The best AI visibility tools in 2026, by budget: HubSpot’s AEO Grader is free, Otterly.AI costs $29 per month, Peec AI sits around $95 for agencies, Scrunch near $250 for mid-market, and Profound serves enterprise programs. Every one of them is a measurement dashboard. None of them do the fixing.
We use AI visibility tracking in our AEO and GEO client work, so we have hands-on time with several of these platforms and strong opinions about where the money is worth it. This market is loud right now. Funding in the category crossed $300 million between mid-2025 and spring 2026, search interest is up roughly 1,900% year over year, and new trackers launch weekly. Most of them are clones.
This guide covers the tools worth evaluating, what they honestly cost, what real users complain about, and when you should skip a tool entirely.
What do AI visibility tools actually do?
AI visibility tools track how often, how accurately and in what context your brand appears in AI-generated answers. That covers ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google AI Overviews. They replace the manual work of running prompts one by one and turn the results into trackable metrics: mention rate, citation share of voice, sentiment, and which of your pages get cited.
You will see the same products called AI visibility trackers, AI brand visibility checkers, AEO platforms, and GEO software. The labels are marketing. The job is identical.
New to the concept? Start with our guide to what AI visibility is. The short version: AI answers name only a few brands per query, that selection appears nowhere in your analytics, and these tools exist to make the invisible measurable.
Is there a free AI visibility checker?
Yes, and you should use one before paying for anything.
HubSpot’s AEO Grader is free, with optional monitoring at $50 per month. It checks visibility across ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity with citation and sentiment analysis. The depth is basic next to dedicated platforms. It does answer the first question most businesses have: does AI mention us at all?
The manual method costs nothing and often teaches you more. Write down the ten to fifteen questions your customers ask before hiring a business like yours. Run them monthly across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, three times each. Record who gets named and which sources get cited. Our guide to checking your brand’s AI visibility sets out the full method.
Free checkers have one real limitation. They sample once, so you see a snapshot rather than a trend. AI answers vary enough between runs that a single snapshot can mislead you in either direction.
The best AI visibility tools compared
| Tool | Starts at | Realistic cost | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| HubSpot AEO Grader | Free | $50/mo to monitor | First free check |
| Otterly.AI | $29/mo | $29 to $160/mo | Cheapest credible start |
| Peec AI | ~$95/mo (€89) | ~$95/mo+ | Agencies, mid-market |
| Semrush AI Toolkit | $99/mo per domain | On top of your plan | Existing Semrush users |
| Ahrefs Brand Radar | $129/mo | $828+ all-in | Existing Ahrefs users |
| Scrunch | ~$250/mo | $250 to $299/mo | Mid-market wanting audits |
| Profound | $99/mo | $399 to $1,000+/mo | Enterprise programs |
Pricing verified from public sources in 2026 and re-checked in September. Most vendors discount 15 to 30% on annual billing. Every vendor in this category changes pricing often, so confirm before you buy.
Best AI visibility tools under $100 per month
Four options sit under the $100 line, and the differences between them matter more than the price gap.
Free: HubSpot AEO Grader. One-off checks across three engines, with $50 per month for ongoing monitoring. Start here.
$29: Otterly.AI. Daily tracking of 15 prompts across Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Copilot. Founded in Austria in 2024 and named a Gartner Cool Vendor in 2025. The tradeoff is scale. Fifteen prompts covers a small business’s core questions and not much more, and heavier plans jump to $160.
~$95: Peec AI. Around €89 to €95 for 25 tracked prompts. Technically over $100 in some months depending on the exchange rate, which is worth knowing before you budget.
$99: Semrush AI Toolkit or Profound’s starter. Both publish $99 and both come with a catch. Semrush charges per domain on top of an existing plan. Profound’s $99 tier covers ChatGPT only with 50 prompts, which is not multi-engine tracking in any meaningful sense.
The honest summary for a small business: use the free grader first. Add Otterly at $29 if you want a trend line. Ignore everything above that until someone acts on the data every month.
The tools in detail
Profound: the enterprise leader
Profound is the category’s biggest name. It carries a $1 billion valuation, backing from Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins, and Fortune 500 customers including Indeed, MongoDB, DocuSign and US Bank. Its dataset of over a billion real user prompts is genuinely unique, and its citation analysis shows exactly which domains and URLs AI engines pull from.
Users rate it 4.6 out of 5 on G2 across 300+ reviews, with praise for support and analytics depth. Two complaints recur: a steep learning curve, with more than one reviewer calling the feature set overwhelming, and cost. That $99 starter covers ChatGPT only with 50 prompts. Realistic multi-engine use runs $399 to $499 and up, and one agency executive told Digiday their Profound bill reaches $1,000 per month.
Pick it when AI visibility is a funded program with an owner, not an experiment. Skip it when nobody has time to learn a dense platform.
Peec AI: the agency favorite
Peec AI is the fastest-growing challenger, reaching eight figures in annual revenue within roughly 16 months of launch. It is built with agencies in mind: white-label-friendly reports, workspaces for pitching clients with competitor data, and a Looker Studio connector for live dashboards.
Starting around €89 to €95 per month for 25 tracked prompts, it sits in the practical middle of the market. One weakness shows up even in positive hands-on reviews. Its automatic prompt suggestions are hit-or-miss and lack search volume context, so expect to build your prompt list manually.
Pick it when you manage several client brands and need reports you can put your own logo on. Skip it when you have one brand and 25 prompts feels like more than you need.
Otterly.AI: the affordable entry point
Otterly.AI is the cheapest credible way to start. That is $29 per month for daily tracking of 15 prompts across Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Copilot. SEO communities recommend it consistently as the accessible option for freelancers and small teams.
The tradeoff is scale. Fifteen prompts covers a small business’s core questions and not much more, and heavier plans jump to $160 per month.
Pick it when you want real monitoring without a real budget. Skip it when you need competitor benchmarking across dozens of prompts.
Semrush AI Toolkit and Ahrefs Brand Radar: the bolt-ons
If you already pay for Semrush or Ahrefs, their AI visibility add-ons are the path of least resistance. Semrush’s AI Toolkit runs $99 per month per domain on top of a plan. Ahrefs’ Brand Radar starts around $129 and realistically lands much higher once bundled with the tiers that include it.
The honest assessment repeated across practitioner comparisons: the legacy platforms have the most users and the shallowest AI features. They bolt AI tracking onto an SEO suite rather than building for it.
Pick it when you are already inside one of those ecosystems and want to test the idea before adding a vendor. Skip it when AEO is a serious budget line, because you will outgrow it.
Scrunch: mid-market with audits included
Scrunch, at roughly $250 to $299 per month, targets teams wanting site audits bundled with visibility tracking rather than monitoring alone. It is well funded, real, and sits between the entry tools and the enterprise platforms.
Pick it when you have outgrown Otterly but cannot justify Profound. Skip it when monitoring alone is all you need.
The problems nobody’s marketing mentions
Before you buy any of these, three honest warnings from the people actually using them.
Different tools give different answers. As the CEO of one AI-native agency told Digiday: run the same prompts through three tools and you get three answers. AI responses vary by session, location and phrasing, and each tool samples differently. Treat every number as a directional trend, not a precise score.
Attribution is unresolved. AI visibility does not click and track like search traffic, so connecting a citation to a sale remains partly inference. Marketers in the same reporting described the spend as a necessary evil: real signal, imperfect measurement.
A dashboard is not a strategy. This is the biggest one. Every product on this list is a measurement tool. They will show you, in beautiful charts, that ChatGPT recommends your competitor instead of you. None of them write the answer-first content, fix your entity consistency, build topical authority, or earn the third-party citations that change the answer. Our guide to improving brand visibility in AI search engines covers the tactics that move it, and they are work rather than software.
Do you even need a paid tool?
Not at first, for most small and mid-sized businesses.
The manual baseline costs nothing and shows you if there is a visibility problem worth funding. Buy a tool when three things become true: leadership wants trend reporting, you are tracking competitors across many prompts, and someone will act on the findings every month.
A subscription nobody acts on is the most common waste in this category. We have seen businesses pay for eighteen months of dashboards and change nothing on the site. That produces a very detailed record of a problem getting worse.
Which AI visibility tool should you pick?
Match the tool to your situation.
| Your situation | The pick |
|---|---|
| Not ready to spend anything | HubSpot’s free grader, then the manual monthly audit |
| Small business wanting a trend line | Otterly.AI at $29 |
| Agency managing several clients | Peec AI |
| Already paying for Semrush or Ahrefs | Try the bolt-on before adding a vendor |
| Mid-market team acting on findings weekly | Scrunch |
| Enterprise brand with a funded programme | Profound |
If two rows describe you, take the cheaper one. Nobody has ever regretted starting smaller in this category, and plenty have regretted the opposite.
Key takeaways
The best AI visibility tools of 2026 split cleanly by budget. Free and under $100 covers HubSpot’s grader, Otterly.AI and the bolt-ons. Above that sit Peec AI for agencies, Scrunch for mid-market, and Profound for enterprises.
Verify realistic pricing before committing, because published starter prices understate working costs across the board. Expect directional data rather than precise scores. Even practitioners get different answers from different tools.
And remember what no dashboard can do: the content, entity and authority work that changes which brands AI engines cite. Measurement finds the gap. Only the work closes it, which is what our AEO and GEO service exists to do.
Pricing was re-checked in September 2026. This category moves fast, so confirm current rates with each vendor before purchasing.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best AI visibility tool in 2026?
It depends on scale. Profound leads for enterprises with deep budgets, Peec AI fits agencies best, and Otterly.AI at $29 per month is the most affordable credible option. Teams already paying for Semrush or Ahrefs should test those built-in AI toolkits first.
Is there a free AI visibility checker?
Yes. HubSpot’s AEO Grader checks your brand’s visibility across ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity at no cost. You can also audit manually for free. Run your customers’ real questions across the major AI platforms monthly and record who gets mentioned and cited.
What are the best AI visibility tools under $100 per month?
HubSpot’s AEO Grader is free with $50 monitoring, Otterly.AI runs $29, Peec AI sits around $95, and both Semrush AI Toolkit and Profound publish $99 starters. Read the limits carefully. Profound’s $99 tier covers ChatGPT only, and Semrush charges per domain on top of an existing plan.
How much do AI visibility tools cost?
Entry tools start at $29 per month and mid-market options run $95 to $299. Enterprise platforms publish $99 starters but realistically cost $399 to $1,000+ for genuine multi-engine tracking. Annual billing typically saves 15 to 30%.
Are AI visibility trackers accurate?
Directionally yes, precisely no. AI answers vary by session and phrasing, and different tools sampling the same prompts return different results. Use them to track trends over time and compare against competitors, not as exact scores.
Do AI visibility tools improve my rankings in AI answers?
No. They measure visibility, they do not create it. Improving AI visibility takes answer-first content, citations, topical authority, consistent entity data and third-party trust signals. The tools show where you stand while that work happens.
Can I check ChatGPT manually instead of paying for a tool?
For a small business, yes, at first. A fixed set of prompts run monthly by hand gives you a real baseline for free. Paid tools earn their cost when you need daily tracking, competitor benchmarking across many prompts, and trend reports for leadership.
Tools show you the gap. We close it.
Every platform in this guide will tell you where AI engines ignore your brand. None of them fix it. If you run an agency, our white label AI visibility implementation turns their findings into shipped changes under your brand. Survyc is an AI-first digital agency and we do the other half: AEO and GEO optimisation that restructures your content, builds topical authority, and earns the citations that put your business inside AI answers. Reach out to Survyc for an AI visibility audit. We will show you what the dashboards would show, plus the plan to change it.
