Cited vs Semrush
AI Visibility as a Specialist vs a Feature
Semrush is the Swiss Army knife of digital marketing. Cited is built for exactly one thing — getting your website cited by AI search engines — and does it better, faster, and for free.
Results in 3–5 minutes · 100% free · No account required
Feature Comparison
A side-by-side look at what matters for AI search visibility.
| Feature | Cited | Semrush |
|---|---|---|
| Free audit available | Full audit, no credit card | AI Visibility Toolkit is $99/user/month |
| Starting price for AI visibility | Free | $99/month per user (plus $199/month base platform) |
| Cost for a 3-person team | Free | $297/month (AI toolkit alone) |
| Human expert review | Certified AI technician reviews every audit | Fully automated |
| Done-for-you optimisation | We implement changes for you | DIY — you interpret and act on data yourself |
| Time to first insight | 3–5 minutes | Requires full platform onboarding |
| No account needed to start | URL and email only | Paid account required |
| Purpose-built for AI visibility | Built for one thing, done brilliantly | AI visibility is one module among dozens |
| 6-dimensional AI scoring | Citability, Authority, Content, Technical, Schema, Platforms | Prompt-level tracking and brand performance reports |
| AI platforms covered | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, Claude | ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AIOs, Google AI Mode |
| Covers Claude and Perplexity | Yes | No |
| Built for SMEs and agencies | Yes | Designed primarily for enterprise and large agencies |
| Years of search experience | 20+ years | Founded 1996 (AI visibility added 2024) |
See the Difference
Cited delivers a full AI visibility audit in under 5 minutes — no platform setup required.
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Cited — 6-dimensional AI visibility audit results
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Semrush — AI Visibility Toolkit ($99/user/month)
Why Businesses Choose Cited Over Semrush for AI Visibility
You don't need a £200/month platform to fix your AI visibility.
Semrush is a brilliant product if you need a comprehensive SEO and content intelligence platform. But if your goal is specifically to improve how AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity cite your website, you're paying for an enormous amount of functionality you won't use.
Cited focuses entirely on AI search visibility. Every feature, every score, every recommendation is oriented around one outcome: getting your website cited in AI-generated answers. That focus means you get deeper, more actionable results than a general-purpose platform can offer.
The per-user cost adds up fast.
Semrush charges $99 per user per month for the AI Visibility Toolkit. For a three-person marketing team, that's $297/month before the base platform cost. For an agency managing multiple clients, the cost multiplies further.
Cited's free audit requires nothing but a URL and an email address. Our paid plans are designed for the size of business that actually needs them — not priced for enterprise contracts.
Semrush doesn't cover Claude or Perplexity.
Semrush's AI visibility tracking covers ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews, and Google AI Mode. That's a meaningful gap — Perplexity handles hundreds of millions of monthly searches, and Claude is a growing presence in professional and B2B workflows.
Cited covers all five major AI platforms: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, and Claude. If a platform is influencing where your customers find information, we track it.
The human element is what turns data into results.
Semrush surfaces data. Cited delivers answers. Every Cited audit is reviewed by a certified AI technician who has worked in search and digital strategy for over two decades. They interpret your results, prioritise your action plan, and — for clients on our managed service — implement the changes themselves.
No tool, however sophisticated, replaces that.
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