It was two months ago when I was requested to pull SEMrush data to one of our clients Data Studio reports, so I had to dig in and see what are my options, and frankly, I was a bit surprised, not to say disappointed.
Connecting SEMrush to Data Studio
Although I knew Supermetrics and some other similar vendors have data connectors to SEMrush, I thought it would be pretty straight forward, but then when I tried to connect to my client SEMrush account, I was requested by Supermetrics to enter my SEMrush API key:
I knew my client has an active SEMrush subscription and had the credentials, so I clicked the link in order to achieve the API key and move on with this project, but then I saw this:
It seems that the API is available only to the Business users (while my client has “only” the PRO plan). Is there any way to purchase the API without being a Business user? unfortunately not.
It does not matter how you wish to connect to your SEMrush account, whether using Data Studio, Google Sheets or any other tool – you must have SEMrush business plan ($400/month).
SEMrush API
Before I made the necessary call to my client, I took a deep look into SEMrush API pages, making sure I’m not missing anything and saw this one:
Even though you have the Business plan, SEMrush charges money for the API itself, and it took me a while to understand how much exactly I need to pay for the API. (TLDR: I still don’t know).
How SEMrush API Pricing Works
SEMrush API pricing is based on units, which means it works like a token/chips system. Each request to their API has a different price – e.g. one request can cost you 20 API units per line, which means that if the response contains 5 rows, it will cost you 100 API units. How can you predict the number of units you need? you don’t. So you need to buy a lot of API units. How much exactly? I had to figure out and indeed, it was well hidden:
(image taken from SEMrush website – https://www.semrush.com/news/if_you_actively/)
Although it gave a rough direction about the pricing, this article was published in 2012(!), means, the model might have changed since, or worst – the pricing. In addition, once your API unit balance hits the limit, SEMRush will automatically process an order for additional API units, otherwise, your reports won’t receive data.
SEMrush Free API
The more I searched and talked with my colleagues, there’s no way to connect to SEMrush even in a limited way. There’s no free API or even a trial.
SEMrush API List of Dimensions & Metrics
Supermetrics, as having SEMrush data connector to both SEMrush Projects, and SEMrush Analytics, published the list of all dimensions & metrics. Please note that this list can be changed by both SEMrush and Supermetrics:
Whoever you are, if you wish to see your SEMrush data in your Data Studio reports, you must be on the SEMrush Business plan and purchase API units.
