Comparisons September 2026

The 10 Best AI Visibility Tools in 2026

For ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Grok and Google's two AI surfaces checked daily at the lowest flat price here, the best AI visibility tool is Cituna at $39. Nine more by need, read 28 and 29 September 2026.

Mark HenryEditor

Disclosure: VisibilityOS is published by the team that builds Cituna, one of the tools discussed here. Read this as our view, not a neutral review.

For tracking ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Grok, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode daily at one flat price, the best AI visibility tool in 2026 is Cituna: $39 a month, the lowest flat price on this list for those seven, with Google Search Console included. For other jobs, Rankscale has the lowest entry price at $20 a month in credits, Otterly.AI is the low-cost daily tracker that includes Microsoft Copilot, Semrush and Ahrefs Brand Radar suit teams already on those suites, and Profound is built for enterprise contracts. The other four picks cover prompt volume (Mangools), agencies (Peec AI), content fixes (Writesonic) and the widest model list (AthenaHQ).

Every price and feature below was read on the vendor's own pages on 28 or 29 September 2026. Where a vendor does not say something, we write "not published".

How do the 10 best AI visibility tools compare?

"The eight major engines" below means ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Grok, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode and Microsoft Copilot.

The 10 tools at their entry plans, from each vendor's own pages, 28 and 29 September 2026
ToolBest forEngines coveredEntry priceFree trialChecked
RankscaleThe lowest entry price17+, including all eight major engines, paid in credits$20/mo7 days, Pro plan only28 Sep 2026
Otterly.AIMicrosoft Copilot on a small budget4 (ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Copilot); Gemini, AI Mode and Claude as add-ons; no Grok$29/mo7 or 14 days, no card (its pages disagree)28 Sep 2026
CitunaAll seven engines with Search Console on a small budget7 (no Copilot)$39/mo3 days, card required29 Sep 2026
Mangools AI Search WatcherThe most prompts per dollar8 (no Perplexity or Copilot)$49/mo, or a free plan with 5 promptsNo trial; free plan29 Sep 2026
Peec AIAgencies3 chosen from 6; Claude and Grok on Enterprise only$95/mo; agency plans from $245/moOffered, length not published29 Sep 2026
Semrush AI Visibility ToolkitSemrush usersChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini, Perplexity$99/mo per domainNone28 Sep 2026
WritesonicContent fixes3 (ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Overviews) below Enterprise$99/mo7 days, no card28 Sep 2026
Ahrefs Brand RadarAhrefs users6, plus Claude on custom prompts; no Grok$129/mo (Ahrefs Lite, 5 prompts)None28 Sep 2026
AthenaHQThe widest model list11, including all eight major engines$295/mo, or a free tier with 300 creditsNone published28 Sep 2026
ProfoundEnterpriseUp to 9 on Enterprise; no GrokCustomFree 7-day trial, 50 preset prompts28 Sep 2026

How this list works: each tool is here because it serves one buyer's need better than the others on this list, and each entry is judged on the same points: engines covered on the entry plan, entry price, trial, and whether it only tracks or also helps fix gaps. Entries are ordered by the lowest monthly price a brand can pay to track its own name, month-to-month where the vendor shows it, from low to high, with ties broken alphabetically and custom pricing last. Every fact comes from the vendor's own pages, read on 28 or 29 September 2026, and we did not run hands-on tests of these dashboards.

The 10 best AI visibility tools, one by one

1. Rankscale (best for the lowest entry price)

Rankscale is a credit-based tracker. You create as many search prompts as you like and spend credits each time one runs on an engine. Essentials costs $20 a month or $204 a year, Pro $99 and the agency plan, Growth, $385 (checked 28 September 2026).

Essentials includes 120 credits a month. A typical run costs 0.25 credits per engine, so 120 credits buy up to 480 engine answers a month. That is enough for 4 prompts checked daily on 4 engines over a 30-day month (4 x 4 x 30 = 480).

Every engine is available on every plan: its list of 17+ includes all eight major engines, plus DeepSeek and Mistral. You set the cadence yourself, from hourly to monthly. MCP is on every plan, and its Scout recommendations and page audits come with it. The 7-day trial covers the Pro plan only.

Strength: every major engine and MCP on a $20 plan, with a cadence you choose.

Limit: credits run out fast. Claude costs 2 credits a run, eight times ChatGPT's 0.25, and 120 credits is thin for daily tracking.

Pick it if: you want to test many engines cheaply and are happy to manage a credit budget. The rest of the low end is in the cheapest AI visibility tools.

2. Otterly.AI (best for Microsoft Copilot on a small budget)

Otterly.AI tracks prompts daily and adds recommendations and a GEO audit, but it does not write content for you. Lite costs $29 a month, or $25 billed annually, for 15 search prompts. Standard is $189 for 100 prompts and Premium $489 for 400 (checked 28 September 2026).

Every plan covers ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Microsoft Copilot. On Lite, Gemini and Google AI Mode are $9 a month add-ons each, and Claude is $29. Grok is not mentioned on any Otterly page we read. Team members are unlimited on all plans, and API and MCP access start on Standard.

The trial terms conflict. The home page FAQ says 7 days and the sign-up banner says 14 days, both with no credit card (checked 28 September 2026).

Strength: Copilot, which Cituna, Mangools and Writesonic's self-serve plans do not track, checked daily for $29.

Limit: 15 prompts on Lite, and Gemini, AI Mode and Claude cost extra on every plan.

Pick it if: your buyers use Microsoft Copilot and your budget is under $50 a month. Otterly.AI alternatives covers what to move to if it stops fitting.

3. Cituna (best for all seven engines with Search Console on a small budget)

Cituna tracks ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Grok, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode, checked daily, with Google Search Console, from $39 a month. It costs $39, $119 or $399 a month (checked 29 September 2026).

It does more than track. It writes the fix for each gap it finds and publishes articles, and MCP access is included, so the data can be read from an AI assistant. The trial lasts 3 days and needs a card.

Strength: Claude and Grok together with AI Overviews and AI Mode at the entry price. Among the tools here under $100, Otterly.AI sells Claude as an add-on and has no Grok, Peec AI keeps both for Enterprise, and Writesonic keeps both for Enterprise.

Limit: no Microsoft Copilot, and the 3-day trial needs a card, where Otterly.AI and Writesonic run longer trials without one. Rankscale and Otterly.AI are cheaper at entry, and AthenaHQ covers more models.

Pick it if: your buyers ask ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Google, and you want AI answers next to Search Console data for under $50 a month. Cituna's own comparison of AI visibility tools sets its plans against the others.

4. Mangools AI Search Watcher (best for the most prompts per dollar)

Mangools, best known for its SEO tools, sells AI Search Watcher on its own. Pro costs $49 a month, or $34.90 a month billed annually, for 500 prompts and unlimited monitors (checked 29 September 2026). A free plan tracks 5 prompts with no credit card, and every Mangools SEO bundle, from $61 a month, includes Watcher Pro.

Its FAQ lists eight engines: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Claude, Grok, Mistral and Llama. Perplexity and Copilot are not among them. Each prompt is checked twice on every update, and updates are weekly on every plan. API and MCP access are included on every plan, the free one too. It monitors only, with no content writing, and refunds come under a 48-hour money-back guarantee.

Strength: 500 prompts for $49 is under 10 cents a prompt a month ($49 / 500 = $0.098), with Claude and Grok included.

Limit: weekly updates only, and no Perplexity or Copilot.

Pick it if: you want to watch a wide prompt set on a small budget and weekly data is enough.

5. Peec AI (best for agencies)

Peec AI's brand plans start with Starter at $95 a month, or $80 billed annually, for 50 prompts. Pro is $245 for 150 prompts and Advanced $495 for 350 (checked 29 September 2026). Each plan tracks 3 models you choose from ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, Microsoft Copilot, Gemini and Naver AI. Claude and Grok are on Enterprise only, and an extra model costs $35 a month on Starter.

The agency plans are what set it apart. They are credit-based: Essential costs $245 a month for 10,000 credits, Growth $495 for 25,000 and Scale $795 for 65,000. Peec pitches Growth at agencies with 3 to 10 clients and Scale at 11 to 25 or more. They include white-label reporting, client seats, free pitch projects for prospects and view-only client dashboards.

Tracking is daily, and every brand plan lists unlimited users.

Strength: a separate agency pricing track with white-label reporting and pitch projects.

Limit: 3 models at a time, and Search Console is not published on its pricing page. The trial length is not published either.

Pick it if: you run an agency and want client reporting built in. Peec AI alternatives compares it with five rivals.

6. Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit (best for Semrush users)

Semrush's toolkit costs $99 a month per domain. The pricing page says that figure is billed annually, while the knowledge base says $99 per month (pricing page checked 28 September 2026, knowledge base 29 September 2026). It includes 25 custom prompts tracked daily, 1 domain for Brand Performance, 1,000 Prompt Research queries a day and 10 CSV exports a day. Each extra domain costs $99 a month, and 50 more prompts cost $60.

The pricing card names ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini and Perplexity, but the knowledge base says Prompt Tracking runs on Google AI Mode and ChatGPT. Claude, Grok and Copilot are not stated. There is no free trial, per its knowledge base. Search Console comes through a separate $10 a month Base Report add-on.

It gives recommendations and a site audit for AI readiness, but does not write content.

Strength: a large prompt research database and competitor research on any domain, inside the suite your team already uses.

Limit: 25 tracked prompts, pricing per domain, and no trial.

Pick it if: your SEO work already runs in Semrush. Semrush vs Ahrefs for AI visibility sets it against the next Ahrefs entry.

7. Writesonic (best for content fixes)

Writesonic began as an AI writer and now sells AI search visibility with content tools in every paid plan. Starter costs $99 a month, or $79 billed annually, with 50 prompts tracked daily, 15 AI articles a month and 10 site audits. Basic is $249 and Growth $499 (checked 28 September 2026).

Site audits come with automatic AI fixes, and an Action Center suggests on-page and off-page actions. Search Console is ticked on every plan, and its MCP page says MCP ships on every paid plan, read-only. The 7-day trial needs no credit card.

Below Enterprise it tracks only ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. Perplexity, Claude, Grok, AI Mode and Copilot are Enterprise only.

Strength: tracking, article writing and site-audit fixes in one plan, with Search Console on every tier.

Limit: 3 engines below Enterprise, with no Perplexity or AI Mode on self-serve plans.

Pick it if: your bottleneck is producing the content that closes gaps, and ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews are the engines that matter to you.

8. Ahrefs Brand Radar (best for Ahrefs users)

Brand Radar is built on a pre-built index of prompts, so you can look up any brand's AI visibility, a competitor's included, with no setup. Ahrefs plans include a few custom tracked prompts: Lite at $129 a month has 5, Standard at $249 has 10 and Advanced at $449 has 20 (checked 28 September 2026). The standalone AI Visibility Index starts at $199 a month, and custom prompts on all models cost $699.

The index covers Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot. Custom prompts add Claude, which uses 8 checks per update. Grok is not listed. API and MCP access come with Lite and above, and Ahrefs says it never runs discounts and offers no trial.

Strength: instant lookups of any brand in a large prompt index, plus YouTube, TikTok and Reddit data in beta.

Limit: only 5 custom prompts on Lite, no Grok and no trial.

Pick it if: you already pay for Ahrefs and want AI visibility in the same place. Ahrefs Brand Radar alternatives covers the other side.

9. AthenaHQ (best for the widest model list)

AthenaHQ's Starter plan costs $295 a month for 3,600 credits, where 1 credit is 1 AI response (checked 28 September 2026). It covers 11 models at once: ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Mistral. A free Essential tier includes 300 credits on five engines, and annual billing is 17% off.

The credits go further than they look only if you trim engines. On all 11, 3,600 credits cover about 10 prompts a day over a 30-day month (10 x 11 x 30 = 3,300).

It also acts on what it finds: a content optimization agent, on-page and off-page actions, and a robots.txt and llms.txt helper. API access is a paid add-on on Starter. Its comparison table lists Google Analytics and Search Console integration without naming the plan, and check cadence is not published.

Strength: all eight major engines plus three more on a self-serve plan.

Limit: a $295 entry price, API at extra cost, and no published cadence.

Pick it if: you need Claude, Grok and Copilot in one dashboard without an enterprise sales cycle. See AthenaHQ alternatives for cheaper routes.

10. Profound (best for enterprise)

Profound sells brands two things: a free trial and a custom-priced Enterprise plan (checked 28 September 2026). The trial runs 50 preset prompts daily for 7 days on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, with no API and no exports.

Enterprise tracks up to 9 engines: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, DeepSeek, Claude, Google AI Overviews and Exa Search, daily. It adds an API, CSV and JSON exports, SSO/SAML and SOC 2. AI Marketer agents research, write and report, on credits. For agencies, Agency Growth costs $99 a month for pitch workspaces, and full client workspaces are $399 a month each (checked 29 September 2026).

Strength: a broad engine list with the security and compliance items procurement teams ask for, plus content agents.

Limit: no self-serve brand plan, no Grok, and trial prompts cannot be customized.

Pick it if: you need SSO and SOC 2 and have budget for a sales-led contract. Profound alternatives and Cituna vs Profound cover the cheaper options.

What do the AI engines themselves recommend?

In our scans on 28 September 2026, Cituna asked seven engines 22 buyer questions about AI visibility tools, and 153 answers came back with text. We counted a tool once per answer when its name appeared in the answer itself, not just in a cited link.

How many of 153 AI answers named each tool, our scans on 28 September 2026
ToolAnswers naming itShare of 153
Otterly.AI8656%
Profound7247%
Peec AI6844%
Semrush6542%
Ahrefs (Brand Radar named in 33)4731%
SE Ranking / SE Visible4127%
AthenaHQ3825%
Scrunch3322%
Rankscale2114%
Writesonic138%
Cituna53%
Mangools11%

On the question "best AI visibility tools" itself, all seven engines named Semrush, and six each named Otterly.AI, Profound and Peec AI. None named Cituna, which appeared only in 5 ChatGPT answers across all 22 questions.

This measures which tools the engines surface, not which tools are good. Engines repeat what roundups and vendor pages say, and 30 of the 153 answers were cut off at about 4,000 characters, so every count is a floor. The engines also repeat stale facts: 15 answers gave Profound a $99 price, but its pricing page offers brands only a trial and Enterprise, with $99 as an agency plan. What seven AI engines cite shows where these answers come from.

How do you choose between them?

Start with the engines your buyers use, then the number of prompts you need, then budget. How to choose an AI visibility tool turns that into seven checks, and how to choose prompts to track helps you size the prompt list before you compare plans. If the unit itself is new, start with what prompt tracking is.

  • ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Grok and both Google AI surfaces daily at the lowest flat price, with Search Console: Cituna, $39.
  • Lowest cost to start: Rankscale on credits, Otterly.AI at a fixed $29, or Mangools' free plan.
  • Copilot matters: Otterly.AI, Rankscale, AthenaHQ, Ahrefs Brand Radar or Profound Enterprise. Cituna does not track it.
  • Claude and Grok without enterprise pricing: Cituna, Mangools, Rankscale or AthenaHQ.
  • Search Console in the same place: Cituna or Writesonic on every plan, or Semrush through its add-on.
  • Agencies: Peec AI's agency plans, or Profound's per-workspace pricing.
  • Already on an SEO suite: Semrush or Ahrefs.

If you only need to track and never fix, read the best AI visibility tracking tools, which compares cost per prompt and how each vendor collects answers. For budgets by team size, see how much AI visibility tools cost, and to try before paying anything, start with free AI visibility checkers. All nine core tools side by side on API and Search Console are in AI visibility tools compared.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best AI visibility tool in 2026?

It depends on the engines you need. For ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Grok, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode checked daily at the lowest flat price on this list, Cituna, from $39 a month with Search Console (checked 29 September 2026). Rankscale has the lowest entry price at $20 a month in credits, AthenaHQ covers 11 models including Copilot at $295, and Profound suits enterprise buyers (checked 28 September 2026).

What is the cheapest AI visibility tool?

Rankscale's Essentials plan is $20 a month on credits, and Otterly.AI's Lite is $29 a month for 15 prompts (checked 28 September 2026). Mangools AI Search Watcher also has a free plan with 5 prompts, updated weekly (checked 29 September 2026).

Which AI visibility tools track all the major engines?

AthenaHQ's $295 Starter plan covers ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Grok, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode and Microsoft Copilot, and Rankscale offers all of them on credits (checked 28 September 2026). Of those eight, Cituna leaves out only Copilot, from $39 a month.

Which AI visibility tools include Google Search Console?

Cituna and Writesonic include Google Search Console on every plan. Semrush connects it through a $10 a month Base Report add-on, and AthenaHQ lists it without naming the plan (checked 28 September 2026).

Do AI visibility tools offer free trials?

Many do, on different terms. Writesonic offers 7 days with no card, Otterly.AI says 7 or 14 days with no card depending on the page, Cituna offers 3 days with a card, and Semrush and Ahrefs offer none (checked 28 and 29 September 2026).

Are the tools AI engines recommend the best ones?

Not necessarily. In our scans on 28 September 2026, the engines named Otterly.AI, Profound and Peec AI most often, but that shows what the engines have read, not how good a tool is, and some answers quoted out-of-date prices.

Sources

  1. Rankscale pricing. Retrieved .
  2. Otterly.AI pricing. Retrieved .
  3. Otterly.AI homepage. Retrieved .
  4. Cituna pricing. Retrieved .
  5. Mangools AI Search Watcher pricing. Retrieved .
  6. Mangools AI Search Watcher. Retrieved .
  7. Mangools plans and pricing. Retrieved .
  8. Peec AI pricing. Retrieved .
  9. Peec AI agency pricing. Retrieved .
  10. Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit pricing. Retrieved .
  11. Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit knowledge base. Retrieved .
  12. Writesonic pricing. Retrieved .
  13. Writesonic MCP. Retrieved .
  14. Ahrefs pricing. Retrieved .
  15. Ahrefs Brand Radar. Retrieved .
  16. AthenaHQ plans. Retrieved .
  17. Profound pricing. Retrieved .