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Semrush is one of the biggest SEO and competitive research tools available.
It was launched back in 2008 by a small group of SEO and IT specialists with one clear goal in mind –
“Make online competition fair and transparent, with equal opportunities for everyone”.
More than 15+ years later, Semrush is considered a powerhouse tool used by hundreds of thousands of people worldwide.
It is even used by some of the biggest businesses in the world.
But just how big is Semrush today?
In this blog post, we go through the latest Semrush statistics to show why Semrush is so popular.
We’ve included the most important stats and trends, from how much data Semrush has to how much money the company makes every year.
Here’s everything you need to know!
General Semrush Statistics
Most people don’t really grasp how big Semrush is and how far they have come since launching.
Here are the key Semrush statistics you need to know:
- Semrush was launched in 2008 and now has 15+ years of experience in SEO and competitive data analysis
- Over 10 million users have tried Semrush since the company launched
- They have more than 95,000+ paying customers, which was an increase of 16% over last year
- In 2022, Semrush made a total of $254.3 million in total revenue which was an increase of about 35% year over year
- Despite strong revenue growth Semrush reported a net profit loss of $33.8 million for 2022
- Semrush is headquartered in Boston, United States but has 13 offices worldwide, including Philadelphia, Trevose, Austin, Dallas, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Belgrade, Berlin, Limassol, Prague, Warsaw, and Yerevan
- Currently, Semrush has over 1,300 employees and 200 contractors working from their 13 offices and remotely worldwide
- When Semrush launched in 2008, it started with just 2 tools but now has 50 tools included in their subscription plans
The truth is Semrush is not a small company. They are a large global company serving thousands of loyal paying customers worldwide.
This has made them one of the biggest SEO and competitive research tools available right now.
Semrush Performance & Data Statistics
There are 2 important aspects to any online research and SEO tool:
- The amount of data they have
- How they process that data
This is what makes Semrush such a powerhouse software.
They have tons of usable data and built a ton of powerful tools to give companies the competitive insights they need.
When Semrush launched in 2008, they had just 2 SEO tools.
Now they have 50 tools on the platform that include everything from SEO research to paid advertising and content marketing.
Here is the progression of their tool development since 2008:
| Year | 2008 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2020 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tools | 2 | 4 | 5 | 8 | 11 | 21 | 27 | 39 | 50 |
Semrush started small and slowly built up their range of tools. As the SEO and online marketing industry changed, so did Semrush.
Keyword Database & Analytics
One of the things that Semrush is most known for is keyword research.
Semrush’s primary keyword tool is called Keyword Magic and now has data on over 24.8 billion keywords.
This makes it the largest keyword database on the market right now.
It has also helped establish Semrush as one of the top keyword research tools in the world.
How did they do it?
Since February 2017, Semrush has aggressively been expanding its keyword database. In 2017, Semrush had just 819 million keywords in their database – most of them in the United States.
Now they have billions of keywords in 121 countries and languages around the world. Here’s a breakdown of their keyword database growth since 2017:
| Date | Keywords |
|---|---|
| February 2017 | 819 million |
| November 2017 | 3.8 billion |
| January 2018 | 4.4 billion |
| September 2018 | 8.3 billion |
| February 2019 | 10.5 billion |
| November 2019 | 17 billion |
| February 2020 | 18.8 billion |
| November 2020 | 20 billion |
| February 2021 | 20 billion |
| June 2022 | 22.3 billion |
| April 2023 | 24.7 billion |
The truth is that Semrush is continuing to expand their keyword analytics and database.
How do they do it?
There are two primary ways that Semrush collects data:
- Buying data from third-party tools
- Collecting data with their own analytics tools
They then combine this data with their own algorithm to estimate:
- Keyword search volumes
- Organic traffic
- Click-thru rates
…and more!
Semrush also studies paid search data to help get a complete picture of what keywords people search for and how often.
The keywords in each of Semrush’s global databases are scheduled for a refresh about every month.
This ensures that the information you see inside the Semrush tool suite is based on the actual standings of Google’s most recent search results pages.
Backlink Database
For a long time, Semrush’s main competitor Ahrefs has been considered the Backlink king of SEO tools.
But in 2021, Semrush started investing heavily in their online web crawler – Semrushbot.
Think of Semrushbot similarly to how the Googlebot and Bingbot search engine crawlers work (also known as spiders).
It’s a little spider bot that constantly crawls websites and links all over the web, indexing the data into their backlink database.
Semrush now claims to have the fastest online website crawler and largest backlink database – second only to Google themselves.
How fast is the crawler?
Semrushbot now crawls 25 billion URLs every single day!
This has helped Semrush build its massive backlink database of over 43 trillion links, making it the most up-to-date and largest backlink data available.
Semrush’s database also includes a massive 1.6 billion referring domains.
The key to any backlink analysis tool is data. And Semrush has the most data of any online SEO tool in the world.
This makes it one of the best SEO tools for website owners, SEO services and link-building services.
Domain Analytics
One of the most powerful features that Semrush offers is its suite of domain analysis tools.
Type in any domain into Semrush and immediately see the sites:
- Top ranking keywords
- Estimated organic traffic
- Backlink profile
- Google ads keywords
- Authority score
And so much more. Where does all this data come from?
Semrush has collected data on 543 million desktop keywords and 80.1 million mobile keywords.
This information lets you see exactly what your competitors rank for and their top organic traffic keywords.
But with Doman profiles, it’s even more…
Semrush has 774 million desktop domains and 32.1 million mobile domains in their domain profile database.
The domain analytics that Semrush offers is second to none.
They have a comprehensive tool suite and hundreds of millions of data points that allow you to get accurate information on almost any domain.
Web Traffic Data & Market Insights
How much data does Semrush actually have?
The truth is crawling the web and gathering data isn’t easy or cheap. It takes a lot of work and time to collect enough usable data.
But this is where Semrush excels:
Semrush currently has 500TB of raw website and traffic data.
This is pulled from over 200 million online panellists in over 190 regions and countries across the world.
In total, Semrush analyses 1 billion data events every single day!
What does all this mean?
Short answer – Semrush has a ton of data.
They constantly collect data 24 hours per day, 365 days a year. They also buy data from third-party providers whenever a gap needs filling.
This is why they are considered one of the most reliable market research tools online.
Semrush User Statistics
The key to any business growth is users.
Semrush has a strong track record for acquiring new users quickly as well as retaining current paying subscribers.
These are the latest Semrush statistics about their user base and demographics.
Semrush Active Users
Semrush offers both free and paid plans.
The free plan is very basic, while the paid plans offer much more value – but are also pretty expensive.
Since they launched, Semrush has had over 10 million users worldwide.
That’s a lot!
Today 89% of all current Semrush users use the free plan, with only 11% of users being paying customers.
To put that in perspective, Semrush currently has 95,000 paying customers on their platform and about 800,000 regular free users.
Here is a breakdown of the growth in Semrush’s paying customers since 2019.
| Year | Paying Customers |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 54,000 |
| 2020 | 67,000 |
| 2021 | 82,000 |
| 2022 | 91,000 |
| 2023 (April) | 95,000 |
From 2021 to 2022, Semrush grew in paying users by about 16% acquiring about 9,000 new paying customers. They have already added 4,000 new paying customers in the first quarter of 2023.
Since 2019, the Semrush platform has averaged about 2 million new user registrations per year.
Semrush User Profiles & Subscriptions
Semrush appeals to a wide variety of customers and businesses.
94.9% of Semrush customers own or work in businesses with less than 500 employees. The primary for Semrush is small and medium-sized businesses.
But enterprise businesses and major companies are also important to Semrush.
5.1% of Semrush’s customers are enterprise clients.
Semrush customises and tailors subscription plans to enterprise customers who need larger plans for more employees.
| Percentage | Semrush Customers |
|---|---|
| 94.9% | Companies with less than 500 employees |
| 5.1% | Companies with over 500 employees |
What’s more?
Semrush has 30% of all Fortune 500 companies as clients.
Put simply:
About ⅓ of the top 500 companies in the United States use Semrush.
These clients likely make up a considerable amount of Semrush’s yearly revenue.
Paying Semrush customers have the choice to pay monthly or annually.
The benefit of the annual subscription is that you can save up to 17% on your subscription.
Despite this, a massive 78% of all Semrush’s customers choose to pay on a monthly plan. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing for Semrush because it means they make more revenue.
| Percentage of Client That Pay Monthly | Percentage of Client That Pay Yearly |
|---|---|
| 78% | 22% |
But they do have to work harder to retain customers on monthly subscriptions, which can add an extra challenge and even cost more!
It’s safe to say that Semrush has a very strong user acquisition strategy and has consistently grown quickly over the last 5 years.
But how much money did the company actually make?
Semrush Annual Revenue & Net Profit
Semrush has been able to grow its revenue year over year consistently. But maintaining profitability with such fast growth has been a challenge.
These are the latest Semrush statistics on the company’s annual revenue and net profit.
Semrush Annual Revenue
In 2022 Semrush generated a total review of $275 million.
This was a 35% increase year over year compared to Semrush’s 2021 revenue of $188 million. Here is the full breakdown of Semrush’s revenue:
| Year | Total Revenue |
|---|---|
| 2019 | $92.1 million |
| 2020 | $124.88 million |
| 2021 | $188 million |
| 2022 | $254.3 million |
Revenue in 2022 was expected to be in the range of $245 million to $247 million. So Semrush increased their revenue by significantly more than what was expected.
In 2023, Semrush expects to generate $306 million to $309 million in revenue, which would be about a 20% to 22% increase from the previous year.
When looking at past performance, Semrush will likely achieve (or even exceed) this target.
Semrush Annual Recurring Revenue
Semrush primarily earns revenue from subscriptions.
So measuring their annual recurring revenue is essential for the company’s financial health.
What’s the difference between annual recurring revenue (ARR) and total annual revenue?
Semrush defines ARR as:
“the daily revenue of all paid subscription agreements that are actively generating revenue as of the last day of the reporting period multiplied by 365”.
This is why Semrush’s ARR is higher than their total yearly revenue.
In 2022, Semrush made $275 million in ARR. Here is a breakdown of their annual recurring revenue since 2019:
| Year | Annual Recurring Revenue |
|---|---|
| 2019 | $102.6 million |
| 2020 | $144.2 million |
| 2021 | $213 million |
| 2022 | $275 million |
The good news for Semrush is that their ARR is growing consistently year over year. Annual recurring revenue has grown more than 2.7x since 2019, increasing by about $172 million.
ARR grew by about $62 million in 2022 alone, which was about a 29.1% increase.
Semrush Annual Net Profit
Semrush clearly is doing well in terms of revenue.
But what about profit?
Semrush made a net loss of $13.9 million for the fourth quarter of 2022 and a total net loss of $33.8 million for the full year of 2022.
The growth of acquiring users means that it was hard to maintain profitability in 2022. Here is a breakdown of the annual net profit/loss over the last few years:
| Year | Net Proft/Loss |
|---|---|
| Year | Net Proft/Loss |
| 2020 | -$7 million |
| 2021 | -$3.3 million |
| 2022 | -$13.9 million |
Semrush went public with an IPO in March 2021, trading on the NYSE under SEMR. The company raised $140 from its initial public offering.
Executives at Semrush expect the company to make a net profit of between breakeven to about $3 million in 2023.
The SEO industry is going through some major changes at the moment, so it will be interesting to see how Semrush navigates them in the upcoming years.
Semrush Employee & Office Statistics
Semrush is a big company.
How big?
Semrush currently has over 1300+ employees and 200 contractors in 13 different cities worldwide.
Semrush hired about 300 new employees throughout 2021 and 2022.
Most of Semrush’s employees and offices are located across Europe.
But most of their customers are located in the United States. That could be why they have maintained their headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts.
Here is a list of Semrush office locations:
- Boston, Massachusetts (Headquarters)
- Philadelphia, United States
- Austin, United States
- Dallas, United States
- Trevose, United States
- Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Barcelona, Spain
- Belgrade, Serbia
- Berlin, Germany
- Limassol, Cyprus
- Prague, Czechia
- Warsaw, Poland
- Yerevan, Armenia
Semrush is a truly global company that has continued to expand internationally – especially since going public in March 2021.
Wrapping It Up
That brings us to the end of these Semrush statistics.
It’s not a mistake that Semrush has become one of the biggest SEO, marketing and research tools on the planet.
They have continued to evolve as a company and collect usable data that businesses all over the world can take advantage of.
Despite not being profitable over the last few years, it looks like Semrush will become very profitable in the future.
They have:
- A solid customer base
- Fast revenue growth
- Clients from some of the most well-known companies in the world
If you want to take your business to the next level with powerful market research data, SEO and advertising tools, take advantage of this Semrush free 14-day trial.
Interested in learning more about Semrush?
Make sure you read our complete Semrush review to learn how to increase your SEO traffic with this powerful tool.
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