Best AI Visibility Tools (2026): 8 Options Compared

AI Visibility Tools: What They Do and What Most Miss

AI visibility tools track whether ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, and other AI platforms mention your brand when users ask questions in your category. They are the equivalent of rank trackers for AI search, a channel that now drives 12 to 18 percent of referral traffic for many sites.

The market has grown from 3 tools in early 2025 to over 20 in 2026. Most do the same thing: run prompts against AI models, check if your brand appears, and report share of voice. The pricing ranges from free to nearly $1,000 per month.

But there is a problem most tools ignore entirely.

The 8 Best AI Visibility Tools Compared

This comparison covers the tools that appeared most frequently in our research, verified against their actual pricing pages and published feature lists as of April 2026.

Monitoring vs Technical Readiness: The Layer Nobody Checks

Every tool on this list except Radar does the same thing: it runs prompts against AI models and checks if your brand appears in the response. This is monitoring. It tells you what AI says about you right now.

What none of them check is whether AI can technically access your site in the first place.

Technical readiness is the foundation layer. It includes:

1. Bot crawl access: Can GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot actually reach your pages? 13 AI bots need testing.
2. robots.txt configuration: Are you accidentally blocking AI crawlers while allowing search crawlers?
3. llms.txt file: Does your site have the emerging standard file that tells AI models what you are?
4. Schema markup: Is your JSON-LD structured data complete enough for AI to understand entity relationships?
5. Cross-signal conflicts: Does your site allow crawling but block the structured data AI needs to cite you?

If any of these are broken, monitoring tools will just keep telling you "not cited" without explaining why.

Tool-by-Tool Breakdown

Radar by Pixelmojo

Radar is the only AI visibility platform that audits technical readiness alongside citation monitoring. It runs 12 tools in parallel on any domain in about 60 seconds.

What makes it different: 8 of Radar's 12 tools are technical audit tools that no competitor offers: AI Crawl Check (13 bot user-agents), robots.txt Analyzer (16 bots), llms.txt Validator, AI Readiness Score, Schema Completeness Audit, AEO Page Auditor, Source Influence Map, and Hallucination Detection with severity scoring.

Pricing: Free first audit on any domain. Audit packs: $5 single, $12 for 3, $40 for 10 (Power Pack, $4 per audit). Pro Retainer at $199/month for 40 audits plus watched-domain weekly pulse and white-label reports.

Limitations: Queries 4 AI models (not 8). Automated weekly pulse re-scan is available on Pro Retainer only (watched-domain feature).

Best for: Teams that need to understand why they are not being cited, not just that they are not being cited.

URL: pixelmojo.io/platform

AthenaHQ

AthenaHQ is built by ex-Google and DeepMind engineers and backed by Y Combinator. It focuses on connecting AI visibility to revenue, with Shopify and GA4 integrations.

Strengths: Action Center generates structured optimization workflows with task assignment and tracking. Ask Athena AI assistant answers questions about your visibility data conversationally. 8 AI platform coverage.

Pricing: $295/month for Self-Serve (3,600 credits, intro offer $95 first month). Enterprise plans available. No free trial.

Limitations: No technical audit (cannot check bot access, robots.txt, llms.txt, or schema). Persona targeting locked behind Enterprise. Credits run out after roughly 4 tracking batches per month.

Best for: E-commerce brands with Shopify integration needs and budget for premium monitoring.

Profound

Profound is the G2 Winter 2026 Leader in the AEO category with a 4.6/5 rating from 140+ reviews. They raised $58.5M and serve roughly 10 percent of the Fortune 500, including MongoDB, Ramp, and Figma.

Strengths: Deep prompt-level analysis. Enterprise-grade compliance (SOC 2 Type II on Custom plan). Strong market validation with Fortune 500 customers.

Pricing: Starter $99/month (50 prompts, ChatGPT only). Growth $399/month (3 engines, 100 prompts, 24,000 monthly runs). Custom from $499/month (10+ engines, API, SSO).

Limitations: Starter plan limited to ChatGPT only. No technical audit. No free tier. Enterprise features require Custom plan.

Best for: Large enterprises that need vendor compliance (SOC 2) and deep analytics.

Gauge

Gauge positions itself as a mid-market platform with built-in content generation, producing 3 to 18 AI-optimized articles per month depending on plan.

Strengths: Content engine generates GEO-optimized articles. White-glove onboarding at all tiers. Monitors 7 AI platforms on Growth plan.

Pricing: Starter $100/month (100 prompts, ChatGPT only). Growth $599/month (600 prompts, 6 engines, 18 articles). Enterprise custom.

Limitations: Starter limited to ChatGPT. No technical audit. Content quality from automated generation varies. Expensive Growth tier.

Best for: Teams that want monitoring plus content production in one platform.

Otterly.AI

Otterly.AI offers the widest pricing range, from $29 to $989 per month, making it accessible for small teams while scaling to enterprise.

Strengths: Free trial available. Citation tracking with Link Citations Analysis shows which URLs AI platforms reference. Brand Visibility Index for trend tracking. Most affordable entry point among dedicated tools.

Pricing: Lite $29/month (10 prompts). Standard $189/month (100 prompts). Pro $989/month (1,000 prompts).

Limitations: Lite plan is very limited (10 prompts). No technical audit. Pro tier is expensive for what is still monitoring-only.

Best for: Small teams or freelancers who need basic citation tracking on a budget.

Visiblie

Visiblie offers the broadest AI model coverage, tracking up to 8 models from a single dashboard on Enterprise.

Strengths: 8 AI model coverage (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, DeepSeek, Grok, Meta AI, Mistral). Single dashboard view across all models.

Pricing: Custom pricing. Contact for quote.

Limitations: No public pricing. No technical audit. No free tier.

Best for: Teams that need to monitor mentions across the widest range of AI models.

Peec AI

Peec AI focuses on Share of Voice analytics, showing who wins in AI recommendations by prompt category.

Strengths: SOV analytics segmented by category and prompt type. Competitive positioning data.

Pricing: Custom pricing. Contact for quote.

Limitations: No public pricing. No technical audit. Narrower feature set focused primarily on SOV.

Best for: Competitive intelligence teams focused on category-level AI visibility.

SE Ranking AI Tracker

SE Ranking added an AI Tracker module to its existing SEO platform, combining traditional search rankings with AI visibility in one tool.

Strengths: Integrated with full SEO suite (no separate tool needed). Brand Visibility Index and Competitive Benchmarking. Good for teams already using SE Ranking.

Pricing: Included in SE Ranking plans (varies by tier).

Limitations: AI features are an add-on to an SEO tool, not purpose-built. No technical audit. Feature depth may not match dedicated AI visibility tools.

Best for: Existing SE Ranking customers who want to add AI monitoring without another subscription.

Pricing Comparison

How to Choose the Right Tool

The decision depends on what you need to know and what you plan to do about it.

Start with technical readiness if you have never audited your site for AI. Run a Radar audit first (free). If your Crawl Integrity Score is below 70, fix the technical foundation before paying for monitoring. No point tracking citations if AI cannot access your site.

Choose a monitoring tool if your technical foundation is solid and you need ongoing tracking. Otterly.AI for budget, Profound for enterprise compliance, AthenaHQ for e-commerce revenue attribution, Gauge if you also want content generation.

Use both if you are serious about AI visibility. Radar for the technical audit layer, plus one monitoring tool for ongoing citation tracking. They are complementary, not competing. AI visibility is one slice of the complete agency stack; the broader breakdown shows where this layer sits next to lifecycle automation, attribution, and outreach orchestration.

Free AI Visibility Options That Actually Work

Not every team has $100 to $300 per month for a monitoring subscription. Here are legitimate free options:

1. Radar by Pixelmojo (free first audit): 12 tools in parallel, technical audit plus citation monitoring, hallucination detection, implementation prompts. The most comprehensive free option.

2. Manual LLM queries: Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini about your brand directly. Free but time-consuming and not systematic.

3. Google Search Console: Check if AI crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot) are accessing your site via the crawl stats report. Free but limited to crawl data only.

4. Otterly.AI free trial: Limited-time access to citation tracking features. Good for a quick snapshot.

For most teams, start with a free Radar audit to understand your technical readiness, then decide if ongoing monitoring is worth the investment based on what you find.

What to Do Next

If you have never checked your AI visibility, start here:

1. Run a free Radar audit on your domain. It takes 60 seconds and shows both your technical readiness and citation status across 4 LLMs.
2. Fix the technical foundation first. If AI bots are blocked or your structured data is missing, no monitoring tool will help.
3. Then decide on monitoring. Once your technical layer is solid, pick a monitoring tool based on your budget and AI platform coverage needs.

Ready to check what AI says about your brand?

• Try Radar free -- 12 tools, 60 seconds, email-verified
• AI Visibility Strategy -- We handle everything for $4,500 sprint + retainer
• Contact us -- 30 minutes, no pitch deck