The short version:
- If you are an enterprise team that will watch AI visibility daily, a monitoring platform like Profound or AthenaHQ fits better.
- For everyone else, a periodic report is the better buy. Changes to your AI visibility take weeks or months to land, so a monthly subscription mostly re-measures the same answer.
Prices checked on August 3, 2026. To learn more about AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), read what is AEO. To see the kind of data these tools measure, browse our free AEO industry leaderboards.
What separates a good tool from a bad one?
- Where the questions come from. A good tool starts from the questions real customers ask. A bad one makes you guess the prompts, then tracks only what you guessed.
- How many assistants it checks. Each assistant gives different answers, cites different sources, and goes deeper on some questions than others. In one report we ran, ChatGPT named the brand in 2.9% of its answers and Gemini in 11.4%. Checking one assistant is a partial read.
- What you get at the end. A score tells you where you stand. A good tool also shows the sources behind each answer, how you compare to your competitors, and how to improve.
The full checklist is in how to actually check whether AI assistants recommend your brand.
Subscription or one-off report?
A subscription and a one-off report are two ways to pay for the same measurement, and either can buy a good or a bad tool. The right one depends on how often the answer changes. It changes slowly: new coverage takes weeks to months to show up in answers, which is why we suggest re-checking monthly or quarterly.
Watching daily is enterprise work: a portfolio of products and a team acting on alerts. That is what Profound and AthenaHQ are built for.
The comparison table
| Tool | ChatGPT + Gemini + Claude price | Lowest price | Missing from lowest price | Billing | Prompt discovery | Competitor comparison | Buyer journey mapping | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adacity | $39 one-time | Free | ChatGPT, Claude, and buyer journeys | Per report | Yes | Yes, discovered from AI answers | Yes | One clear answer, no subscription |
| Otterly.ai | $29/mo + Claude and Gemini add-ons | $29/mo | Claude, Gemini, and AI Mode; only 15 prompts | Subscription | Limited (Prompt Research) | Yes, ones you pick | Limited, asks you to guess | Cheapest ongoing tracking |
| Knowatoa | $199/mo | $59/mo | Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Meta AI | Subscription | Limited, based on search keywords | Yes, ones you pick | No | Small teams wanting Google coverage |
| Profound | Claude not available | $99/mo | Everything but ChatGPT; only one seat | Subscription | Limited, from query volumes | Yes, ones you pick | No | Scaling into enterprise monitoring |
| Semrush | Enterprise only, no public price | $165.17/mo annual | Claude; only 50 prompts a day | Subscription | Limited, from a prompt database | Yes, up to 4 you pick | No | Teams already paying for Semrush |
| Scrunch | $250/mo annual | $250/mo annual, $300 monthly | Extra seats, prompts, and personas | Subscription | No | Yes, ones you pick | No | Agencies running many personas |
| AthenaHQ | Free credits, then $295/mo | Free, $25 of credits | Anything past $25 of credits | Subscription | No | Yes, ones you pick | No | Widest engine coverage |
| Ahrefs Brand Radar | Claude not available | €358/mo, select platforms | Claude, at any price | Subscription | Limited, based on search keywords | Yes, any brand you search | No | Existing Ahrefs users |
| Peec AI | Enterprise only, no public price | $80/mo annual, $95 monthly | Claude, and 3 of its 6 engines; only 50 prompts | Subscription | No | No | No | European SEO teams |
| Evertune | No transparent pricing | No transparent pricing | Unknown; no public plans | Subscription | No | Yes, ones you pick | No | Large brand organisations |
The main AEO tools in 2026
Adacity, best for periodic checks
Free to start, no account. The $39 full run asks 100+ discovered questions across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude, maps your visibility by buying stage, and ends with the sources, your standing against the competitors AI actually names, and how to improve. You pay per report. There is no trend line and no alerts; if your team acts on this daily, buy a subscription. See why Adacity.
Otterly.ai, cheapest subscription
$29 per month buys 15 prompts across ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Perplexity, and Copilot; Claude, Gemini, and AI Mode cost extra. You write the prompts and guess their funnel stage yourself, with a keyword-based research tool to help. Competitor tracking against a list you pick is included, and the reviews are strong. Standard is $189 for 100 prompts, Premium $489 for 400. See our Otterly alternative page for a side-by-side.
Knowatoa, best for Google coverage
$59 per month covers ChatGPT, AI Overviews, and AI Mode, the cheapest way to watch Google's two AI surfaces. It generates questions for you from search keywords and shows which ones each competitor wins. All seven engines, including Claude, need the $199 plan. See our Knowatoa alternative page for a side-by-side.
Profound, best for enterprise monitoring
$99 per month buys 50 prompts, one seat, and ChatGPT only; Claude is not available on any published plan. Growth at $399 adds Perplexity and AI Overviews, and the reporting is strong from there up. Prompt Volumes shows what millions of people ask AI, which is demand data, not your buyers' questions. See our Profound alternative page for a side-by-side.
AthenaHQ, widest engine coverage
A free tier with $25 of credits, then $295 per month for 3,600 credits across nine models, including Claude and Grok. Competitor share of voice is built in. The prompts are yours to supply, and billing is per credit, so cost scales with use. See our AthenaHQ alternative page for a side-by-side.
Scrunch, built for agencies
$250 per month billed annually, or $300 monthly, with three seats, 350 custom prompts, 1,000 industry prompts, and three personas. It benchmarks by competitor, persona, and geography. The prompt list is configured, not discovered. Growth roughly doubles everything at $417. See our Scrunch alternative page for a side-by-side.
Semrush and Ahrefs
Semrush bundles AI tracking into its core plans from $165.17 per month annual: 50 daily prompts drawn from a 26M-prompt database, and competitor research against up to four names you pick. Claude is Enterprise only. Ahrefs sells Brand Radar at €358 per month for platforms you select, or €654 for all of them, built on search keywords, with no Claude at any price. If you already pay for either, check your plan before buying anything new. See our Semrush AI Toolkit alternative and Ahrefs Brand Radar alternative pages for side-by-sides.
Peec AI and Evertune
Peec AI charges $80 per month billed annually, or $95 monthly, for 50 prompts on three of its six engines; Claude needs the Enterprise plan, priced through sales. See our Peec AI alternative page for a side-by-side. Evertune publishes no price and sells enterprise brand analysis, on request only.
Free checkers
Ahrefs runs a free checker with no signup across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, and AI Overviews. Semrush gives you three free checks a day. Frase, HubSpot, and Loamly run similar ones.
They tell you whether you have a problem. They do not show the questions your own buyers ask, the sources behind each answer, or where in the buying journey you disappear. That is the difference between a score and a fix list.
How to choose
- You check monthly or quarterly. A periodic report. Adacity starts at $5.
- Your team acts on it daily. A monitoring platform. Otterly is the cheapest entry; AthenaHQ covers the most engines.
- You run an agency or a portfolio. Scrunch and Profound are built for seats and reporting.
- You already pay for Semrush or Ahrefs. Check what your plan includes first.
Common questions
- What is the cheapest AEO tool?
- Otterly's Lite plan is the cheapest subscription at $29 a month for 15 prompts. Adacity is $5 for a one-off Gemini report, or $39 for the full run across Gemini, Claude, and ChatGPT. Knowatoa starts at $59 a month and Profound at $99.
- Which AEO tools track Claude?
- AthenaHQ includes Claude from its free tier, and Adacity from the $39 full run. Otterly sells it as an add-on. Knowatoa includes it on its $199 plan. Profound, Peec AI, and Semrush's standard plans do not cover it.
- Do I need a subscription to check my AI visibility?
- Only if your team acts on the data daily. AI answers change over weeks and months, not days, so if you check monthly or quarterly a periodic report covers it. Free checkers from Ahrefs and Semrush give you a first look without an account.
- Are free AI visibility checkers good enough?
- They will tell you whether you have a problem. They run a fixed prompt set on one or two engines and return a score. They do not show the questions your buyers ask, the sources behind each answer, or where in the buying journey you disappear.
Keep reading
- Who is actually asking AI about your brand? Why your own prompts miss your real buyers.
- You rank #1 on Google. AI still skips you. How assistants split one question into many.
- What you learn when you audit a competitor. The same report, pointed at a competitor.
- GEO vs SEO. What changes and what still matters.