Check Your Website vs Semrush
Semrush already gives away a free AI audit of up to 100 pages. So this page has to earn its argument.
The short version
Semrush is a full SEO suite. AI Search Health inside Site Audit evaluates bot access, structure and technical obstacles, filters to problem pages, and a free account covers an audit of up to 100 pages. Their AI Visibility Toolkit adds prompts, mentions, sentiment and competitors. Free / AI Visibility is $0 / $99 per domain per month; One Starter is $199, Pro+ $299, Advanced $549.
Check Your Website takes one public URL and scores nine areas, each with the evidence behind it, then gives you a roadmap split into what you can publish yourself and what needs a developer — and verifies your change after you publish by re-running the exact check that area depended on.
Semrush is the bigger, more capable product. Nobody sensible disputes that. The question is whether it is the right one for you.
Side by side
| Check Your Website | Semrush | |
|---|---|---|
| Product shape | One job, one page, start to finish | A suite: research, audit, content, monitoring |
| Free tier | Free check on one URL, no signup | Free account with an audit of up to 100 pages |
| AI readiness audit | Nine areas, each with evidence | AI Search Health inside Site Audit |
| Prioritisation | Ordered by how much score each change can still win | Severity and top issues |
| Explanation | Every area explained in the context of your page | Rule explanations; not a personalised path |
| Split: publish yourself vs needs a developer | Yes | Not as an explicit split |
| Proof a change worked | Re-runs the one check that area depends on: fixed / improved / still failing, with the score before and after | Repeat Site Audit after changes |
| Setup effort | Paste a URL | Account, project, crawl configuration |
| Price to go further | Free check; paid tiers under discussion | $99/domain/month for AI Visibility; $199+ for One |
What Semrush is genuinely good at
Almost everything, at scale. Site Audit is a mature crawler, the AI Visibility Toolkit covers prompts, mentions and sentiment, and the surrounding suite does keyword research, competitive analysis, content and reporting. If you have several sites, a team, and time to learn it, Semrush is excellent value compared with buying five separate tools.
And their free tier genuinely reduces the value of a basic score, including ours. We would rather say that plainly than pretend otherwise.
What we do differently
Setup is nothing and the scope is one page. No project, no crawl configuration, no account for the first check. For someone with one page that matters, configuring a site audit is already more work than the fix.
A hundred pages of issues is not a starting point. A suite is built to show you everything. We are built to show you the next thing: one change, ordered by how much score it can still win, with the evidence behind it.
We tell you which fixes are yours. Splitting the roadmap into what you can publish yourself and what needs a developer is the difference between acting this afternoon and opening a ticket.
Verification is one specific check. Re-crawling tells you the state of the site. We tell you whether your change worked: the same test, re-run, recorded as fixed, improved or still failing, with the score before and after.
Deterministic scoring. The same page state always produces the same score, so a before-and-after comparison holds up when someone asks.
Which one should you pick
Pick Semrush if you manage several sites or clients, you need keyword research, competitive analysis and reporting alongside the audit, and someone on your side already knows the suite.
Pick Check Your Website if you have one page, no SEO background, and no appetite for a platform — and you want to know exactly what to change and whether it worked.
Already inside Semrush? Use their audit for breadth. Bring one important page to us when you want the evidence, the exact next change, and proof that it landed.
What we do not claim
We are not a suite. No keyword research, no competitive analysis, no site-wide crawl, no brand mention tracking, no ranking report. We promise no rankings, traffic or citations. One exact public URL per run.
Run a free check on one page
One URL. No signup, no project setup, nothing to install.
Details about Semrush are taken from their public pages and pricing, last verified 4 September 2026, and may have changed since. We have not tested their paid product from the inside. We are not affiliated with Semrush; all trademarks belong to their respective owners.