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AI Visibility Tools Compared: How to Track Your Brand in AI Search (2026)

Eight trackers compared on engines, prompts and dated prices.

By Daniel Grainger, founder of Ranking Atlas Last reviewed

On this page (13 sections)

An AI visibility tool tells you whether ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Google's AI answers name your brand when buyers ask about your category. As of 6 October 2026, the lowest paid plans these trackers publish on their own sites run from $20 to $295 a month.

What Is an AI Visibility Tool?

An AI visibility tool is software that sends a fixed set of prompts to AI engines such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews on a schedule, then records whether your brand is mentioned, where it appears in the answer, which competitors are named and which web pages are cited as sources.

Two measurements sit underneath every tool. A mention is the engine naming your brand in its answer. A citation is the engine linking to a page as a source.

You can be mentioned without being cited, and cited without being named in the answer text, so the better tools report both. Mentions and citations together explain what ChatGPT search visibility is and why it matters.

Which AI Visibility Tools Are Worth Comparing?

Eight trackers are worth comparing in October 2026: Profound, Peec AI, Otterly AI, the Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit, Ahrefs Brand Radar, AthenaHQ, Scrunch and Rankscale. Each states on its own site that it tracks brand mentions or citations across more than one AI engine on a recurring schedule. Before any of them, a one-off check shows what to track.

AI visibility tools at a glance
Profound
What it is:
AI marketing platform: visibility, agent analytics, prompt volumes, shopping
Engines named on its site:
Trial: ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Overviews. Enterprise adds Perplexity, AI Mode, Copilot, DeepSeek, Claude and Exa Search
Entry price (as of 6 October 2026):
Free 7-day trial; Enterprise on request
Peec AI
What it is:
Visibility, position, sentiment and share of voice against competitors
Engines named on its site:
Pricing page names ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Copilot, Claude and Grok; three models per plan below Enterprise
Entry price (as of 6 October 2026):
Starter 50 prompts, Pro 150, Advanced 350; prices did not render in the page version we fetched
Otterly AI
What it is:
Prompt monitoring with brand reports
Engines named on its site:
ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Perplexity, Copilot; Claude, AI Mode and Gemini as add-ons
Entry price (as of 6 October 2026):
$29/month (Lite, 15 prompts); $25/month billed annually
Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit
What it is:
AI visibility inside the Semrush suite
Engines named on its site:
ChatGPT and Google AI Mode
Entry price (as of 6 October 2026):
$99/month (25 tracked prompts); no free trial
Ahrefs Brand Radar
What it is:
Custom prompt tracking plus an index of 447M prompts
Engines named on its site:
AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot; Claude available
Entry price (as of 6 October 2026):
Custom prompts from $50/month, included with paid Ahrefs plans; AI Visibility Index from $199/month
AthenaHQ
What it is:
Credit-based GEO platform with content recommendations
Engines named on its site:
Starter: 11 models, including ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini, Claude, Copilot
Entry price (as of 6 October 2026):
Free Essential plan (300 credits, five models); Starter $295/month (3,600 credits)
Scrunch
What it is:
AI search monitoring plus an Agent Experience Platform
Engines named on its site:
Core: ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Copilot. Enterprise: nine, adding Claude, Gemini, Meta AI, AI Mode and Grok
Entry price (as of 6 October 2026):
Core $250/month (125 prompts, 5,000 responses); 7-day trial
Rankscale
What it is:
Credit-based tracking with dashboards and page audits
Engines named on its site:
ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek, Mistral
Entry price (as of 6 October 2026):
From $20/month (Essentials, yearly billing); Pro $99/month with 1,200 credits

Not ranked. Sources: each vendor's own website, checked 29 September 2026 and re-checked 6 October 2026. Prices in USD as published; confirm on the vendor's site before buying.

The price column is the least useful column. What a plan buys depends on how many prompts it tracks, on how many engines, and how often. A cheap plan tracking 15 prompts on four engines and a dearer one tracking 350 prompts on nine are different purchases.

The right one depends on how many buyer questions matter in your category. That number comes from a baseline, not from a price list.

What Should an AI Visibility Tool Track?

An AI visibility tool should track, on a fixed prompt set: whether your brand is named, its position in the answer, which competitors appear, which URLs are cited, and how each of those changes over time. It should cover the engines your buyers use and let you export the raw answers, so you can check the numbers.

  • Your own prompts. You write or approve the questions. A prompt set picked by the tool measures the tool's idea of your category, not your buyers' questions.
  • The engines your buyers use. ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude behave differently and cite different sources. Some engines appear only at enterprise level.
  • Mentions and citations, separately. Being named and being cited are different signals with different causes.
  • Competitors on the same prompts. A visibility figure means little without the brands named alongside you.
  • Cited sources. The pages the engines cite show where your brand needs to appear. This is the working material of citation equity: the pattern of trusted sources that name a brand.
  • Frequency and history. Daily or weekly runs, stored, so you can read a trend. The data below shows why one run is not enough.
  • Raw answer export. The full answer text for each run, so a figure can be traced back to what the engine said.

How Were These Tools Checked?

Ranking Atlas, a research-grade AI SEO agency, chose each tool because its site describes tracking of brand mentions or citations across more than one AI engine. Every fact was read on the vendor's site on 29 September 2026 and re-checked on 6 October 2026.

No paid trials were run, so the page makes no performance claims. Where a vendor's page did not show a figure, the figure is left out rather than taken from a third-party review.

"Best tools" lists were not used as evidence, including the ones vendors publish themselves. The re-check changed two entries: Scrunch replaced its Starter and Growth plans with a single Core plan, and Ahrefs now states 447M prompts in its index rather than 448M.

What Does Each AI Visibility Tool Offer?

Each of the eight tools tracks brand mentions in AI answers, but they differ in engines covered, pricing model and what sits around the tracking. Profound and Scrunch add agent and site features, Semrush and Ahrefs fold AI data into an SEO suite, and Otterly AI, Peec AI, AthenaHQ and Rankscale are dedicated trackers.

Profound

Profound describes itself as "the AI marketing platform to win in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, DeepSeek, Google AI Overviews." Alongside visibility and citation tracking, its site lists Agent Analytics (how AI bots view, cite and refer to your pages), Prompt Volumes (drawn from what it describes as billions of real user conversations) and product visibility in ChatGPT Shopping.

As of 6 October 2026, its pricing page lists a free trial covering 50 prompts run daily for seven days on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, and an Enterprise plan priced on request. Enterprise lists ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Copilot, DeepSeek, Claude, AI Overviews and Exa Search, with API access and SSO.

Suited to: larger marketing teams that want visibility, bot traffic and prompt demand data in one platform.

Peec AI

Peec AI tracks "your visibility, position, sentiment, and share of voice, tracked daily against competitors", in the words of its pricing page, along with the sources that shape AI answers. The same page names ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, Microsoft Copilot, Claude and Grok.

As of 6 October 2026, its plans are Starter (50 prompts), Pro (150) and Advanced (350), each with a choice of three models, unlimited users and daily tracking, plus an Enterprise plan with all models, API access and single sign-on. Prices did not render in the version of the page we fetched, so read them on its site.

We used Peec AI to track our own brand from April to May 2026: 50 prompts on ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews, which logged 5,702 answers. It was tracking for our own brand, so we draw no performance claims from it.

Suited to: teams that benchmark against competitors and want sentiment and source data with it.

Otterly AI

Otterly AI tracks prompts across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot on every plan, with Claude, Google AI Mode and Gemini as paid add-ons. Tracking runs daily, and every plan includes unlimited team members and brand reports.

As of 6 October 2026, Lite costs $29 a month for 15 prompts, Standard $189 for 100 prompts and Premium $489 for 400 prompts, each about 15% less when billed annually. Enterprise starts from 1,000 prompts on request. Standard and above add API and MCP access and Agent Analytics.

Suited to: smaller teams starting prompt tracking on a limited budget.

Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit

The Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit "shows you how brands appear in AI-generated answers", according to Semrush's own documentation. It covers visibility benchmarking, competitor and prompt research, brand sentiment, daily prompt tracking on Google AI Mode and ChatGPT, and an AI search site audit for crawler access.

As of 6 October 2026, the knowledge base lists the toolkit at $99 a month with 25 tracked prompts, extra blocks of 50 prompts at $60 a month, and no free trial. Semrush also bundles AI tracking into its Semrush One plans.

Suited to: teams already running SEO in Semrush who want AI visibility in the same account.

Ahrefs Brand Radar

Ahrefs Brand Radar tracks brand visibility "across AI answers, YouTube, and Reddit". It works two ways: custom prompts you define, refreshed daily, and an AI Visibility Index that Ahrefs describes as covering 447M prompts across AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot, with Claude available.

As of 6 October 2026, custom prompts start at $50 a month and are included with paid Ahrefs plans, and the AI Visibility Index starts at $199 a month. Ahrefs also offers a free AI visibility checker, which its own page calls "a one-time snapshot" with no signup.

Suited to: teams that want market-wide prompt data alongside their own prompt set, with Reddit and YouTube in view.

AthenaHQ

AthenaHQ lists 11 models on its Starter plan: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Mistral. Its plans include prompt and response analysis, sources and competitor insights, and content recommendations, with a content optimisation agent from Starter upwards.

As of 6 October 2026, a free Essential plan includes 300 credits on five models, Starter costs $295 a month for 3,600 credits, and Enterprise is priced on request, adding a knowledge base with claim review and what it calls the Athena Citation Engine.

Suited to: growth-stage teams that want wide engine coverage with content recommendations attached.

Scrunch

Scrunch combines monitoring and citations, prompt management, sentiment analysis, site audits and agent traffic analysis with an Agent Experience Platform, which it says "helps you observe what agents say and do, optimize your web presence based on agent behavior, and deliver what agents need".

As of 6 October 2026, its Core plan costs $250 a month for 125 prompts, 5,000 responses a month, five site audits and four engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Copilot), with a seven-day free trial. Enterprise is priced on request and covers nine engines, adding Claude, Gemini, Meta AI, Google AI Mode and Grok, plus the Agent Experience Platform and API access.

Suited to: teams that want tracking plus site changes aimed at AI agents.

Rankscale

Rankscale, in its own words, helps brand owners "analyze, track and optimize" their visibility in AI-powered search. Its pricing page lists ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, AI Overviews, Gemini, DeepSeek, Mistral, Claude, Grok and Copilot, and runs on credits: each query to an AI engine typically uses a quarter of a credit.

As of 6 October 2026, Essentials starts at $20 a month on yearly billing. Pro costs $99 a month for 1,200 credits, with dashboards, page audits, data exports and Looker Studio sharing, and a seven-day free trial. Pro+ at $229 adds 3,000 credits and REST API access, and Growth at $385 adds white-label options.

Suited to: teams and agencies that prefer usage-based pricing with broad engine coverage.

How Much Do AI Answers Change Between Two Runs?

A lot, on two of the three engines. Ranking Atlas ran 34 buyer questions twice each on ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity on 5 October 2026, minutes apart. Only 55% of the web domains cited in the first run were cited again in the second: 29% on ChatGPT, 42% on Gemini and 92% on Perplexity.

Of the web domains cited in a first run, 29% were cited again on ChatGPT, 42% on Gemini and 92% on Perplexity; 55% across all three engines.

Figure 1 Share of the web domains cited in a first run that were cited again in a second run of the same question, minutes later, by engine.

Source: Ranking Atlas sample: 34 questions, two runs each, 5 October 2026, via the DataForSEO LLM Responses API. ChatGPT: 32 question pairs with citations; Gemini and Perplexity: 34 each.

The same picture holds at the level of whole answers. Of the 100 question-and-engine pairs that returned citations in both runs, 32 cited an identical set of domains twice, 60 overlapped in part, and 8 shared no domain at all.

Of 100 question-and-engine pairs, 8 shared no cited domain between the two runs, 60 overlapped in part, and 32 cited an identical set, 31 of them on Perplexity.

Figure 2 The 100 question-and-engine pairs with citations in both runs, grouped by how much their cited domains overlapped.

Source: Same sample as Figure 1. Thirty-one of the 32 identical pairs were on Perplexity.

EnginePairs with citationsDomains cited again in run 2Identical domain setNo domain in commonMedian overlapCitations per answer (median, range)
ChatGPT32 of 3454 of 185 (29%)1715%6 (0 to 15)
Gemini34 of 34187 of 444 (42%)0026%13 (7 to 23)
Perplexity34 of 34269 of 293 (92%)311100%10 (10 to 10)
All100 of 102510 of 922 (55%)32837%10 (0 to 23)
Table 1 Run-to-run consistency and citation counts by engine.

Source: Same sample. Perplexity returned exactly ten sources in every answer, which looks like a limit of the API route used rather than a property of the engine.

What this means for a buyer: a ChatGPT or Gemini answer you screenshot today is one draw from a distribution. Six of ChatGPT's 68 answers cited nothing at all.

A tracker earns its fee by re-running the same prompts and reporting a rate. A rate across 30 runs is a measurement; one run is an anecdote.

What Can a Free or Single-Run AI Visibility Check Tell You?

A free or single-run AI visibility check tells you where you stand on the day it runs: which brands the engines name for your category, which sources they cite and whether you appear at all. It cannot tell you a trend, and one run is a sample, because AI engines generate each answer fresh.

Ask ChatGPT the same question twice and the list of brands can change. Answers also shift with the engine version, the location of the query and whether web search is triggered. That variance is why trackers run each prompt repeatedly and report rates rather than yes-or-no results.

A single run is still worth having, for three reasons:

  • It shows the size of the gap. If competitors are named on most buyer questions and you are named on none, you do not need a month of daily tracking to see the problem.
  • It shows the sources. The pages the engines cite for your category tell you where your brand needs to appear.
  • It tells you what to track. The questions where competitors appear and you do not become the prompt set you pay a tool to monitor.

Read a single run for patterns, not precise percentages. If a brand is named across several questions and several engines, the pattern is real. If it appears once, re-run before drawing conclusions.

Which Tools Do AI Engines Name When Asked How to Track AI Visibility?

Profound, Otterly AI and Peec AI, most often. In the same 5 October 2026 sample, 60 answers to ten questions about measuring AI visibility named Profound 20 times, Otterly AI 18, Peec AI 16, Ahrefs Brand Radar 14 and the Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit 13. Thirty-two of the 60 answers named no tracking product and described a manual method instead.

ProductAnswers naming it (of 60)
Profound20
Otterly AI18
Peec AI16
Ahrefs Brand Radar14
Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit13
SE Ranking AI visibility products11
Similarweb AI products7
AthenaHQ6
Scrunch6
Brand246
ZipTie4
Rankscale2
Table 2 AI visibility products named in 60 AI answers to ten questions about measuring AI visibility.

Source: Ranking Atlas sample, 5 October 2026: ten questions, two runs each, on ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. A name in an answer counts as a mention. Generic references to SEO suites were not counted.

The engines differ. Gemini named at least one of these products in 15 of its 20 answers, ChatGPT in 8 and Perplexity in 5. Perplexity and ChatGPT more often answered with a manual method: write the prompts, run them, log the names.

Treat the counts as a snapshot of what the engines say, from ten of our own questions on one day. They say nothing about which tool is better.

Why Should Branded and Non-Branded Prompts Be Tracked Separately?

Branded and non-branded prompts should be tracked separately because they measure different things. A prompt containing your name retrieves your own site and coverage about you, so you appear easily. A prompt buyers ask before they know you, such as "best tool for [use case]", shows whether AI recommends you.

A blended score hides that difference. A brand can score well overall because it appears on every "[brand] pricing" and "[brand] vs [competitor]" prompt, while it is absent from every category question a new buyer asks.

Most tools let you tag prompts. Tag every prompt as branded or non-branded when you set up, and read the two lines separately in every report. Our guide to measuring brand visibility in AI search sets out how to build and tag the prompt set.

How Do You Choose an AI Visibility Tool?

Choose an AI visibility tool in five steps: get a baseline, write your prompt set, list the engines your buyers use, match those to a plan's prompt and engine limits, then trial the tool and check its answers by hand. The prompt set comes first, because it decides which plan size you need.

  1. Get a baseline

    Find out which brands AI already names in your category and where you are missing, from a one-off check or a manual run. This tells you whether you need daily tracking at all.

  2. Write your prompt set

    List the questions your buyers ask, in their words, split into branded and non-branded. A focused set of real buyer questions tells you more than a long generic list.

  3. List the engines that matter

    Decide which engines your buyers use. Check that the plan you can afford includes them; some engines sit only in enterprise tiers.

  4. Match the plan to the prompts

    Multiply prompts by engines by run frequency and compare that with each plan's prompt or credit limit. The cheapest plan that covers your set is the right starting point.

  5. Trial and spot-check

    Run a trial, then ask a few of the same prompts in the live engines yourself. If the tool's picture matches what you see, and you can export the raw answers, it is fit to report against.

A tool records the result; it does not produce it. If the baseline shows a gap, the work that closes it sits outside the tool: earning mentions on the sources the engines already cite, and making your own pages easy to retrieve.

That is the work an AI SEO agency does. Our guide to AI SEO agencies for B2B software companies compares how different agencies approach it, and where the engines get their agency recommendations.

How Do You Track Your Visibility in ChatGPT Without a Tool?

You can track ChatGPT visibility without a tool by running a fixed list of buyer questions in ChatGPT on a set schedule, logging for each answer whether your brand is named, which competitors appear and which sources are cited, then comparing the logs over time. It is slower than a tool, but free.

The manual method works for a first baseline or a small prompt set. It stops scaling once you track many prompts across several engines each week, which is the point where a tool earns its fee. The logging template and source classification are in our guide to measuring brand visibility in ChatGPT and AI search.

What Does an AI Visibility Score Measure?

An AI visibility score measures how often your brand appears in AI answers across the prompts a tool runs, usually expressed as a percentage or a figure out of 100. Each tool uses its own prompts, engines and formula, so scores from different tools are not comparable with each other.

Read a score by asking three questions. Which prompts produced it? Which engines, and on what dates? Are branded and non-branded prompts blended?

A score that rises because branded prompts were added has not moved your position with new buyers. A score read against your own earlier runs, on the same prompts, is the one worth reporting.

FAQ

Is there a free AI visibility checker?

Yes. Ahrefs offers one, and its own page calls it a one-time snapshot with no signup. A one-off check gives you a starting point; a trend needs repeated runs.

How do I track my visibility in ChatGPT?

Write the questions your buyers ask about your category, run them in ChatGPT on a fixed schedule, and log whether your brand is named, which competitors appear and which sources are cited. A tracking tool automates the runs and the logging. Our method for measuring brand visibility in AI search covers the manual version.

How much do AI visibility tools cost?

As of 6 October 2026, the lowest paid plans published on the tools' own sites range from $20 a month (Rankscale Essentials) to $295 a month (AthenaHQ Starter). Some vendors also offer a free trial or free tier, and enterprise plans are quoted on request. Prompt limits, engines included and tracking frequency change what each price buys, so compare those before the headline figure.

What is a good AI visibility score?

There is no universal benchmark, because each tool calculates its score from its own prompt set, engines and formula. A score means something only against your own earlier runs on the same prompts, or against named competitors measured the same way. Read the prompts behind the number before reading the number.

Do AI visibility tools show the same results as the ChatGPT app?

Not always. Tools query the engines on their own schedule and settings, and AI answers vary between runs, accounts and locations. In our own sample, only 29% of the web domains ChatGPT cited in one run were cited again in a second run minutes later. Treat a tool's figure as a sample across many runs, then spot-check a few prompts by hand in the live app.

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