How Much Should You Pay for AI Visibility Tools in 2026?

Before you set a budget, get a free visibility check: we show you which of seven AI engines name you today, so you only pay to fix the gaps you actually have.

What does each price band buy?

AI visibility tools price on three things: how many questions (prompts) you track, how many engines answer them, and how often they run. Brands, countries and seats multiply the bill from there.

Free: a snapshot, not a trend

Free checkers answer one question: does an AI engine name you today? Semrush's free AI visibility tool runs three times a day without an account on ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode and AI Overviews. SE Ranking's free checker allows five checks a day and compares you with up to five competitor domains. Neither keeps history. Our guide to eight free AI visibility checkers covers what each one returns.

The free plan that keeps tracking is AthenaHQ Essential: $25 of free credit, which is 300 AI responses a month on ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Gemini and Copilot (checked 28 September 2026).

Under $50: one brand, a short question list

This is where most single businesses land. Otterly.AI Lite is $29 a month for 15 prompts checked daily on ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Perplexity and Copilot. Cairrot Starter is $39 for 15 prompts on ChatGPT and Perplexity. Cituna's first plan is $39 and checks seven engines every day. Geoptie Starter is $49 a month, or about $41 billed annually, for 15 prompts and two brands on any four of seven engines.

Credit plans go lower. Rankscale Essentials is $20, and Keyword.com's smallest AI Visibility tier is $7.83 a month billed annually ($94 a year). Credits run out fast if you check daily or add Claude.

$50 to $150: more prompts, more engines, or an SEO suite

The extra money buys volume or breadth. SE Visible Basic is $99 for 200 prompts and about 30,000 AI answers a month on five engines. Trakkr Growth is $100 for one brand, 50 prompts and eight models daily. SE Ranking Core is $129 ($103.20 billed annually) and adds 100 daily prompts on five engines to a full SEO suite. Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit starts at $99 a month per domain, billed annually.

$150 to $500: several brands, API access or content

Plans here suit multi-brand companies, agencies and teams that want articles produced. Otterly Standard ($189) adds API, MCP and unlimited workspaces. Scrunch Core is $250 for 125 prompts on one brand. AthenaHQ Starter is $295 for 3,600 credits across 11 models. Goodie AI Core is $399 (checked 29 September 2026), and Cognizo Growth is $499 with eight articles a month, sold after a demo.

Enterprise: price on request

Profound publishes no paid price for brands, only a free seven-day trial and custom Enterprise. Peec AI's plan prices were not in the page we read on 28 September 2026. Semrush Enterprise AIO, Conductor, BrightEdge AI Catalyst, Evertune and Bluefish are sales-led with no public price (checked 29 September 2026).

What does each tool charge?

What does one answer or one engine cost?

Dividing the price by the answers a plan collects gives a fairer comparison. These figures are our arithmetic from each vendor's published limits.

• SE Visible Basic: about 30,000 answers for $99, roughly $0.003 an answer.
• Trakkr Growth: 50 prompts on eight models daily is about 12,000 answers for $100, roughly $0.008 each.
• Otterly.AI Lite: 15 prompts on four engines daily is about 1,800 answers for $29, roughly $0.016 each. Wellows Basic (1,800 answers for $29) and Promptwatch Essential (6,000 responses for $95) land at the same rate.
• Ahrefs Brand Radar custom prompts: $50 for 2,500 checks, or $0.020 a check, with overage at the same rate.
• Nightwatch Starter: 1,500 responses for €79, about €0.053 each.
• AthenaHQ Starter: 3,600 responses for $295, about $0.082 each.

Per engine, the order changes. Otterly Lite works out at about $7 per engine a month, Cituna's $39 plan about $5.60 across seven, Trakkr Growth $12.50 across eight and SE Visible Basic about $20 across five. A per-engine figure ignores prompt limits, so read it next to the per-answer figures. Neither measure says anything about accuracy. Ask how answers are collected: SE Visible says it uses a browser interface, and Rankscale says it uses the engine's interface for some engines and the API for others.

What hidden costs should you budget for?

Add-on engines. Otterly Lite covers four engines. Adding AI Mode ($9), Gemini ($9) and Claude ($29) takes it from $29 to $76 a month, and Claude alone is $439 a month on Premium (checked 28 September 2026). LLM Pulse sells extra models from €8 a month; Claude on its Starter plan was €25 weekly or €65 daily on 25 September 2026. Cairrot's Grok add-on starts at $25.

Per domain, brand or location. Semrush charges $99 a month for each extra domain or location and $60 for 50 more prompts. Ahrefs Brand Radar bills one check per prompt, engine, location and update, so tracking the UAE and Saudi Arabia doubles the cost, and Claude uses 8 checks per update. Geoptie counts a prompt tracked in three countries as three prompts.

Annual billing. Writesonic's $79 Starter is billed annually and its monthly price is not stated (checked 29 September 2026). Surfer's AI tracker prices assume annual billing, and SE Ranking's $69 Agency Pack is annual only.

Credits and overage. Rankscale charges 2 credits for a Claude run against 0.25 for ChatGPT, and Keyword.com 3 credits against 0.25. AthenaHQ's extra credits and API are paid add-ons with no published price. ZipTie's UGC analysis adds 80%.

Seats, reports and refunds. Writesonic charges $50 per extra user a month on Basic and Growth. On Semrush, Search Console comes through a $10 report add-on and white-label reports through a $20 one. SE Ranking and ZipTie do not refund paid subscriptions.

What is the cheapest option for each need?

• A one-off check: free, from Semrush (three a day) or SE Ranking (five a day, with competitors).
• Ongoing tracking at no cost: AthenaHQ Essential, 300 AI responses a month.
• Lowest published paid entry: Keyword.com at $7.83 a month billed annually, or Rankscale Essentials at $20, both on credits.
• Copilot on a fixed monthly plan: Otterly.AI Lite at $29.
• The most prompts under $100: SE Visible Basic, 200 prompts for $99, in its seven listed markets in North America and Europe.
• Weekly data is enough: LLM Pulse Starter at €49 for 50 prompts on five engines.
• Claude and Grok together: Rankscale reaches both on credits from $20; Cituna ($39) and Trakkr ($100) include both at a fixed price.
• Search Console on the entry plan: Wellows ($29), Cituna ($39), ZipTie, Keyword.com and SE Ranking Core ($129) all list it.

Where does Cituna sit on price?

Cituna has three plans: $39, $119 or $399 a month. Every plan checks seven engines daily (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Grok, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode), writes the fix for each gap it finds, can publish the article, and includes Google Search Console and MCP.

Three things matter for cost. It does not track Microsoft Copilot, so a buyer base that lives in Microsoft 365 needs another tool for that engine. The trial lasts three days and needs a card. And the tiers are fixed, so you grow by moving up a plan. Cituna's pricing page

What do AI engines say these tools cost?

In our Cituna scan of 22 buyer questions across seven engines on 28 September 2026, all seven engines answered "how much do AI visibility tools cost". All seven named Otterly.AI, six named Peec AI, six named Profound and five named Rankscale. For "cheapest AI visibility tool that tracks multiple engines?", all seven named Otterly.AI.

Peec AI and Profound showed no paid price on the pricing pages we read that day. If an AI answer quotes a figure for either, confirm it with the vendor before you budget on it.

How much should a small business budget?

Start at zero. Run a free checker once a month on your five to ten most valuable questions. Pay when you want daily history, competitor trends or the engines free checkers skip; a $30 to $50 plan covers one brand. Move to $100 to $150 when you need more than about 50 prompts, several locations or an SEO suite alongside.

If you run one business with one site, our budget-first guide to AI visibility tools for small businesses picks eight tools, free ones first. Agencies should price per client instead, as in our comparison of AI visibility tools for marketing agencies.

Questions people ask