In short
- In Semrush vs SpyFu, SpyFu is the cheaper competitor research tool: $39 to $249 a month, competitors’ full Google Ads history on every plan, and unlimited searches from Pro.
- Semrush is the broader suite: daily rank tracking, 43 trillion backlinks and 142 country databases, with ad research in a separate toolkit from $99 a month.
- SpyFu’s Team plan includes five users for $249 a month; Semrush includes one and charges $45 to $100 for each extra.
- SpyFu now sends approved audit fixes live. Orbit drafts and publishes the organic work on each client site, and measures what every finished task earned.
The short answer
SpyFu answers what competitors bought and ranked for, cheaply and without search limits; Semrush covers more of search and marketing, refreshed daily.
Pick Semrush if
- You need daily rankings. Every Semrush plan tracks keywords daily; SpyFu updates rankings weekly.
- Links matter to your work. 43 trillion backlinks, with a crawler reading about 10 billion pages a day.
- Clients sell in many countries. 28.8 billion keywords across 142 country databases.
Pick SpyFu if
- PPC is a big part of your work. Competitors’ full Google Ads history, down to the result of every ad test they ran.
- Your team digs all day. Unlimited searches and exports from Pro, with no row limits.
- You want seats and white label cheaply. Team/Agency includes five users and white-label reports for $249 a month.
SpyFu’s price makes it easy to keep beside a main suite for ad research. For the organic work on each client site, see where Orbit fits below.
Side by side
| Semrush | SpyFu | OrbitOurs | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Competitor research | |||
| Keywords | 28.8 billion keywords, 142 country databases | 13.1 billion keywords across 152 million websites | What any competitor ranks for, in any country |
| Ad history | Google Ads data since 2012, in the Advertising Toolkit ($99 to $220) | Competitors’ full Google Ads history and ad tests, on every plan | Visits and leads from the client’s own ads, with tagged campaigns in Sources |
| Search limits | Report limits set by plan | Unlimited searches and exports from Pro | Up to 100 keywords at once, in Orbit, Claude or ChatGPT |
| Backlinks | 43 trillion backlinks | Unlimited backlink searches from Pro | Every site linking to each client, refreshed weekly |
| Tracking | |||
| Rank tracking | Daily, 500 to 5,000 keywords | Weekly, 5,000 to 50,000 keywords | Every search the site shows up for, history kept past Google’s 16 months |
| AI answers | 50 to 200 prompts tracked daily from Starter | AI Brand Monitoring on every plan | 15 buyer questions a week per site on ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Overviews and AI Mode |
| The work itself | |||
| Fixes and content | Site Audit on every plan; content optimization from Pro+ | AI audit of 100+ issues; approved fixes sent live to 1 to 5 connected sites | Articles drafted in the client’s voice, published into their CMS once approved |
| What the work earned | Rankings over time | Weekly rankings, with Search Console connected | Each finished task measured against its own starting point, every day |
| For agencies | |||
| Users | One; extra users $45 to $100 a month | 1 on Basic and Pro, 5 on Team; extras $15 to $30 | Priced per client site, not per seat |
| Client reports | White-label Pro Report, $20 a month per report | White-label reports from Pro; up to unlimited automated reports | A monthly report from each site’s numbers; clients log in as guests |
| Winning new clients | Agency Partners listing, $90 a month | 250 to 1,000 sales leads to export | Candidates: 50 Scans a month of prospects’ sites |
| Price | |||
| Per month | $139.95 to $549, one user | $39 to $249; $29 to $187 billed yearly | $149 for the agency, then $0, $49 or $199 per client site |
| Low-risk start | Free plan with 10 reports a day | 30-day money-back guarantee | A free Scan of any site; Launchpad free on every client site |
The difference: a competitor lens or a full suite
SpyFu is built to answer one question well: what are competitors buying and ranking for, and how has that changed over the years? Every plan shows their Google Ads history, searches are unlimited from Pro, and the Team plan covers five users for $249. It has also added an AI site audit that sends approved fixes live. Semrush answers many more questions. It tracks rankings daily, holds 43 trillion backlinks, covers 142 country databases and adds toolkits for ads, local, social and traffic. If PPC research is your daily work, SpyFu does it for less. If you run search across many markets, Semrush covers more.
Pricing
| Tool | Price |
|---|---|
| Semrush | $139.95 to $549 a month for one user, extra user $45 to $100Source, checked 6 Oct 2026 |
| SpyFu | $39 to $249 a month ($29 to $187 billed yearly); Pro + AI $119 after a $59 first monthSource, checked 6 Oct 2026 |
| OrbitOurs | $149 a month for the agency, then $0, $49 or $199 per client siteSee pricing |
For a team of five: SpyFu Team/Agency is $249 a month, or $187 billed yearly, with five users, unlimited projects and white-label reports. Semrush Pro+ with four extra users is $619 a month ($299 plus 4 × $80), and its ad research adds the Advertising Toolkit at $99.
Where Orbit fits
Semrush and SpyFu show what competitors do in search and ads. Orbit works on your clients’ own sites: it finds the organic work worth doing, does it with your team, and measures what each task earned.
Findings from the client’s own data
Search Console, visitors, links and AI answers, read together twice a week on Zenith.
Published into seven CMSs
Webflow, WordPress, Shopify, Drupal, Sanity, Payload and Craft, once someone approves.
Leads, not just rankings
Each finished task shows the leads it touched and what they were worth.
SpyFu vs Semrush for PPC research
This is where SpyFu earns its name. Every plan opens competitors’ Google Ads history: the keywords they bought, the ads they ran and the result of every ad test. From Pro, searches and exports are unlimited. SpyFu says its database holds 13.1 billion keywords across 152 million websites, with more than 18 years of history.
Semrush keeps its ad research in a separate Advertising Toolkit, $99 a month for Base and $220 for Pro, which adds tools to build and launch Google and Meta campaigns and, on Pro, competitors’ display, video and social ads. Its Google Ads data goes back to January 2012.
Both look at competitors from outside. For a client’s own campaigns, Orbit recognises visits from Google, Microsoft, TikTok and LinkedIn ads, and tagged campaigns show in Sources with their leads and value, without connecting an ad account. Ads in Orbit.
Is SpyFu accurate?
SpyFu’s numbers are estimates built from the 7.2 trillion search results it has indexed; Semrush’s come from its own databases. Neither sees a competitor’s accounts, so use both for direction and comparison rather than exact traffic. SpyFu tracks your own rankings weekly and connects to Search Console; Semrush tracks them daily.
For a client’s own site, the exact numbers are in Search Console. Orbit’s Search shows every search the site appears for, with clicks and positions, and keeps the history past Google’s 16 months.
Who does the fixing?
SpyFu has moved past research. Its AI site audit checks for more than 100 issues, writes fixes for titles, links and content, and sends each one live on a connected site once you approve it: one site on Basic, three on Pro, five on Team. Semrush includes Site Audit on every plan and content optimization from Pro+.
Orbit works on the organic growth of each client site: it finds the work in the site’s own search, visitor and link data, drafts articles in the client’s voice, publishes them into Webflow, WordPress, Shopify, Drupal, Sanity, Payload or Craft once someone presses Publish, and measures each finished task against where it started. Outcomes shows how. SpyFu alternatives and Semrush alternatives rank the wider field.
How we checked
Every fact about Semrush and SpyFu comes from the vendor’s own website, read on 6 Oct 2026: its pricing page where it publishes one, otherwise its help pages and announcements. Each price links to the page it came from, in US dollars as the vendor states them.
Orbit is our own product, and the page says so wherever it appears. Its prices come from our pricing page. Prices change; if you spot one that has, tell us and we correct the page.
Written by
Leon Missoul, Founder
I started the web agency Luniq in 2025 and built Orbit from the software we used to keep our clients’ sites growing after launch. I write about search, AI answers and how to prove what website work earns.