Plan details checked September 21, 2026 on each vendor's own site. US dollars, list price, before tax. Vendors change plans often, so confirm before you buy.
Getting found and getting read are two different jobs. This guide covers four tools: one for drafting content, two for search and AI-visibility strategy, and one for cleaning up the writing itself. None of them replace each other, so most small teams end up using more than one.
How this guide was built: it draws on each vendor's own pricing page. We have not hands-on tested every product, so we give no ratings or scores. Where a page doesn't state something, we say so instead of guessing.
1. Drafting content: Jasper
Jasper has two plans. Pro is $59 a month billed yearly, or $69 billed monthly, and includes advanced AI features for creating content across multiple brands, but it's built for one user. Business is custom-priced and adds unlimited users, SSO and custom style guides, with a 12-month minimum commitment. Some features, like the GEO Hub and AI agents, run on usage-based credits on top of the seat price. New users get a 7-day free trial of Pro, and Jasper offers a 20% nonprofit discount on request.
2. Search and
AI visibility: Surfer and Semrush
Both of these tools have shifted from classic keyword-rank tracking toward tracking how brands show up in AI answers (ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Overviews), alongside their SEO features. That shift matters if you were expecting a simple rank tracker.
Surfer. Discovery is $49 a month billed yearly, for drafting and optimizing up to 120 documents and tracking 10 pages. Standard is $99 a month and adds AI-visibility tracking (25 prompts a week), 360 documents, team collaboration and a plagiarism checker. Pro is $182 a month and raises the AI-prompt tracking to 50 a day, with 5 brand spaces and internal-linking suggestions. Every plan starts with a free trial.
Semrush. The SEO plan is $117.33 a month billed annually (list price $139), for 5 websites and 500 keywords tracked daily, plus basic keyword research and site audits. Starter, at $165.17 a month (list $199), adds AI-visibility tracking: 50 prompts tracked daily across 1 domain. Pro+, at $248.17 a month (list $299), covers 15 websites, 1,500 keywords and 100 AI prompts a day. Additional user seats start at $45 a month as an add-on.
3. Cleaning up the writing: Grammarly
Grammarly Free covers spelling and grammar mistakes and 100 AI prompts a month, at no cost. Pro is $12 a month, for eligible individuals and teams, and adds full-sentence rewrites, tone adjustment, plagiarism and AI-text detection, and 2,000 AI prompts a month, with a 7-day free trial. Enterprise, available through Superhuman Go, is by quote and adds proactive AI, dedicated support and data-loss prevention. Grammarly's page doesn't break out a separate per-seat team price beyond Pro.
What these tools don't cover
None of the four here is a general-purpose AI assistant or an automation tool. See our small-business AI guide for ChatGPT Business, Google Workspace's Gemini, Microsoft Copilot and Zapier.
How to choose
- Match the tool to the job. Jasper drafts, Surfer and Semrush guide what to write and track how it performs, Grammarly cleans up the sentences.
- Decide if AI-visibility tracking matters to you yet. Surfer and Semrush both charge more for it. If you only need classic SEO, their entry tiers cover that without it.
- Watch seat limits. Jasper Pro is one user; adding people means moving to custom-priced Business.
- Use the free trials before committing annually. All four vendors here offer one.
- Check the small print on discounts. Jasper's 20% nonprofit discount requires emailing proof of status after starting a trial.
Quick math: a solo writer on Jasper Pro ($59/mo annual) plus Grammarly Pro ($12/mo) plus Surfer Discovery ($49/mo annual) comes to $120 a month. Add Semrush's SEO plan instead of Surfer and it's $117.33 a month for that piece alone.
FAQ
Is there a free way to start? Grammarly has a permanent free plan. Jasper and Surfer offer free trials rather than free tiers, and Semrush offers a free trial too.
Do I need both an SEO tool and a writing tool? Usually yes, since they do different jobs: Surfer or Semrush tell you what to write about and how you're performing, and Jasper or Grammarly help you write and clean up the actual text.
This guide contains no affiliate links.