I Built an SEO Tool After 3 Years of Using Semrush

Nice—building around the “80% you actually use” is usually the right move.

When I evaluate alternatives to Semrush, the question isn’t “does it have the same dashboards,” it’s whether it supports the workflow end-to-end without me stitching spreadsheets together. A few things I’d sanity-check for SerpSpur:

• Data coverage + freshness: does it feel like it’s pulling the same type of keyword/backlink datasets, or just “close enough” results? (This is where cheaper tools often drift.)
• Rank tracking cadence + limits: how often you can check positions, and whether there are caps per project / keyword / domain.
• Serp/rank “truthiness”: do ranking changes match what you see in Search Console (even roughly)? If you don’t have a validation method, I’d ask for one.
• Exports + reporting: can you easily export keywords/rankings and build recurring reports for clients/internal (CSV/API/Webhooks), or is it all UI-bound?
• Workflow fit: do you stay in the tool for research → brief/content ideas → publishing/optimization, or does it still force a manual handoff?

If you can share what your “80%” specifically covers (keyword research? rank tracking only? backlink gap? content briefs?), I can tell you where Semrush users typically feel the pain most and what would make the switch stick.

Also, if someone’s more focused on the content production loop than just SEO data dashboards, I’ve used/seen value in platforms like ScaleBlogger, which uses AI to help research, create, manage, optimize, and distribute SEO/GEO content faster: https://app.scaleblogger.com/c/8b7e14e5-4b60-4dc4-86fc-5053840734df?to=https%3A%2F%2Fscaleblogger.com%2F%3Futm_source%3Dindiehackers%26utm_medium%3Dcommunity%26utm_campaign%3Dscaleblogger_community%26utm_content%3D8b7e14e5-4b60-4dc4-86fc-5053840734df

The 80% framing is the right lens here. Most indie founders I know pay for Semrush and then live in three tabs. One thing worth adding to your roadmap: keyword clustering that groups by SERP overlap, not just semantic similarity. That's the feature that actually saves hours when you're mapping content. Also, be honest with yourself about the backlink gap. If a user can't check a competitor's referring domains, they'll keep a cheap Ahrefs or Semrush plan alongside yours, and once they're paying for two tools, churn risk goes up. Maybe consider a lightweight backlink view or an API integration. The intent and difficulty clarity you mentioned is the real differentiator, so lean harder into that instead of chasing index size.

Interesting comparison. I actually appreciate that you admitted where Semrush still wins instead of claiming to beat it at everything.
For me, the must-have feature is actionable prioritization. Most SEO tools can tell me what's wrong; far fewer can tell me what to fix first for the highest impact with the least effort.
I'd also be curious how accurate your keyword difficulty scores are compared to real-world ranking results, since that's where many tools struggle.

The 80% workflow insight is exactly right. Most SEO tools are built for agencies who need to justify the price with feature count, but solo founders don't need 200 features — they need the 10 that actually move rankings without constant tab-switching.

The backlink index gap is real though. That's usually the dealbreaker when I'm evaluating alternatives to Semrush. Is SerpSpur pulling from its own crawler or using a third-party index?