18 Best Content Marketing Tools to Use in 2026

Content marketing involves lots of moving parts, from researching topics and planning content to promotion and performance tracking. As a result, most teams end up juggling multiple tools just to keep their content engine running. 

In this guide, we’ve curated a list of the 18 best content marketing tools to help you work more efficiently at every stage of the process. The list includes a mix of free and paid tools, covering research, planning, creation, distribution, and analysis. 

All our content marketing tool recommendations are based on hands-on testing and real-world workflows. Whether you’re building a content operation from scratch or refining an existing stack, this list will help you choose the best tools. 

How to Choose the Right Content Marketing Tools

You don’t need all 18 tools on this list to run an effective content marketing program.

Most teams use four to six tools across different stages of the workflow, depending on team size, goals, and budget.

Here’s a simple way to think about your stack:

• If you’re a solo marketer or blogger: Focus on tools for topic research, SEO, writing, and basic performance tracking. Free or low-cost tools can cover most needs.
• If you’re part of a small content team: Prioritize tools that support collaboration, content planning, and consistent publishing—plus SEO and analytics to measure results
• If you manage content at scale (in-house or agency): Look for platforms that combine research, content creation, performance tracking, and reporting to reduce subscriptions and manual work

As you read through the list, pay attention to what job each tool does. You can then build a stack that supports your workflow without adding unnecessary complexity.

The table below gives you a quick overview of the best content marketing tools in this guide. 

1. Topic Finder

Best for: Discovering high-potential content ideas.

Topic Finder helps you identify content ideas that have both search demand and relatively low competition, so you can focus on topics that are most likely to drive traffic and results.

It’s part of Semrush’s Content Toolkit and is designed to support the earliest stage of the content workflow: deciding what to create. 

When you enter a broad topic, Topic Finder automatically groups related terms ideas into topics and highlights why each topic is worth targeting. For every topic, you’ll see insights such as overall search demand, keyword difficulty, intent, and a short explanation of why the topic works. 

Instead of manually researching keywords and grouping them, Topic Finder does that work for you. So you can quickly spot:

• Topics with strong demand but manageable competition
• Content ideas aligned with informational, commercial, or transactional intent
• Gaps worth exploring before competitors catch up

From there, you can send a topic directly into the SEO Brief Generator to build a data-backed outline, or to the AI Article Generator to create an initial draft. Your entire workflow stays inside one toolkit.

What I Like

Topic Finder significantly speeds up content planning.

To test Topic Finder, I entered the broad term “brew coffee” and within 2 minutes and 14 seconds, I had a list of ready-to-use content ideas, each with clear context on why it was worth pursuing. 

For teams working under tight deadlines, Topic Finder removes a major planning bottleneck and makes content ideation far more efficient.

Pricing

Topic Finder is included in Semrush’s Content Toolkit. Plans are $60 per month.

2. Keyword Magic Tool

Best for: Finding keyword opportunities that can realistically drive relevant traffic.

The Keyword Magic Tool helps you uncover keyword ideas based on real search behavior, so you can target queries that align with both user intent and your site’s ranking potential.

It’s part of Semrush’s SEO Toolkit and draws from a database of 27.6 billion keywords across 140+ countries, making it especially useful for businesses operating in multiple markets.

When you enter a seed keyword, the tool returns a large set of related terms that you can quickly narrow down by intent, difficulty, and commercial value. 

The real value of the Keyword Magic Tool is in how quickly it helps you prioritize. Instead of scanning endless keyword lists, you can filter results to:

• Focus on keywords with commercial or transactional intent
• Exclude branded or competitor terms
• Surface opportunities with achievable ranking difficulty

This allows you to build keyword lists that support specific goals, like qualified traffic to blog content or supporting conversion-focused pages.

What I Like

I like that I can filter out competitor terms from my list in the Keyword Magic Tool.

For example, if I’m creating a landing page for a U.S.-based fitness studio, I don’t want competitor terms like “CorePower” appearing. 

With the “Exclude keywords” filter, I can remove competitor terms. 

Then set the Intent filter to show only commercial and transactional keywords, helping me narrow my list to the ones most likely to drive conversions.

Pricing

The Keyword Magic tool is included in Semrush’s SEO Toolkit. Paid plans start at $117.33 per month when billed annually.

3. Keyword Overview

Best for: Quickly evaluating whether a keyword is worth targeting. 

Keyword Overview gives you an instant, high-level snapshot of any keyword, helping you decide whether it’s worth investing time and resources into.

When you enter a keyword, you immediately see core metrics like search volume, keyword difficulty, intent, and cost-per-click. You can also view data for specific countries, regions, or cities, which is especially useful for local or regional campaigns.

Keyword Overview works best as a validation step. Before committing to a topic or keyword, you can quickly check:

• Whether there’s enough search demand
• How competitive the SERP looks
• Whether the intent aligns with your content goals

You can also tailor results to your own domain to see personalized difficulty and estimated traffic potential, which helps you avoid targeting keywords that are unrealistic for your site.

What I Like

Keyword Overview saves time when you’re evaluating a lot of ideas quickly.

Instead of jumping between multiple reports or changing Google’s location settings manually, I can assess keyword potential across different markets from a single dashboard. That’s especially helpful when working with international clients or multi-location businesses.

Pricing

Keyword Overview is included in Semrush’s SEO Toolkit. Paid plans start at $117.33 per month when billed annually. 

4. QuestionDB

Best for: Finding real customer questions from search engines and online communities. 

QuestionDB helps you uncover the exact questions people are asking around a topic by pulling data from sources like Google, Reddit, and Quora. This makes it useful for identifying content ideas that reflect real user concerns, not just keyword variations.

When you enter a broad topic, the tool returns a list of related questions along with basic metrics, such as search volume, difficulty, and source.

QuestionDB is especially helpful for:

• Blog posts built around FAQs or problem-solving queries
• Content that aims to match conversational or long-tail search intent

Because QuestionDB pulls questions from discussion forums as well as search engines, it can surface angles you might miss with traditional keyword tools alone.

What I Like

What stands out is how clearly QuestionDB lets you find content that gets engagement.

When filtering results by Reddit, for example, you can see which questions are actively discussed by clicking the Reddit icon in the table. To make it easier to prioritize topics that resonate with real audiences.

For example, when I searched “content marketing,” it surfaced the question “what does content strategy really mean?” When I clicked through to the post, I saw that it had 66 upvotes and 40 comments. 

Pricing

QuestionDB offers a free plan (five searches per month). Paid plan starts at $9.99/month.

5. Exploding Topics

Best for: Spotting emerging content trends before they become too competitive. 

Exploding Topics helps you identify fast-growing trends by analyzing large volumes of online data to surface topics worth covering.

Unlike traditional keyword tools, which focus on existing search demand, Exploding Topics is designed to highlight what’s starting to grow. That makes it useful for content teams that want to publish early and build authority ahead of competitors.

Each topic includes growth indicators, estimated monthly search volume, and a trend chart that shows how interest has changed over time.

Exploding Topics works best during ideation and planning. It helps you:

• Identify emerging themes before they become saturated
• Validate early-stage content ideas
• Supplement keyword research with trend-driven insights

What I Like

Exploding Topics surfaces adjacent subtopics rather than requiring you to already know what to search for.

With Exploding Topics, searching for “fitness” surfaced rising subtopics like “zone 2 training,” “hyrox,” and “cold plunge.”

Pricing

Exploding Topics doesn’t offer a free plan. Paid plans start at $39 per month.

6. Perplexity

Best for: Fast, source-backed research and content discovery. 

Perplexity is an AI-powered search tool that summarizes information from across the web and includes citations for its responses. This makes it especially useful for early-stage research, fact-checking, and adding credible context to content.

Instead of returning a list of links, Perplexity provides concise answers with referenced sources, helping you understand a topic quickly without jumping between tabs.

Perplexity works well when you need to:

• Get up to speed on an unfamiliar topic
• Find recent statistics or data points
• Identify reputable sources to reference in content

Because sources are clearly cited, it’s easier to verify information and avoid relying on outdated or recycled data, which can happen with traditional web searches.

What I Like

For research-heavy content, Perplexity significantly reduces time spent gathering background information. It helps surface original research and credible reports in minutes, so you can skip hours of manual searching.

Pricing

Perplexity offers a free plan. Paid plans start at $16.67 per month.

7. Monday.com

Best for: Managing content production across team members with automations. 

Monday.com is a project management platform that helps content teams plan, track, and manage their content production workflows. It’s especially useful for coordinating work across multiple contributors and keeping deadlines and status updates in one place.

Teams can build boards from scratch or use templates to manage different content types, such as blog posts, social media content, or campaigns.

You can create different boards for different stages of production. Or different kinds of content like social media posts, blog posts, podcast episodes, etc.

Monday.com really stands out for its powerful automation features. For example, you can set rules like “When a Task Status changes to Review, notify Task Editor” or “Send a reminder two days before a deadline.”

What I Like

Semrush content production runs on Monday.com. 

Because of its powerful automation, content moves from ideation to publishing with minimal manual effort.

Ana Camarena, Senior Content Manager at Semrush, shares her experience with Monday.com:

“With Monday.com, we build complex workflows with automated deadlines and notifications based on article type, priority, or other factors. This matters because content production is high, and one article can involve up to six people. Automation keeps coordination smooth and ensures nothing gets missed.”

Pricing

Monday.com offers a free plan for up to two users. Paid plans start at $9 per seat per month.

8. Mailchimp

Best for: Promoting content through email campaigns. 

Mailchimp is an email marketing platform commonly used to distribute content to subscribers through newsletters, automated campaigns, and targeted email sequences.

It includes a drag-and-drop editor, pre-built templates, and basic audience segmentation tools, making Mailchimp a good option for teams without dedicated email specialists.

Mailchimp is a solid choice for content promotion because it helps you:

• Share blog posts, videos, or other announcements with your audience
• Track engagement metrics like opens and clicks
• Set up simple automated campaigns based on subscriber behavior

What I Like

Mailchimp is easy to get started with.

Even for teams new to email marketing, Mailchimp’s interface and templates make it relatively straightforward to send newsletters and basic campaigns.

Pricing

Mailchimp offers a free plan for up to 500 contacts. Paid plans start at $13 per month.

9. SEO Brief Generator

Best for: Creating data-backed SEO content briefs based on competing content.

The SEO Brief Generator helps you build detailed content briefs using competitor data and real-time SEO insights. It’s part of Semrush’s Content Toolkit and is designed to replace the manual, time-consuming process of analyzing top-ranking pages one by one.

Instead of starting from a blank document, you can use SEO Brief Generator to shape your brief around what’s already working in search, while still tailoring it to your goals.

The SEO Brief Generator is especially valuable when consistency and scale matter. It helps you:

• Analyze top-ranking competitor content in one place
• Define structure, word count, and key subtopics
• Align writers around clear SEO and content expectations

Because briefs are built from live SERP data, they’re grounded in what search engines already reward. That reduces guesswork for both editors and writers.

What I Like

The SEO Brief Generator removes a major bottleneck in the editorial process.

Creating SEO briefs manually usually involves opening dozens of tabs, comparing outlines, counting word lengths, and pulling keywords into a document. The SEO Brief Generator compresses that work into a workflow that produces usable briefs in minutes.

It also connects seamlessly with Topic Finder and the AI Article Generator, which helps maintain momentum from idea to draft.

Pricing

SEO Brief Generator is included in Semrush’s Content Toolkit. Plans are $60 per month.

10. Social Poster

Best for: Planning, scheduling, and publishing social content across multiple platforms. 

Social Poster helps you manage social media publishing across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Google Business Profile from a single calendar, making it easier to distribute content consistently across channels.

Instead of switching between multiple social apps, you can draft, schedule, and publish posts from one interface.

Social Poster is useful for teams that want to stay consistent without spending hours on manual scheduling. It allows you to:

• Plan posts visually using a shared calendar
• Schedule content in advance across multiple platforms
• Publish in bulk using CSV uploads

What I Like

Social Poster’s bulk scheduling feature is a major time-saver.

If you already have your content and visuals prepared, being able to schedule dozens of posts at once reduces repetitive work and keeps social distribution running smoothly.

Pricing

Social Poster is included in Semrush’s Social Toolkit. Paid plans start at $20 per month.

11. ChatGPT

Best for: Supporting multiple stages of content creation with AI assistance. 

ChatGPT is a general-purpose AI assistant that’s commonly used by marketers to speed up routine tasks and explore ideas more efficiently.

You interact with ChatGPT through prompts and can ask it to generate outlines, draft copy, rewrite sections, brainstorm angles, or summarize information. For example, you could ask it to write a blog post outline for a specific topic. 

ChatGPT works best as a support tool, not a standalone content creation solution. It can help you:

• Brainstorm topics and create outlines
• Draft early versions of content
• Rephrase or tighten copy
• Generate variations for emails, ads, or social posts

When combined with SEO tools and human editing, ChatGPT can significantly reduce time spent on first drafts and revisions.

What I Like

ChatGPT is flexible and fast.

For everyday content tasks, like turning rough notes into a structured outline or rewriting a paragraph for clarity, it can deliver usable results in seconds. That makes it a helpful addition to a broader content marketing stack.

Pricing

ChatGPT offers a free plan. Paid plans start at $20 per month.

12. AI Article Generator

Best for: Creating SEO-friendly drafts that are grounded in real search data. 

The AI Article Generator is part of Semrush’s Content Toolkit and helps you produce full-length blog drafts using AI while staying aligned with SEO requirements and content strategy.

Instead of generating generic text, AI Article Generator builds drafts based on inputs like target location, word count, secondary keywords, and brand voice. You can also send topics directly from Topic Finder or structured outlines from the SEO Brief Generator, keeping the workflow connected.

AI Article Generator works best when you need a strong starting point. It helps you:

• Turn SEO briefs into usable drafts quickly
• Maintain alignment with keyword targets and structure
• Reduce time spent on blank-page drafting

Because drafts are generated within an editor, you can immediately refine content, apply SEO and readability suggestions, and adjust the tone before publishing.

What I Like

Unlike standalone AI writing tools, the AI Article Generator connects drafting with SEO inputs and performance considerations. That makes the output more useful for real-world publishing, especially when the goal is visibility—not just speed.

It’s particularly helpful for teams producing content at scale, where consistency and efficiency matter.

Pricing

The AI Article Generator is included in Semrush’s Content Toolkit. Plans are $60 per month. 

13. Canva

Best for: Creating professional visuals without design skills. 

Canva is a design platform that helps marketers create visuals for blog posts, social media, presentations, and other content formats without needing a background in graphic design.

It offers a drag-and-drop editor, a large library of templates, and built-in brand tools, making Canva an easy option for producing consistent visuals quickly.

Canva allows you to:

• Create visuals for multiple content formats in minutes
• Maintain brand consistency using saved fonts, colors, and assets
• Repurpose content visuals across channels without resizing manually

For content teams without dedicated designers, Canva removes a major production bottleneck.

What I Like

Canva pairs well with AI writing tools.

You can generate copy or images elsewhere, then quickly turn them into polished visuals using Canva’s templates. This makes it easy to support content launches and social promotion.

Pricing

Canva offers a free plan. Paid plans start at $7.50 per month. 

14. Google Search Console (GSC)

Best for: Tracking search performance and identifying SEO opportunities. 

Google Search Console (GSC) is a free tool from Google that shows how your site performs in traditional search results as well as Google’s AI experiences. 

It provides visibility into impressions, clicks, click-through rate, and average position across queries and pages. And because GSC data comes directly from Google, it’s an essential reference point for measuring search performance.

You can use GSC to:

• Identify queries that generate impressions but few clicks
• Monitor indexing issues
• Track performance over time

GSC’s capabilities make it easier to refine existing content and prioritize optimization efforts.

What I Like

GSC makes it simple to find specific queries where a site is getting plenty of impressions but not enough clicks.

For example, I once filtered for “austin coffee” for a client’s coffee shop and found three underperforming queries:

• “quiet coffee shops austin”
• “austin coffee with wifi”
• “best coffee in east austin”

I targeted these in location pages, which helped lift CTR and bring in more qualified local traffic.

To find terms with high impressions yet few clicks, I can just go to “Performance” > “+ Add filter” > “Query” > “Queries containing.” Then enter my term and sort the results by impressions (high to low).

Pricing

Google Search Console is free. 

15. Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

Best for: Understanding how users interact with content across channels. 

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is a free analytics platform that tracks user behavior across websites and apps to help marketers understand how visitors discover, engage with, and convert from content.

Unlike older versions of Google Analytics, GA4 focuses more on user journeys.

You can use GA4 to:

• See which channels drive traffic to your content
• Measure engagement and retention
• Understand which content contributes to conversions

What I Like

I like how GA4 gives a clean way to track GBP traffic using simple UTM parameters. 

One Reddit user shared how tagging their Google Business Profile link with the following parameter made all their GBP traffic show up as organic in GA4. 

Pricing

GA4 is free. 

16. AI Visibility Toolkit

Best for: Measuring and improving your brand’s visibility in AI-powered search experiences. 

The AI Visibility Toolkit helps you understand how your brand appears across AI platforms such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google’s AI search features—and how that compares to competitors.

Use the insights you get from the AI Visibility Toolkit to shape your AI visibility strategy.

The AI Visibility Toolkit is valuable if AI search visibility is a priority for your business. It allows you to:

• Track how often and where your brand appears in AI responses
• Identify prompts and queries where competitors are mentioned instead
• Analyze sentiment and cited sources to understand brand perception

What I Like

I found the AI Visibility Toolkit to be genuinely insightful. 

I especially like that I can spot prompts where my competitors appear but my brand doesn’t through the Competitor Research report. 

Pricing

The AI Visibility Toolkit starts at $99 per month.

17. Wordtune

Best for: Polishing and refining written content.

Wordtune is an AI-powered editing tool that improves clarity, tone, and flow in written content. It’s designed for refining drafts rather than generating content from scratch.

By selecting a sentence, you can view multiple rewrite options that vary in tone, length, or structure.

Wordtune is helpful when you already have a draft and want to improve how it reads. It can be used to:

• Rewrite awkward or unclear sentences
• Adjust tone to be more formal or more casual
• Shorten or expand sections without changing meaning

Wordtune’s suggestions are useful during editing and revision stages.

What I Like

Instead of manually rewriting sentences multiple times, Wordtune lets you quickly compare alternatives and choose the version that fits your voice and intent. That speeds up the editing process without taking control away from the writer.

Pricing

Wordtune offers a free plan. Paid plans start at $13.99 per month.

18. Hemingway Editor

Best for: Improving readability and simplifying complex writing.

Hemingway Editor is a writing tool that highlights sentences and words that reduce readability. 

By pasting text into Hemingway Editor, you receive a readability grade and color-coded suggestions for improvement. The goal is to make content clearer, more direct, and easier to scan.

Hemingway Editor is especially helpful for web content. It flags:

• Long or complex sentences
• Passive voice
• Excessive adverbs and complicated wording

What I Like

I love Hemingway Editor’s interface. You paste your draft and the feedback appears instantly. 

That speed matters when I’m polishing long-form content. On average, it cuts my editing time by about 30%.

Other tools often lag or overcomplicate the process unnecessarily. That’s a big reason why Hemingway Editor has been part of my writing workflow for more than five years.

Pricing

Hemingway Editor offers a free version. Paid plans start at $8.33 per month. 

Kickstart Your Content Marketing Efforts

With so many tools available, the biggest challenge isn’t finding software. It’s building a content stack that actually works together.

But managing even a techstack with multiple tools that are complementary can quickly become overwhelming and inefficient.

If you want a platform that combines many toolkits in one place, try a free trial of Semrush to see what’s possible. And which additional toolkits you might want.