made client reports
Why people still pay
Agencies and in-house marketers use Semrush as the shared yardstick for competitor research and client reports, and the fee is small beside a campaign budget. The plans now bundle classic SEO with AI-search tracking, so one login covers research, audits, rank tracking and reporting.
Semrush or your own copy?
Over
Your usage
24h ×$/h
Semrush, 1 yr$1,668
Your own copy, 1 yr$42running + build session
You keep$1,626pays for itself in the first month
Estimate · Search Console, PageSpeed Insights and the crawler cost nothing. A small VPS for the nightly job is about $5 a month. Competitor and backlink data would need a paid data API on top.
Take your data, then cancel.
1 · Take your data out of Semrush
- 1Export report by report: most tables have an export button for Excel or CSV, and the number of rows and daily exports depends on your plan. Backlink and Domain Overview reports also export PDF.
- 2Position Tracking exports to Excel, Google Sheets or CSV, so save the history of your tracked keywords before you leave.
- 3Site Audit results can be exported to PDF from the audit screen.
- 4I found no single export of a whole account, and the API is billed in units.
2 · Cancel Semrush
- 1Log in and open the Cancellation Form at semrush.com/cancel (it is also linked from Subscription Info under Recurring: Active).
- 2Answer every question and choose which Toolkit to cancel, or All Semrush subscriptions.
- 3Click the confirmation link in the email within 24 hours, otherwise the cancellation is not processed and billing continues.
- Check that Recurring shows Inactive on the Subscription Info page after confirming.
- You can still log into a free-level account; Website Monitoring projects above its limit are locked and are kept for 30 days in case you resubscribe.
- The 7-day money-back guarantee applies only to an initial annual purchase paid by card on Semrush.com, and to a first add-on; month-to-month plans and renewals are not refunded, and a refund must be requested explicitly in the form.
- Remove extra users and add-ons through the Contact Form before cancelling, and cancel a trial before it ends or it converts to a paid plan.
The escape hatch
Don't feel like building it? These are already free.
Google Search ConsoleFreeGoogle's free report of the queries, pages, clicks and positions for sites you verify. The raw material for the prompt above.they host it
WebVisit ↗Ahrefs Webmaster ToolsFreeFree for sites you verify: a site audit (5,000 crawl credits per project each month) and capped views of your backlinks and organic keywords. No competitor analysis.they host it
WebVisit ↗Screaming Frog SEO SpiderFreeDesktop crawler for technical audits; the free version crawls up to 500 URLs and the licence is $279 a year.one-click install
Windows, macOS, LinuxVisit ↗
WebVisit ↗Ahrefs Webmaster ToolsFreeFree for sites you verify: a site audit (5,000 crawl credits per project each month) and capped views of your backlinks and organic keywords. No competitor analysis.they host it
WebVisit ↗Screaming Frog SEO SpiderFreeDesktop crawler for technical audits; the free version crawls up to 500 URLs and the licence is $279 a year.one-click install
Windows, macOS, LinuxVisit ↗
The numbers
Semrush pricing
| Plan | Monthly | Annual, per month | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| SEO | $139 | $117.33 | 5 websites, 500 keywords tracked daily; basic keyword research and competitor analysis, position tracking, site audit and AI search performance tracking. |
| Starter | $199 | $165.17 | 5 websites, 500 tracked keywords; adds fuller keyword and competitor tools, MCP access, an AI-ready site audit and 50 AI visibility prompts a day. |
| Pro+ | $299 | $248.17 | 15 websites, 1,500 tracked keywords, 100 AI prompts a day; adds historical data, content optimization and multi-location tracking. |
| Advanced | $549 | $455.67 | 40 websites, 5,000 tracked keywords, 200 AI prompts a day; adds share of voice and API data integration. |
| Enterprise | custom | — | Unlimited projects, SSO, custom integrations and API, dedicated account manager and SLA. |
- Free tier
- 1 demo project and 10 reports a day.
- Billing
- Monthly or annual; annual billing saves up to 17 percent. Cancel, upgrade or downgrade at any time unless you signed custom terms.
- Hidden costs
- Extra users start at $45 a month, and add-ons such as Lead Generation ($90) and PDF reports ($10 or $20) are priced separately. A trial turns into a paid plan unless you cancel before it ends, and month-to-month plans are not refundable.
- Source
- www.semrush.com
Also on the list
Related apps
A free account gives 1 demo project and 10 reports a day; paid plans offer a 7-day trial.
Not really. Agencies and in-house marketers use Semrush as the shared yardstick for competitor research and client reports, and the fee is small beside a campaign budget. The plans now bundle classic SEO with AI-search tracking, so one login covers research, audits, rank tracking and reporting. The prompt on this page builds the closest honest substitute.
About $139 a month on the SEO plan, $1,668 a year (checked 2026-10-14).
Keyword volume, difficulty and trends for any keyword; Competitor organic keywords, ads and traffic estimates; Backlink analytics and link-gap checks for any domain; Tracking of how your brand appears in AI answers; Historical data and ready-made client reports. If any of those matter to you, keep paying.
Yes: Google Search Console (free), Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (free), Screaming Frog SEO Spider (free).