Best AI Visibility Tools in 2026: Features, Pricing & Who They're For

The best AI visibility tool depends on what you need to measure and what you want to do after you find a gap. Ahrefs Brand Radar is particularly useful for broad category research. Profound is built for deeper enterprise AEO programs. Semrush fits naturally into an established SEO stack. Peec is strong for focused daily monitoring. OtterlyAI has a low paid entry point. Surfer makes sense when content optimization is the next step. Rankvia is designed for smaller teams that want buyer-question visibility connected directly to search planning and execution.

There is no useful universal winner. These products measure different prompt universes, providers, and signals, so two apparently similar AI-visibility percentages may describe different things.

Pricing and product information checked September 13, 2026. Prices are monthly USD entry points unless noted; verify checkout terms before purchase.

Best AI visibility tools at a glance

*Peec's pricing page publishes plan limits but does not reliably expose dollar amounts in crawlable markup. Its own July 2026 pricing instructions list Starter at $95; verify checkout before purchasing.

This table is not a leaderboard. Ahrefs tracking a 459M-prompt index and Rankvia tracking a smaller set of business-specific buyer questions are different measurement products: one prioritizes discovery breadth, the other relevance and downstream action.

What does an AI visibility tool actually measure?

AI visibility tools, also marketed as GEO, AEO, AI-search monitoring, or AI brand-monitoring tools, collect answers from systems such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI, Perplexity, and others. They may report brand mentions, recommendations or position, competitors, Share of Voice, citations, source domains, sentiment, prompt coverage, modeled impressions, and historical change.

Those are not standardized metrics. Ahrefs separately measures mentions, citations, modeled impressions, and AI Share of Voice. Semrush has a proprietary AI Visibility Score alongside other systems. Peec defines Visibility as the percentage of tracked responses containing a brand. Profound separately presents visibility, SOV, Citation Share, sentiment, and position.

Read AI Share of Voice for the competitive metric and AI Mentions vs Citations for the distinction between brand and source presence.

How we compared the tools

This guide uses current first-party product, help, pricing, and methodology pages rather than competing roundup articles for product facts. We considered provider coverage; control over buyer questions; prompt or index breadth; underlying evidence; mentions, recommendations, citations, competitors, and SOV; cadence; geography; SEO integrations; actionability; reporting; pricing; and buyer fit.

Provider count alone is a weak buying criterion. Eleven logos are useful only if those systems matter to your customers and the product provides enough evidence to make a decision.

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Rankvia

Good fit for: SaaS, ecommerce, and smaller teams that want AI visibility connected to search and content execution.

Rankvia starts from website, product, audience, and market context to select priority buyer questions, then checks ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google AI. It exposes brand appearances, question-level evidence, competitors, competitor SOV, provider-level differences, sources, and recurring scans. It then combines that evidence with search demand, existing pages, competitors, sources, and Business Profile context to select Create, Improve, Monitor, Third-party visibility, or Skip.

Strengths: business-context setup, buyer-question measurement, source intelligence, recurring scans, content-planning bridge, and $39 entry price. Limitations: only three provider families are advertised, it is not a giant category prompt database, one website is included per plan, and its public enterprise reporting/API/SSO breadth is narrower than enterprise-oriented platforms.

Launch is $39/month for 25 AI Visibility questions and 10 pages/month; Growth is $99 for 50 questions and 30 pages; Scale is $189 for 100 questions and 60 pages. Choose Rankvia when the desired workflow is measure → diagnose → decide → create or improve → publish → measure again. If you need nine-provider enterprise intelligence, it is not the first shortlist.

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Explore Rankvia AI VisibilityRead the methodology →

Profound

Good fit for: enterprise brands and sophisticated AEO programs.

Profound's Answer Engine Insights covers monitored prompts and metrics including visibility, SOV, citations, sentiment, and position. Its Starter plan begins at $99/month annually for 50 prompts and ChatGPT; Growth begins at $399/month annually for 100 prompts and three engines; Enterprise pricing is custom and advertises broader coverage, up to nine engines.

Its enterprise analytics, citation intelligence, agents, and organization controls are a more natural fit than Rankvia or a lightweight tracker when teams need cross-engine, multi-team AEO operations. The tradeoff is that meaningful cross-engine coverage costs more, and Starter is ChatGPT-only.

Ahrefs Brand Radar

Good fit for: broad category research, large-scale prompt discovery, and existing Ahrefs users.

Brand Radar combines two models: a 459M-prompt AI Visibility Index for immediate category research and Custom Prompts for specific buyer questions, selected providers, locations, and daily, weekly, or monthly cadence. It reports competitor visibility, cited domains/pages, and search-demand-weighted impressions alongside broader Ahrefs SEO data.

Custom-prompt packages cost $50 for 2,500 checks, $100 for 7,000, or $250 for 25,000 per month. A single AI index is $199/month and all indexes are $699/month with 2,500 custom checks. Choose it for category discovery and prompt breadth; do not treat its modeled impressions as measured AI audience impressions.

Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit

Good fit for: teams already using Semrush and wanting AI visibility beside traditional SEO.

Semrush Base is $99 per domain per month billed annually, with 25 daily custom prompts, one Brand Performance domain, and mentions from ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini, and Perplexity. It also includes AI competitor analysis, prompt research, and AI-readiness auditing. Semrush's help page says the standalone toolkit has no trial, while some broader marketing pages use seven-day trial language; verify checkout terms.

Its advantage is integration: traditional search data, Site Audit, competitors, and reporting live in one ecosystem. Its limitation is that AI functions are spread across modules and the base custom-prompt limit is modest.

Peec

Good fit for: focused daily monitoring, agencies, and clean competitor/source analysis.

Peec uses a custom prompt library and daily tracking. Its self-service Starter includes 50 prompts, three chosen models, one project, unlimited users, and published metrics for visibility, position, sentiment, SOV, competitors, sources, and prioritized recommendations. Its own July 2026 pricing instructions list Starter at $95, Pro at $245, and Advanced at $495, with roughly 15% annual savings.

Peec is a strong shortlist for recurring intelligence. Its self-service plans use only three active models, broader coverage is enterprise, and recommendations are not the same as an integrated publishing workflow.

OtterlyAI

Good fit for: inexpensive dedicated monitoring.

Otterly Lite is $29/month for 15 prompts. It includes daily monitoring across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot; Google AI Mode, Gemini, and Claude are paid add-ons. Otterly also offers citation analysis, domain ranking, GEO audits, prompt research, recommendations, and a trial.

It is a clear entry point for teams replacing occasional manual checks. The headline price is not the final price for broad coverage, and Lite's 15 prompts can be restrictive.

Surfer AI Search Analytics

Good fit for: content teams, especially teams already using Surfer.

Surfer's standalone AI Search Analytics tracks ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, and Gemini daily. It includes visibility, SOV, mention gaps, sentiment, CSV exports, share links, and five workspaces. Pricing is $95 for 50 daily prompts, $185 for 100, and $365 for 200; annual effective pricing is lower, and a seven-day trial is advertised.

The standalone subscription is a tracker, not the entire content platform. It becomes a stronger fit when Surfer's wider content workflow is the actual reason for choosing it.

AthenaHQ

Good fit for: teams that need broad provider coverage plus an action or agent layer.

Athena Essential is free. Starter is $295/month for 3,600 credits and eleven advertised models: ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI, and Mistral. API access and additional credits are paid add-ons.

Athena's breadth, source/competitor intelligence, recommendations, and agent workflow are compelling where broad provider coverage matters. For a team focused on only ChatGPT and Google AI, that premium may buy coverage it does not need.

Scrunch

Good fit for: mid-market and enterprise teams combining visibility monitoring with site and AI-agent optimization.

Scrunch Core is $250/month for 125 unique prompts, five site audits per month, one workspace, five seats, and four providers: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Copilot. Core also includes citations, sources, sentiment, recommendations, and limited optimization. Enterprise is custom, expands to nine models, and adds API/integrations and SSO; a seven-day Core trial is advertised.

It is easiest to justify when visibility is part of a larger site and agent-experience program, rather than a simple tracking need.

SE Visible

Good fit for: high prompt volumes, several projects, and international monitoring.

SE Visible Basic is $99/month for 200 prompts, three projects, and five systems: ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. Core is $189 for 450 prompts and five projects; Plus is $355 for 1,000 prompts and ten projects. The product advertises daily monitoring, seven countries, five languages, and a ten-day trial.

It is an attractive option when monitoring capacity and multi-project support matter more than enterprise workflow depth. The standalone product is primarily for analysis and monitoring; deeper execution sits in the wider SE Ranking ecosystem.

Custom buyer questions versus massive prompt databases

Custom tracking repeatedly checks questions such as “Best payroll software for a 20-person startup?” and “Alternatives to Deel for European employers?” It is useful when buying scenarios are known, the market is niche, relevance matters more than breadth, and a stable baseline matters.

Rankvia, Peec, Otterly, Surfer, Profound, Athena, Scrunch, and SE Visible substantially use this model. Ahrefs and Semrush add broad indexed databases that are useful for category discovery, competitor research, and finding questions you did not know to monitor.

Know whether a metric comes from a broad database or a custom monitored set before comparing it with another tool. The largest prompt database is not automatically the best measurement system for your business.

Which metrics should matter?

• Brand mentions: did the brand appear?
• Recommendation or position: was it presented as an option, and where?
• Sources and citations: which pages or domains supported the response? Source visibility and brand visibility are separate problems.
• Share of Voice: how does a brand compare with a defined competitor set? Formulas differ materially between vendors.
• Sentiment: how positively or negatively is a brand described? It is inherently more interpretive.
• Modeled impressions: useful for opportunity estimates, but not observed audience reach.

What should you check before buying?

• Which providers actually matter to our customers?
• Can we control exact buyer questions and inspect evidence underneath them?
• Can the product discover questions we have not thought of?
• Can we configure competitors and separate brand mentions from source domains?
• Is the methodology documented and provider-level performance visible?
• What happens after a gap is found?
• What is the real cost at our prompts × providers × markets?

The final question matters more than “starting at.” A $29 plan with model add-ons can cost more for broad coverage, and a check-based plan can scale differently by provider.

For the full monitoring framework, see How to Track AI Visibility.

Which AI visibility tool should you choose?

No vendor earns a universal win. Choose the smallest product that can answer the buyer questions, providers, evidence, and action workflow you truly need.

Can you track AI visibility manually?

Yes. Start with 10–20 commercially meaningful buyer questions and record provider, date, brand mention, recommendation, competitors, own-domain citation, and third-party sources. Use the same questions and context repeatedly.

Manual tracking breaks down with frequent reruns, several providers or markets, many questions, competitor history, source analysis, or reporting. Automation is valuable mainly because it preserves a consistent dataset, not because the dashboard looks better.

Frequently asked questions

What is an AI visibility tool?

An AI visibility tool monitors how a brand appears in AI-generated answers. Depending on the product, it may measure mentions, recommendations or position, competitors, Share of Voice, citations, sources, sentiment, and changes over time.

What is the best AI visibility tool?

There is no universal winner. Ahrefs is strong for category discovery, Profound for enterprise AEO, Semrush for integrated SEO teams, Peec for focused daily monitoring, Otterly for a low paid entry, and Rankvia for smaller teams that want evidence tied to execution.

Which tools track ChatGPT?

All ten products in this comparison support ChatGPT on at least one plan. The meaningful difference is whether ChatGPT is one provider in a custom tracker, part of a precomputed index, or part of an enterprise workflow.

How much do AI visibility tools cost?

Paid entry points in this comparison run from $29 per month for OtterlyAI to $295 for Athena Starter, with Rankvia at $39, Ahrefs custom tracking at $50, several tools around $95–$99, and enterprise-oriented options higher. The figures are not directly comparable because prompts, providers, markets, and scope differ.

Are AI visibility scores comparable between tools?

Not safely without understanding question sets, competitors, providers, locations, counting rules, cadence, and weighting. The same percentage can describe different measurement universes.

Can I track AI visibility for free?

Yes. You can begin manually. Rankvia has a free checker with no credit card, and Athena advertises a free tier. Several vendors also advertise trials.

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The easiest way to decide what kind of tool you need is to inspect your own buyer-question visibility first.

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Sources

• Rankvia - AI Visibility and pricing

  Current AI coverage, workflow, and Launch, Growth, and Scale plan limits.

• Profound - AEO plans

  Published Starter and Growth plan introduction and starting price.

• Ahrefs - Brand Radar

  AI Visibility Index, Custom Prompts, platform coverage, and index pricing.

• Ahrefs - Custom prompt tracking

  Custom-prompt cadence, provider selection, checks, and pricing tiers.

• Semrush - AI Visibility pricing

  Base-plan price, daily custom prompts, provider coverage, and product limits.

• Peec - Pricing for brands

  Prompt, model, project, and annual-discount information.

• OtterlyAI - Pricing

  Current plans, prompt limits, provider additions, and trials.

• Surfer - AI Search Analytics

  Standalone tracker coverage, daily cadence, prompt tiers, pricing, and trial.

• AthenaHQ - Plans and coverage

  Essential tier, Starter price, credits, 11-model coverage, and API add-on.

• Scrunch - Pricing

  Core and Enterprise feature, provider, prompt, and trial details.

• SE Visible - Digital marketer plans

  Prompt, project, provider, country/language, pricing, and trial details.

Related guides

AI Search Visibility: What It Is, How to Measure It, and How to Improve It

Understand AI search visibility, mentions, citations, Share of Voice, measurement, and the right response when your brand is missing.

How to Track AI Visibility: A Practical Measurement Framework

Build a comparable AI visibility tracking system with buyer questions, recurring scans, evidence, reporting, and next actions.

AI Share of Voice: What It Is, How to Calculate It, and How to Interpret It

Understand relative AI visibility, simple and weighted Share of Voice calculations, competitor sets, and what a percentage can actually tell you.

AI Mentions vs Citations: What's the Difference?

Understand the difference between brand mentions, recommendations, citations, and source visibility in AI-generated answers.

How to Improve AI Visibility: A Practical Action Framework

Diagnose AI visibility gaps, choose the right response, and improve access, owned pages, evidence, or third-party presence without chasing prompts.