We Tested 8 AI Visibility Tools: What Actually Works in 2026

Want the same kind of check run on your own business? Get a free visibility check and we'll show you who the seven engines name for your customers' questions, and who they leave out.

Which AI visibility tools came out on top?

The eight in ranked order; the scores follow in the next section.

How this list works

The eight are Cituna and seven of the eight tools the engines named most often in our scan. We ran four tests on 28 September 2026. Cituna is included because High Street uses it in its own client work, and it is held to the same checklist as the other seven.

1. Crawler test. We fetched each tool's pricing page as GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Googlebot, checked robots.txt, and recorded which prices appeared in the HTML each crawler received.
2. Engine answers. Our Cituna scan of 22 buyer questions across seven engines on 28 September 2026 (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Grok, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode). We read every answer and counted which tools it named.
3. Buyer access. From each vendor's pages that day: a published self-serve price, a free plan or trial, and the engines on the entry plan.
4. Daily use. Cituna in High Street's client work; the scan in test 2 ran in the Cituna workspace we use.

Each tool scores one point for each of five checks, drawn from tests 1 and 3:

1. The same paid price reached all five crawlers.
2. A self-serve paid plan with a published price.
3. A free plan or free trial you can start without a sales call.
4. Claude on the entry paid plan without an add-on.
5. Microsoft Copilot on the entry paid plan without an add-on.

Ties are broken by test 2, the share of answers that named the tool. We don't score test 2 on its own, because being named by an engine shows what buyers hear, not whether a tool works. Test 4 isn't scored either: we have daily time only with Cituna, so it can't be compared.

Can AI engines read these tools' prices?

An engine asked what a tool costs can only quote what its crawler could read. So we fetched each pricing page as five crawlers on 28 September 2026.

Robots.txt allowed all five crawlers on all eight sites, and none got a challenge page. The difference was in what the page contained:

• Price visible to all five: Cituna ($39, $119, $399), Otterly.AI (every plan and add-on price), Ahrefs Brand Radar ($50, $199, $699 and the $0.020 overage rate) and AthenaHQ (its free and Starter plans).
• No plan price for any crawler: Peec AI, where the only currency figure was a funding line, and Profound, where the only dollar figure was a $180M funding banner.
• Different pages for different crawlers: Scrunch. GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot received a 2 KB page listing a Starter plan at $250 billed annually or $300 monthly with 350 prompts, and Claude, Gemini and AI Mode on every plan. Googlebot and OAI-SearchBot received the full page listing Core at $250 with 125 prompts and four engines, Claude not among them. We treat the Googlebot page as Scrunch's published offer.
• Redirected: Semrush. The pricing URL sent every crawler to a page showing a $0 tier with "200 prompts to track daily" and no AI Visibility Toolkit price. The $99 figure sits on a separate AI pricing page.

How often do AI engines name each tool?

In our Cituna scan of 22 buyer questions across seven engines on 28 September 2026, the engines returned 153 answers. This is how often each of the eight was named in them.

Read it with three cautions. Six of the 22 questions name a tool, such as "best Profound alternative", which lifts counts for Profound, Peec AI, Otterly.AI, Scrunch, AthenaHQ and Ahrefs. The Semrush and Ahrefs rows count any of their AI visibility products. And Microsoft Copilot was not one of the seven engines scanned.

What did each tool show in our tests?

1. AthenaHQ (best for a free plan, then the longest engine list at a published price)

AthenaHQ analyses prompts and responses for brand visibility, with sources, competitor insights and content recommendations. Its free Essential plan gives $25 of credit, 300 credits a month, where one credit is one AI response. Starter is $295 a month (17% off billed annually) for 3,600 credits, 11 models, CSV export, and GA4 and Search Console integration, in a single language and region (checked 28 September 2026).

Engines: the free plan covers ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini and Copilot. Starter adds Google AI Mode, Claude, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Mistral. In our tests: it passed all five checks. Engines named it in 37 of 153 answers (24.2%), across 14 of the 22 questions, most often by Grok (11) and least often by Gemini (1).

Strength: Claude, Copilot and Grok on the first paid plan, with Search Console included.

Limit: nothing sits between free and $295, credits make the cost depend on how many engines you run, and the API is a paid add-on with no published price.

Pick it if: you want to look at real data free before paying, then need a long engine list on one plan.

AthenaHQ plans and pricing

2. Otterly.AI (best for the cheapest paid entry with Copilot)

Otterly.AI tracks prompts daily and records link citations and domain rankings. Lite is $29 a month, or $25 billed annually, for 15 prompts, unlimited team members and one workspace. Standard is $189 for 100 prompts, unlimited workspaces, API and MCP (checked 28 September 2026). There is a free trial for new users; length and card terms are not stated.

Engines: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Copilot on every plan. Gemini and AI Mode cost $9 a month each on Lite, and Claude $29. In our tests: 4 of 5 checks, missing only Claude at entry. It was the tool engines named most: 84 of 153 answers (54.9%), across 19 of the 22 questions, named by every engine, most often by Grok (16).

Strength: every plan and add-on price is public and readable by all five crawlers.

Limit: Lite has 15 prompts and one workspace, add-ons stack up, and Grok isn't offered.

Pick it if: you need Copilot on a small budget. If you already use it, our guide to Otterly AI alternatives covers what to switch to.

Otterly.AI pricing

3. Ahrefs Brand Radar (best for teams already paying for Ahrefs)

Brand Radar has two parts. Custom Prompts, from $50 a month, runs your own questions daily, weekly or monthly, with a "$699/mo for all models" label. The AI Visibility Index, $199 a month, is a 448M+ prompt index with 2,500 checks a month and $0.020 per extra check. (checked 28 September 2026).

Engines: Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and Claude, where Claude uses 8 checks per update. No trial is stated, but Ahrefs has a free AI Visibility Checker, one of the eight in our guide to free AI visibility checkers. In our tests: 4 of 5, missing the free plan or trial. Engines named an Ahrefs AI visibility product in 46 of 153 answers (30.1%), across 14 of the 22 questions.

Strength: market-wide data with no setup, tied to real search demand.

Limit: Grok isn't named, per-check billing makes extra locations and Claude costly, and the page doesn't make clear what $199 buys against $699.

Pick it if: you already pay for Ahrefs, or want to benchmark a whole market rather than only your own questions.

Ahrefs Brand Radar pricing

4. Cituna (best for seven engines checked daily, with the fixes written)

Cituna checks your buyer questions every day on seven engines: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Grok, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode. When it finds a gap, it writes the fix and can publish the article. Google Search Console and MCP are included. Plans are $39, $119 or $399 a month, with a 3-day trial that needs a card.

In our tests: 4 of 5, missing Copilot. All three prices reached all five crawlers. Engines named Cituna in 5 of 153 answers (3.3%), all of them ChatGPT; no other engine named it. It is also the one tool here we use every day: the scan in test 2 ran in the Cituna workspace High Street uses.

Strength: it turns each gap into a written fix, and Grok, Claude and both Google AI surfaces are in the seven engines.

Limit: it does not track Microsoft Copilot, the trial is three days and needs a card, and the plans are fixed tiers.

Pick it if: you want gaps fixed, not only reported, and your buyers use ChatGPT, Claude, Grok or Google's AI answers more than Copilot. Cituna's pricing page

5. Scrunch (best for Copilot at a published price, for one brand)

Scrunch Core is $250 a month for 125 prompts, 1 brand, 5 users, 1 country and language, 5 competitors, 5 site audits a month, citations and sentiment, with a 7-day free trial (Googlebot and browser page, checked 28 September 2026). Enterprise is custom, with 9 engines, API and MCP.

Engines: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Copilot on Core; Claude, Gemini, Meta AI, AI Mode and Grok are Enterprise. In our tests: 3 of 5. It lost the crawler check because three AI crawlers got a different pricing page from Googlebot. Engines named it in 33 of 153 answers (21.6%), across 12 of the 22 questions.

Strength: Copilot and site audits on a self-serve plan with a public price.

Limit: one brand, one country, and Claude, Gemini and AI Mode only on Enterprise. Three AI crawlers were served a different plan list from the one buyers see.

Pick it if: your buyers work in Microsoft tools and you track one brand in one market.

Scrunch pricing

6. Peec AI (best for choosing your own three engines)

Peec AI tracks visibility, position, sentiment and sources. Its plan prices are not published on the page we read on 28 September 2026. That day, Starter listed 50 prompts, 3 models of your choice, daily runs, 1 project, 1 country and unlimited users. Enterprise is custom, with up to 13 models, API and SSO. A free trial is offered; its terms are not published.

Engines: any three of ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, AI Overviews, Copilot, Gemini and Naver AI; Perplexity, Claude and Grok need an add-on or Enterprise. In our tests: 2 of 5. No plan price reached any crawler. Engines named it in 66 of 153 answers (43.1%), across 15 of the 22 questions.

Strength: you choose the engines, and every plan has unlimited users.

Limit: three models per self-serve plan, and a price neither buyers' AI engines nor we could read in the page HTML.

Pick it if: you know exactly which three engines your buyers use and want a whole team on one account.

Peec AI pricing page

7. Profound (best for enterprise buyers who need SSO and SOC 2)

Profound tracks citations, sentiment, ranking and competitive presence. It publishes no paid price: brands get a free 7-day trial, then custom Enterprise pricing (checked 28 September 2026). The trial runs 50 prompts a day from a fixed industry set, with no history, exports or API.

Engines: the trial covers ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. Enterprise lists up to 9, including Perplexity, AI Mode, Copilot, DeepSeek, Claude and Exa Search. In our tests: 1 of 5. The only dollar figure any crawler saw was a funding banner. Engines named it in 68 of 153 answers (44.4%), across 15 of the 22 questions, second only to Otterly.AI.

Strength: the widest named engine list on Enterprise, with SSO/SAML, SOC 2 and unlimited seats.

Limit: nothing self-serve to buy, the trial's prompts can't be edited, and Grok isn't named.

Pick it if: you need security paperwork and custom regions and will go through a sales process. See our Profound alternatives if you won't.

Profound pricing

8. Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit (best for teams whose SEO already runs on Semrush)

Semrush's toolkit tracks custom prompts daily and adds prompt research and competitor gaps. AI Visibility Base is $99 a month per domain, billed annually, for 25 prompts on ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini and Perplexity (AI pricing page, checked 28 September 2026). Extra prompts, domains and users cost more: +50 prompts is $60 a month.

Engines: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, Gemini and Perplexity; Claude, Grok and Copilot are not named. In our tests: 1 of 5. Semrush's pages disagree on whether the toolkit has a free trial, so we did not count one, and the pricing URL we tested showed no toolkit price. Engines named Semrush in 63 of 153 answers (41.2%), across 17 of the 22 questions.

Strength: it sits beside Semrush's SEO data, and its region list includes the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Limit: 25 prompts on Base, no trial you can count on, and every extra domain or location is another $99.

Pick it if: your SEO already runs on Semrush, especially for UAE or Saudi clients.

Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit pricing

What we didn't test

We did not use the paid dashboards of Profound, Peec AI, Otterly.AI, Scrunch, AthenaHQ, Ahrefs Brand Radar or Semrush, so nothing here rates their interfaces, support or reports. We did not test accuracy: checking whether each tool's reported mentions and citations match the live answers means running the same questions through all eight on the same day and checking every result by hand, and a score without that work would be made up. The engine scan is one day, one set of 22 questions, and excludes Copilot. Trial terms we could not find are reported as not stated.

Which one should you pick?

• Lowest cost to start: Otterly.AI at $29, then Cituna at $39 and Ahrefs custom prompts from $50. AthenaHQ's free plan costs nothing.
• Copilot matters: Otterly.AI, Scrunch, Ahrefs Brand Radar or AthenaHQ.
• Claude and Grok matter: AthenaHQ Starter or Cituna.
• You want fixes written, not only reports: Cituna.
• Security review and custom regions: Profound Enterprise.

For what each price band buys across more tools, see how much you should pay for AI visibility tools.

Questions people ask