AI visibility tools compared

AI assistants now answer buying questions without sending anyone to your website, so your analytics cannot tell you whether ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Perplexity recommends you. AI visibility tools measure that. Below, twelve of them compared on how many assistants they check, what you actually buy, what they cost and who each one suits. Pricing was taken from each tool's own pricing page on 4 August 2026.

Which AI visibility tool should you choose?

Start with the assistants your buyers use. If they ask Claude and a tool does not check Claude at any price, nothing else about it matters. Then look at what you get for the money, because these tools sell different things and the prices do not line up. Babel42 checks seven AI assistants, counts Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode as two separate results, and asks up to five questions in one conversation rather than one question at a time, so it reports which brand the assistant picked at the end and what the objection was. It is free to start, with no card.

What makes a good AI visibility tool

How many AI assistants it checks

Coverage across these tools runs from one assistant to ten. A tool that only checks ChatGPT cannot tell you why Perplexity recommends a competitor. Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode should also be counted separately, because they answer the same question differently.

What you are actually buying

These tools charge for different things, so their prices do not compare. Most sell tracked prompts: a fixed list of questions the tool asks on a schedule. Athena HQ and Rankscale sell credits instead, and every check you run spends some, but neither says how many credits one check costs. Babel42 sells AI Buyers, and each buyer asks up to five questions in one conversation.

Whether it shows you the decision or just the mention

Appearing in an answer is not the same as being recommended. The useful question is which brand the assistant picked at the end, which rival took the decision, and what the objection was. Most tools report mentions and stop there.

What it costs to find out

Entry prices here run from nothing to $800 a month. Two tools, Babel42 and Athena HQ, have a free plan that keeps working. The rest offer a trial that ends after seven or fourteen days. That matters if you want to watch how the answers change over months rather than see one week.

The 12 tools compared

ToolBest forAI assistantsWhat you buyEntry price
Babel42Founders, in-house marketers and agencies who want to know why an assistant recommended someone else, not just whether their name appeared7AI Buyers running multi-question conversationsFree
ProfoundLarge organisations that need a signed security review and named support1 to 9Tracked prompts$99/mo
Peec AIAgencies putting a whole team into one account on a short prompt list3Tracked prompts$95/mo
Otterly.AIA single marketer who wants a low monthly price and only needs a short list of questions checked4Search prompts$29/mo
ScrunchMid-market teams that want personas and page-level recommendations in one tool6Tracked prompts$300/mo
Athena HQTeams comfortable with credit-based pricing that want a look before paying5 to 8CreditsFree
RankscaleTeams whose buyers use models beyond ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity8+CreditsFrom $20/mo
KnowatoaAgencies that need AI visibility data inside an existing reporting stack2 to 7Not published$59/mo
EvertuneLarge brands that want content produced from the findings rather than just a dashboardNot publishedNot published$800/mo
Semrush AI Visibility ToolkitExisting Semrush customers who want a first read without a second subscriptionNot published in full25 tracked prompts on 1 domain$99/mo
Ahrefs Brand RadarExisting Ahrefs customers wanting a first read at no extra costNot publishedPrompts from Ahrefs' databaseFrom £99/mo
ZipTieSmall sites that want a predictable bill and a short list of engines3AI searches a month$69/mo

Pricing and coverage taken from each tool's own pricing page, checked 4 August 2026. Ahrefs is shown in pounds because that is the currency on its UK pricing page.

Babel42: buyer conversations across seven AI assistants

Babel42 sends AI Buyers into AI assistants. Each buyer holds a conversation of up to five questions, the way a real customer shops, and Babel42 records which brand the assistant recommends at the end, which competitor took the decision, and the objection that lost it. The same account also runs social listening, so one subscription covers what AI says about your brand and what people say about it.

Key features

  • Seven AI assistants: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode
  • Multi-question buyer conversations rather than single prompts asked on repeat
  • Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode tracked as two separate results, because they answer differently
  • Competitor leaderboard showing which rival wins the most decisions, filterable to every conversation they won
  • Every source the assistant cited, so you can see which pages earn the mentions
  • Buyer prompts anchored to the search queries your domain already ranks for
  • Social listening included on the same account

Pricing

Free plan with one AI Buyer across any two assistants, run weekly, with no card and no expiry. Paid plans are $99, $299 and $599 a month for 5, 10 and 20 buyers, with all seven assistants from $299. Annual billing saves about 15%.

Best for

Founders, in-house marketers and agencies who want to know why an assistant recommended someone else, not just whether their name appeared.

Start freeNo card. The free plan does not expire.

Profound: for enterprise buyers with procurement rules

Profound tracks a fixed list of prompts across answer engines and reports where a brand appears. It also runs agent analytics, which watches AI crawler traffic hitting your own domains.

Key features

  • Up to nine answer engines on the Enterprise plan
  • SSO, security documentation and an API at the Enterprise tier
  • Agent analytics across unlimited domains on every plan

Pricing

$99 a month billed yearly for 50 prompts and one seat, $399 a month for 100 prompts and three seats, then custom pricing for Enterprise.

Best for

Large organisations that need a signed security review and named support.

Limitations

The $99 plan tracks ChatGPT and nothing else, so seeing Perplexity or Google means jumping to $399 a month, four times the entry price with no step in between.

Peec AI: prompt tracking with uncapped seats

Peec AI tracks a set list of prompts daily and reports which brands appear in the answers, with projects and country targeting on the higher tiers.

Key features

  • Daily tracking on every plan
  • No cap on user seats at any tier
  • Up to five projects and three countries on the top published plan

Pricing

$95, $245 and $495 a month for 50, 150 and 350 prompts, each including three AI models of your choice. All models require Enterprise pricing on request. Annual billing saves about 15%.

Best for

Agencies putting a whole team into one account on a short prompt list.

Limitations

Every published plan is capped at three AI assistants, and the cap does not rise with price. Watching ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google at the same time is not possible on any published plan.

Otterly.AI: low-cost tracking on a short prompt list

Otterly.AI tracks a small number of search prompts daily across four AI search engines and reports brand mentions and links.

Key features

  • Daily tracking on every plan
  • Microsoft Copilot included
  • No cap on team members at any tier

Pricing

$29, $189 and $489 a month for 15, 100 and 400 search prompts. Annual billing saves about 15%.

Best for

A single marketer who wants a low monthly price and only needs a short list of questions checked.

Limitations

Fifteen prompts on the entry plan is a very narrow window, and Claude, Gemini and Grok are not covered on any plan at any price.

Scrunch: prompt tracking, personas and page audits

Scrunch tracks custom and industry prompts across AI platforms, adds buyer personas, and audits pages against what the assistants return.

Key features

  • Buyer personas and page audits alongside prompt tracking
  • SSO and a data API on the Enterprise plan
  • Meta AI included

Pricing

$300 a month for 350 custom prompts and three seats, or $500 a month for 700 prompts and five seats. Annual billing brings these to $250 and $417. Seven-day trial, no card required.

Best for

Mid-market teams that want personas and page-level recommendations in one tool.

Limitations

Entry pricing is $300 a month with no free plan, so evaluating it beyond the seven-day trial is a paid decision. Its platform list combines Google AI Mode and AI Overviews into a single entry rather than reporting them separately.

Athena HQ: credits, with a free entry tier

Athena HQ spends monthly credits on checks across AI assistants and reports brand visibility from the results.

Key features

  • Free tier with 300 credits
  • Unlimited members on every plan
  • Eight assistants on the paid plan, including Google AI Mode, Copilot and Grok

Pricing

Free plan with 300 credits, then $295 a month for 3,600 credits, then custom.

Best for

Teams comfortable with credit-based pricing that want a look before paying.

Limitations

There is nothing between the free tier and $295 a month. Athena HQ also does not say how many credits one check costs, so the real monthly cost is hard to work out before you run a month.

Rankscale: credits, across eight named models

Rankscale spends credits on checks across a long list of AI models and reports visibility, with page audits on the higher tiers.

Key features

  • Names eight models, including DeepSeek and Mistral
  • Unlimited team workspaces
  • Page audits included from the Pro tier

Pricing

From $20 a month at entry, then $99 for 1,200 credits, $385 for 5,500 and $780 for 12,000. Seven-day free trial of the Pro tier.

Best for

Teams whose buyers use models beyond ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity.

Limitations

Credit pricing makes the real monthly cost hard to forecast before running a full month, and the published entry tier does not spell out what it includes.

Knowatoa: tracking with reporting integrations

Knowatoa checks AI services for brand visibility and pushes the results into the reporting tools agencies already use.

Key features

  • API, MCP access, Looker Studio and NinjaCat integrations
  • Seven AI services on the higher plan
  • Language and market tracking on the higher plan

Pricing

$59 and $199 a month, then custom. Free trial on both paid plans.

Best for

Agencies that need AI visibility data inside an existing reporting stack.

Limitations

The $59 plan covers only ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews, and the site does not publish how many checks any plan actually buys, so the cost per check is unknown before purchase.

Evertune: aimed at large brands, with content output

Evertune measures how AI models describe a brand and turns the findings into publishable content written in the brand's tone.

Key features

  • Content generation from the visibility findings
  • Brand-level index reporting
  • Enterprise support model

Pricing

$800 a month for the published Pro plan, then custom pricing for Enterprise.

Best for

Large brands that want content produced from the findings rather than just a dashboard.

Limitations

The highest published entry price on this page, and the pricing page names neither the assistants covered nor any volume, so there is no way to work out what $800 a month buys before talking to sales.

Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit: for teams already inside Semrush

Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit tracks a small set of prompts on one domain and reports the results next to the rest of the Semrush suite.

Key features

  • Sits alongside the rankings and site audits Semrush already reports
  • AI Search Checks in Site Audit for up to 100 pages
  • Prompt research reports

Pricing

$99 a month, plus $60 a month for each extra 50 prompts and $99 a month for each additional domain.

Best for

Existing Semrush customers who want a first read without a second subscription.

Limitations

Twenty-five tracked prompts on a single domain. Extra prompts cost $60 a month per 50 and extra domains cost $99 a month each, and Semrush does not publish the full list of assistants it checks.

Ahrefs Brand Radar: bundled into an SEO suite

Brand Radar reports brand mentions across prompts held in Ahrefs' own database, inside the wider Ahrefs toolset.

Key features

  • Included in standard Ahrefs plans
  • Prompts drawn from Ahrefs' own database, plus custom prompts
  • Sits beside the rest of the Ahrefs reporting

Pricing

Included in Ahrefs plans at £99, £199, £359 and £1,199 a month, with a separate Brand Radar AI add-on from £159 a month. Ahrefs shows these prices in pounds on its UK pricing page.

Best for

Existing Ahrefs customers wanting a first read at no extra cost.

Limitations

Ahrefs does not name which AI assistants Brand Radar covers, and the deeper AI features sit behind a separate paid add-on on top of the base plan.

ZipTie: a flat, capped price

ZipTie runs a monthly allowance of AI searches across three engines and pairs the results with content optimisation suggestions.

Key features

  • Flat ladder topping out at $159 a month
  • Content optimisation alongside tracking
  • 14-day free trial with full features

Pricing

$69, $99 and $159 a month for 500, 1,000 and 2,000 AI searches. Annual billing saves about 15%.

Best for

Small sites that want a predictable bill and a short list of engines.

Limitations

Three engines, with no Claude, no Gemini and no Grok available at any price.

How to choose an AI visibility tool

Start by writing down the ten questions a customer would ask an assistant before buying what you sell. Then check three things against that list.

Does it check the assistants your buyers actually use?

If your customers ask Claude and a tool does not cover Claude at any price, the rest of its feature list is irrelevant. Coverage is the first filter, not the last.

Does it tell you why you lost, or only that you were absent?

A mention count tells you there is a problem. The reason the assistant recommended someone else is the thing you can act on. Ask any tool to show you a full answer, not a chart.

Can you see your own data before you pay?

A free plan that keeps working beats a fourteen-day trial, because AI answers move week to week and one snapshot tells you almost nothing. Babel42's free plan runs a full buyer conversation across two assistants every week and does not expire.

Read how Babel42 AI Visibility works or every metric it reports, defined.

Frequently asked questions

Which AI visibility tool should I choose?

Choose on two things: whether it checks the AI assistants your buyers use, and what you get for the money. Coverage on this page runs from one assistant to ten, and the tools sell different things, so a $29 price and a $95 price are not the same purchase. Babel42 checks seven assistants, asks up to five questions in one conversation, and is free to start.

What is an AI visibility tool?

An AI visibility tool asks AI assistants the questions your buyers ask, records which brands come back in the answers, and tracks how that changes over time. These tools exist because assistants answer without sending a click, so website analytics show nothing at all about conversations where your brand was considered and passed over.

How much do AI visibility tools cost?

Entry prices run from nothing to $800 a month. Babel42 has a free plan with no card and no expiry, and paid plans from $99 a month. Among the rest, entry pricing starts around $20 to $29 a month at the low end and reaches $300 and above for the enterprise tools. Pricing checked 4 August 2026.

Is there a free AI visibility tool?

Babel42 has a free plan that does real tracking: one AI Buyer running a full conversation across any two of the seven assistants, every week, with no card and no expiry. Most other tools in this category offer a trial that runs out after seven or fourteen days rather than a free tier you can keep using.

Which AI assistants should a tool track?

ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google are the ones that matter for most brands, and Grok is worth adding in some categories. Google needs care because AI Overviews and AI Mode are two different products that answer differently. Babel42 checks all seven and reports the two Google ones separately.

What is the difference between AI visibility, GEO and AEO?

AI visibility, generative engine optimisation and answer engine optimisation all describe the same work. GEO came from a 2024 academic paper, AEO is the marketing phrase, and AI SEO is what most people type into a search box. Judge a tool by which assistants it checks and what it charges, not by the acronym on its homepage.

Do AI visibility tools replace SEO tools?

No, they measure different things. An SEO tool reports where pages rank in a list of links. An AI visibility tool reports whether an assistant names your brand when it answers a question, and increasingly no link is involved at all. Most teams end up running both.

Try Babel42 free

One AI Buyer, any two of the seven AI assistants, run every week. No card, and the free plan does not expire.