AI Visibility Tools Compared

What AI visibility tools actually do

An AI visibility tool asks AI engines the kind of question a buyer would ask, such as "what's the best project management software for a 10-person team," then records what ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, or Grok say back. It counts how often a brand gets mentioned, where in the answer it appears, which competitors show up instead, and what tone the mention carries. Some tools also crawl the pages those engines cite, which is the AI-search version of a backlink report. See what is AI visibility for the full definition and generative engine optimization for how teams act on the results.

This market split into two shapes by 2026. Most vendors sell a monthly dashboard: you pay for ongoing prompt tracking, log in, and watch trends move. A smaller group sells a one-off report: you pay once, get an answer, and there is no login to maintain. Both are legitimate, and which one is right depends entirely on whether you will actually open a dashboard next month.

AI visibility tools compared

Pricing and engine coverage below were checked directly on each vendor's own pricing page on August 20, 2026. Where a vendor uses credits or add-on pricing for extra engines, the starting price reflects the cheapest paid tier, not a fully loaded plan.

Tool	What it is	Engines covered	Starting price	Best for
Profound	AI-search analytics platform for enterprise brand teams	ChatGPT only on Starter; ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews on Growth; up to 9 engines on Enterprise	$99/mo (Starter, ChatGPT only, 50 prompts)	Enterprise teams that need multi-engine depth and can pay for it
Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit	AI-visibility module inside the Semrush SEO suite	ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini, Perplexity	$99/mo per domain (25 prompts)	Teams already on Semrush who want AI mentions in the same login
Ahrefs Brand Radar	AI-citation add-on inside Ahrefs	Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot, Gemini	$398/mo (select platforms)	Ahrefs users who want AI mentions next to keyword and backlink data
Peec AI	AI-search analytics dashboard for marketing teams and agencies	ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, AI Mode / AI Overviews (3 engines included, more as paid add-ons)	$95/mo (Starter, 50 prompts)	Agencies tracking a handful of client brands day to day
Scrunch AI	AI visibility tracking plus technical AI-readiness auditing	ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Mode / Overviews, Meta AI	$250/mo (Starter, billed annually)	Teams that want prompt tracking and a site-readiness audit together
Rankscale	Credit-based AI-search tracker with page audits	ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode / Overviews, Gemini, DeepSeek, Claude, Grok, Copilot	$20/mo (Essentials, entry tier)	Budget-conscious teams that still want broad engine coverage
AthenaHQ	AI-visibility platform with revenue-attribution features	ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews / AI Mode, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Grok	Free (Essential, $25 in credits) or $295/mo (Starter)	Ecommerce brands that want AI citations tied to sales data
Otterly.AI	Straightforward AI-search-visibility tracker	ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Copilot (Claude, Gemini, AI Mode are paid add-ons)	$29/mo (Lite, 15 prompts)	Small teams that want the cheapest real subscription tier
Gumshoe AI	AI-visibility audits with a free single-report tier	6 engines per audit, drawn from ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, DeepSeek, Grok, Google AI Overview	Free sample audit, then $99/mo (Starter)	Teams that want to try a real multi-engine audit before subscribing; see our full Gumshoe AI comparison
LLM Pulse	AI-visibility tracker with an MCP server, REST API, and CLI	ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews (Claude, Copilot, Grok are paid add-ons)	€49/mo (Starter)	Technical teams who want API or MCP access to their visibility data
AI Visibility Snapshot (us)	Fixed-price one-off report, no login, no subscription	ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok	$19 one-off	Anyone who wants one answer today instead of a monthly bill

A note on "cheapest": several tools list an entry tier below our one-off price, but every one of them is a monthly subscription, not a one-off. Gumshoe AI is the closest thing to a competitor in the one-off space, with a free first audit ahead of its $99/mo plan. Our accurate claim is narrower and checkable: AI Visibility Snapshot is the cheapest fixed-price one-off report that requires no signup, at $19.

Continuous monitoring, one-off audit, or free spot check

These are three different buyer needs, and picking the wrong one wastes either money or time.

Continuous monitoring (subscription). If you will open a dashboard weekly, track how a content or PR change moves your mention rate, or report AI visibility to a client or board on a recurring basis, a subscription is the right tool and worth the money. Profound, Semrush, Ahrefs Brand Radar, Peec AI, Scrunch AI, Rankscale, AthenaHQ, Otterly.AI, and LLM Pulse are all built for that job, with daily or weekly re-checks, historical trend charts, and competitor tracking baked in. Paying $95 to $400 a month for a tool nobody logs into is the actual waste here, not the subscription model itself.

One-off audit. If you need a single, current answer, for a pitch deck, a board slide, a client onboarding call, or a "should we even care about this" gut check, a recurring subscription is the wrong shape. AI Visibility Snapshot runs 5 engines against 10 buyer-intent prompts (50 live answers) in about 2 minutes for a flat $19, no signup, with a 14-day money-back guarantee. See a full sample report before buying, or read the methodology behind how the score is built. Compare that against our AI visibility audit page for what the report covers section by section.

Free spot check. If you just want a directional read before deciding whether to pay for anything, use a free checker. AI Visibility Snapshot's homepage runs a free scan: one prompt across two engines, no email required, capped at three per day. It will not give you a leaderboard or a "where AI looks" citation list, but it answers the first question honestly: does this engine mention my brand at all.

Why checking one engine is misleading

Our public sample report measured Notion in the "project management software" category across 50 live answers on August 20, 2026. Overall mention rate was 54 percent, but the per-engine spread was wide: Claude mentioned Notion in 86 percent of answers, ChatGPT in 57 percent, and Gemini, Perplexity, and Grok all landed at 43 percent. That is a 43-point gap between the highest and lowest engine, for the same brand, in the same category, on the same day. The engines' own most-recommended brands in that category were Asana, Monday.com, and ClickUp.

The editorial point matters more than the specific numbers: AI engines disagree with each other sharply enough that a single-engine check, or a tool that only covers ChatGPT, can give a confident but wrong picture of where a brand actually stands. Any tool limited to one or two engines, including the entry tiers of several products in the table above, should be read with that spread in mind.

How to choose

Start with the free spot check to see if there is a visibility problem worth solving at all. If the answer is "we barely show up," get a full multi-engine read before committing to a monthly tool: a $19 one-off report across 5 engines and 10 prompts is cheap enough to run before every board meeting, and cheaper than a single month of most dashboards above. If the problem turns out to be real and ongoing, that is when a subscription earns its cost, because you will need week-over-week tracking to know whether whatever you changed actually worked. Run the free scan or the full report first; decide on a subscription second.