Semrush alternatives for Shopify stores
Semrush alternatives for Shopify stores: Surfer SEO, Alli AI and Enrich Labs compared on published prices, limits and what each actually does, with Tilly's place stated plainly.
Written by Tilly. Tilly is one of the apps on this page, so read it knowing that.
Why people look for something other than Semrush
The entry price is high for one store. Semrush's SEO plan is $139 a month billed monthly, a fair price for an agency tracking several sites and a lot for a single Shopify store that writes two posts a month. source, checked 25 September 2026
It is built for many sites. The SEO plan monitors 5 websites and 500 keywords, and the tiers above it add more sites and markets. A store with one site pays for capacity it does not use. source, checked 25 September 2026
Research is not writing. Semrush gives you keyword research, competitor insight and an audit, and then the post still has to be written, illustrated and published by someone. For many small stores that is where SEO actually stalls. source, checked 25 September 2026
The shortlist
Every price and limit in the table comes from the app's own pricing page or Shopify listing, linked and dated. Some of these tools publish annual prices only; the table says which. Tilly wrote this page and is on the list.
| The shortlist | Lowest published paid plan | Free plan or trial | Shopify rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tilly | $49/month | 100 credits, once, no card | Not recorded |
| Semrush | SEO: $139/month billed monthlysource | Free plan: 1 demo project and 10 reports a daysource | Not recorded |
| Surfer SEO | Discovery: $49/month billed yearlysource | Not recorded | Not recorded |
| Alli AI | Business, annual: $249/month, $2,990 billed annuallysource | 10-day free trial on all planssource | Not recorded |
| Enrich Labs | Starter (enrichlabs.ai): $39/month, 200 credits a monthsource | Free plan on Shopify: 3 AI chat questions and 3 SEO blog articles a monthsource | 4.6 out of 5 (17 reviews)source |
Tilly
Best for: a single Shopify store where SEO stalls at the writing stage. Tilly's SEO agent groups keywords by the questions your customers ask, writes the post with product links and a cover image, adds schema, and publishes to your Shopify blog when you approve it, then tracks it.
Watch out for: It is not a research suite. There is no competitor database or multi-site rank tracking; Tilly's research serves one store's posts. Agencies comparing many sites will still want a research tool.
Pricing: 100 free credits once. Then $49 a month for 500 credits; a post with its cover is 15 credits and the SEO audit is free.
Surfer SEO
Best for: a writer or small team who drafts posts themselves and wants on-page guidance while doing it, plus tracking of how the brand shows up in ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews.
Watch out for: Its plans cap documents: Discovery covers 120 documents created or optimised and Standard 360. Surfer also publishes annual prices on its pricing page, so the monthly figures below assume a yearly commitment.
Pricing: Discovery $49 a month, Standard $99, Pro $182 and Peace of Mind $299, each billed yearly. source, checked 25 September 2026
Alli AI
Best for: a team that wants technical SEO changes applied across a whole site without developer time, including pre-rendering for AI crawlers and a site speed optimiser.
Watch out for: It is priced for agencies and multi-site teams, not single stores: Business is $299 a month billed monthly and covers 5 sites. A Shopify store with one site pays for the other four.
Pricing: 10-day free trial on all plans. Business $299 a month, or $249 a month billed annually at $2,990; Agency $599 a month. source, checked 25 September 2026
Enrich Labs
Best for: a Shopify store that wants an AI marketing assistant writing SEO blog posts alongside social content, and guiding it through Meta and Google ads, from one app with a Built for Shopify badge.
Watch out for: Its prices differ by where you buy: its own site lists $39, $99 and $199 a month, while its Shopify listing shows $39, $79 and $179. Check which billing you are signing up through.
Pricing: A free plan on Shopify with 3 SEO blog articles a month. Paid plans on its site from $39 a month for 200 credits; a 3-day free trial. source, checked 25 September 2026
How to choose
Be honest about where your SEO stops. If you have posts planned and nobody to write them, a research tool will only make the list longer; you want something that writes and publishes. If you write well and guess at topics, research or on-page guidance is the gap.
Count sites, not features. Semrush and Alli AI price for several websites, and Surfer by documents. A single Shopify store writing a few posts a month should compare what it will actually use, not the top tier's feature list.
Check how each one gets content onto Shopify. Some tools stop at a draft you copy into the blog editor; Tilly publishes to your Shopify blog with the cover, meta fields and internal links in place. The copying step is where many posts quietly die.
Then give any choice a quarter. Organic search moves slowly, and a tool judged after two weeks has not had the chance to show anything. Compare impressions and clicks in Search Console at the start and after three months.
Questions people ask
What is a cheaper Semrush alternative for a Shopify store?
Among the tools here, Surfer's Discovery plan is $49 a month billed yearly and Enrich Labs starts at $39 a month, against Semrush's $139 billed monthly. They do different jobs, so compare what each includes rather than the price alone.
Does any of these tools publish to my Shopify blog?
Tilly publishes posts to your Shopify blog after you approve them. For the others, check their own documentation; their pricing pages and listings do not state it in the lines we read.
Can I keep Semrush and use Tilly?
Yes. They overlap little. Semrush does research and tracking across sites; Tilly writes and publishes for one store.
Is AI search visibility worth paying for?
Several tools here now report how a brand appears in AI answers. It is worth watching, but for most small stores the first gains still come from pages that answer customers' questions well, which helps in both.
Who wrote this list?
Tilly. Every fact about another tool links to that tool's own page with the date it was read. If one is out of date, the report link reaches us.
Written by Tilly. Tilly is one of the apps on this page, so read it knowing that. Report an error.
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