The best AI visibility tool for you is the one that checks the engines your buyers use, at a cadence and prompt count you can afford, and turns what it finds into fixes you will actually ship. Score each shortlisted tool on the seven criteria below, weight them for your situation, and run a trial on your own prompts before you sign anything.
Every vendor example below comes from the vendor's own pages, checked on 28 or 29 September 2026. Prices change often, so re-check before you buy.
Step 1: List the engines your buyers use
Each engine reads different sources, so a tool that skips your buyers' engine misses where they decide. In our scans over the 30 days to 29 September 2026, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode cited youtube.com about 800 times each, and Gemini only 37 times. What seven AI engines cite has the full picture.
What to check: which engines run on the plan you would buy, how many at once, and which cost extra.
Example: Peec AI's Starter lets you choose 3 models, and Claude and Grok are Enterprise-only (checked 29 September 2026). Otterly.AI includes ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews and Microsoft Copilot on every plan, but Gemini, AI Mode and Claude are add-ons. Scrunch's Core plan tracks four engines, without Gemini, Claude, Grok or AI Mode (both checked 28 September 2026).
Step 2: Price the plan you would actually need
The entry price rarely matches what you end up paying. Add the engines, prompts, domains and seats you need, then compare the total.
What to check: the price per prompt, per-domain or per-client fees, engine add-ons, credit costs by engine, and whether the headline price assumes annual billing.
Example: dividing each entry price by its prompts, before add-ons, gives very different figures (all checked 28 September 2026 except Peec, 29 September):
| Plan | Entry price | Prompts | Price per prompt |
|---|---|---|---|
| SE Visible Basic | $99/mo | 200 | about $0.50 |
| Peec AI Starter | $95/mo | 50 | $1.90 |
| Otterly.AI Lite | $29/mo | 15 | about $1.93 |
| Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit | $99/mo per domain, billed annually | 25 | about $3.96 |
Credits change the maths again. Rankscale charges 2 credits per Claude run against 0.25 for ChatGPT, and Keyword.com charges 3.0 against 0.25. See the cheapest AI visibility tools and how much AI visibility tools cost for more.
Step 3: Match the prompts and cadence to your questions
A tool is only as useful as the questions it asks. Too few prompts and you track a handful of vanity queries. Too rare a check and you miss changes.
What to check: how many prompts the plan includes, whether you write them or the vendor supplies them, and how often each one runs.
Example: LLM Pulse's plans run weekly by default, and daily tracking is a separate, pricier plan: Starter is €49 a month weekly or €79 daily. Ahrefs' Lite plan includes 5 tracked AI prompts at $129 a month (both checked 28 September 2026). When we asked seven engines how to measure share of voice on 28 September 2026, their suggested prompt sets ranged from 15 to 200. How to choose the prompts to track shows how to build yours.
Step 4: Ask how it collects answers and handles variance
AI answers change between runs. SparkToro's study of 2,961 runs, published 27 January 2026, put the chance of ChatGPT or Google's AI giving the same brand list twice at under 1 in 100. A single daily snapshot is a sample, not the truth.
What to check: whether answers come from the engines' public interfaces or their APIs, whether prompts run more than once, which location is used, and exactly how share of voice is calculated.
Example: Ahrefs says Brand Radar runs prompts through free, publicly available web interfaces, and refreshes its ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot index monthly on a 90-day window. Formulas differ too. Otterly.AI counts mentions. Ahrefs weights share of voice by the search volume of each prompt. Profound's visibility score leaves out answers that name no brand at all (all checked 29 September 2026). How to measure AI share of voice compares the methods.
Step 5: Check what it does after it finds a gap
Tracking tells you where you are missing. The work is in fixing it: pages to write, facts to correct, roundups to join.
What to check: whether the tool only reports, recommends actions, or drafts and publishes content, and how many of those actions the plan includes.
Example: Otterly.AI's Lite plan includes 3 recommendations a week and does not write content. Semrush's toolkit generates recommendations but does not write content either. Writesonic includes AI articles and site audits with automatic fixes on its paid plans, and Profound's AI Marketer agents write content on credits (all checked 28 September 2026). See how to run an AI visibility audit for what a fix list looks like.
Step 6: Check the integrations you will use
Integrations decide whether the data reaches your reports. Google Search Console shows how AI features affect your Google traffic, GA4 shows visits from AI engines, and an API or MCP server lets you pull data into your own tools or AI assistants.
What to check: which plan includes each integration, and whether it costs extra.
Example: Otterly.AI's API and MCP start on Standard at $189 a month. Promptwatch lists MCP and API access on every brand plan from $95, and Geoptie from Professional at $99. Semrush's toolkit gets Search Console through a $10-a-month Base Report add-on (all checked 28 September 2026). The Search Console checks are in how to choose an AI visibility tool with Search Console integration, and the GA4 setup in how to track AI referral traffic in GA4.
Step 7: Read the trial and contract terms
A trial on your own prompts is the only way to see whether a tool's answers match what you see by hand. Contract terms decide how hard it is to leave.
What to check: trial length, whether a card is needed, whether billing is monthly or annual only, and any minimum term.
Example: Semrush says its AI Visibility Toolkit has no free trial (checked 29 September 2026). Trakkr's 14-day trial needs a card. Conductor offers 3 weeks with no card. Otterly.AI's own pages disagree on its trial, saying 7 days in one place and 14 in another (all checked 28 September 2026). Rankability's pricing page lists $497 a month on a 12-month agreement (checked 29 September 2026).
How do you score AI visibility tools side by side?
Give each criterion a weight that adds up to 100, score each tool from 1 to 5, multiply, and add. Set the weights before you look at any tool, so the scores do not bend to fit a favourite.
The example below is hypothetical. Say a five-person B2B software team sells to buyers who use ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude, has a modest budget and wants fixes written for it. It shortlists three tools, called A, B and C here.
| Criterion | Weight | Tool A | Tool B | Tool C |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Engines your buyers use | 25 | 5 | 3 | 4 |
| 2. Price and what it buys | 20 | 3 | 5 | 2 |
| 3. Prompts and cadence | 15 | 4 | 3 | 5 |
| 4. Data method and variance | 10 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 5. From data to fixes | 10 | 5 | 2 | 3 |
| 6. Integrations | 10 | 4 | 3 | 5 |
| 7. Trial and contract terms | 10 | 3 | 5 | 2 |
| Weighted total (out of 500) | 100 | 395 | 360 | 365 |
| Score out of 100 | 79 | 72 | 73 |
Tool A's total is 25 x 5 + 20 x 3 + 15 x 4 + 10 x 3 + 10 x 5 + 10 x 4 + 10 x 3 = 395. Divide by 5 for a score out of 100. Tool B is cheapest and easiest to try but weakest on fixes, so it loses on this team's weights. A team that only needs monitoring would lower criterion 5 and might pick B.
Which tools do AI engines name when buyers ask?
In our scans on 28 September 2026, we asked seven engines 22 buyer questions about AI visibility tools. Across 153 answers, the most-named tools were Otterly.AI (86 answers), Profound (72), Peec AI (68) and Semrush (65). Cituna was named in 5, all by ChatGPT.
Treat those lists as a starting shortlist, not a verdict. Engines stated Profound's price as $99 in 15 answers, while Profound's own pricing page, checked the same day, showed $99 only for an agency plan, with brands on a free trial or custom Enterprise pricing. Check every engine claim against the vendor's page.
Which tools do this?
Each fact comes from the vendor's own pages on the date shown. Cituna is listed because we build it.
- Cituna checks seven engines daily (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Grok, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode) and costs $39, $119 or $399 a month (checked 29 September 2026). It writes the fix for each gap it finds and publishes articles, and includes Search Console and MCP. It does not track Microsoft Copilot, and its trial is 3 days with a card required. See Cituna's plans at cituna.com
- Otterly.AI is the low-price pick at $29 a month, with Microsoft Copilot on every plan, which Cituna lacks (checked 28 September 2026).
- Promptwatch tracks 4 models from a list of 11 on every plan, with MCP and API from $95 a month (checked 28 September 2026).
- Conductor lists one of the broadest engine sets we read, including Grok and Copilot, and a 3-week trial with no card, but publishes no prices (checked 28 September 2026).
For side-by-side prices and engines, see AI visibility tools compared and the best AI visibility tools.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most important criterion when choosing an AI visibility tool?
Engine coverage, because each engine cites different sources and a tool cannot report on an engine it does not check. List the engines your buyers use first, then shortlist tools whose plan covers them without add-ons.
How much should an AI visibility tool cost?
Among the self-serve tools we checked on 28 September 2026, entry prices ran from $9.80 a month (Keyword.com's AI Visibility plan) to $599 (Gauge), and several enterprise tools publish no price. Compare the price per prompt and the add-ons you need, not the entry price alone.
How many prompts should I track?
Enough to cover the buying questions you want to win, across each stage of the purchase. When we asked seven AI engines on 28 September 2026, their suggested prompt sets ranged from 15 to 200.
Is daily tracking necessary?
It helps, because AI answers change often and a weekly check can miss movement. SparkToro found under a 1 in 100 chance of ChatGPT giving the same brand list twice, so more runs give a steadier average.
Can I trust the tool an AI engine recommends?
Use it as a shortlist only. In our 28 September 2026 scans, engines stated Profound's price as $99 in 15 answers, a figure Profound's own page showed only for an agency plan that day.
Can a free AI visibility checker replace a paid tool?
For a first look, yes. Free checkers usually give a one-time snapshot with no history or custom prompts, so they cannot show trends. See free AI visibility checkers for what each one covers.