Radar is Live. Here is What Changed.
Radar by Pixelmojo is generally available as of April 19, 2026. The product is the same AI visibility tools we have been running, but the access model changed. Instead of a private-beta waitlist, Radar now opens as a freemium platform with a clear split between technical readiness tools (free) and LLM-powered monitoring tools (paid). This post covers what shipped, why the split works, and what we built under the hood. It is the April 2026 launch record, updated in October 2026 to the current tool list: a paid audit runs 13 tools, 6 of them in the free tier.
Why We Went Freemium Instead of Free
Free access for everything was tempting. It matches how indie developers usually launch: give it all away, chase adoption, monetize later. Radar is a different kind of product. Seven of the 13 tools make live API calls to large language models. The other six run against the users own site.
A single Citation Tracker run makes around 16 LLM API calls (4 providers times 4 templated queries, sometimes more for competitive queries). A Prompt SOV run makes 20 or more API calls with longer context windows. Those costs add up quickly at scale, even with cheap models. Offering them free meant either capping runs to the point of uselessness (which breaks the product) or burning cash on every anonymous lead.
The 6 free tools (AI Crawl Checker, Robots.txt Analyzer, llms.txt Validator, Schema Audit, AEO Page Auditor, AI Readiness Score) run against the users own site. They parse publicly available files (robots.txt, llms.txt), inspect schema markup, and test HTTP response headers. The marginal cost is a few HTTP requests, not LLM API calls. At zero cost per run, they make sense as a free lead magnet.
The 7 paid tools run against external LLMs. Every run costs real money. Pricing them as paid aligns the revenue model with the cost structure. It also creates a clear upgrade story: use the free layer to understand whether AI can technically access your site, then upgrade to the paid layer to see what AI actually says about you.
“Freemium pricing works when the free version creates a real outcome, not a crippled demo, and when the paid version adds measurably different value. The split has to be honest.”
Pixelmojo
The 6-and-7 Split, Explained
Radar groups tools into two layers that map directly to the pricing tiers. The free layer audits the technical conditions that determine whether AI can reach and understand a site. The paid layer monitors what AI says about the site once it has reached it.
| Tool | Layer | Tier | What It Checks |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI Crawl Checker | Technical Readiness | Free | 17 AI crawler user-agents tested for actual site access |
| Robots.txt Analyzer | Technical Readiness | Free | Directive parsing and conflict detection for 16 bots |
| llms.txt Validator | Technical Readiness | Free | Structure, sections, entities, and content quality scoring |
| Schema Markup Audit | Technical Readiness | Free | JSON-LD coverage across 10 schema types |
| AEO Page Auditor | Technical Readiness | Free | Answer engine content structure, 6 category scoring |
| AI Readiness Score | Technical Readiness | Free | Unified 5-category grade across all readiness dimensions |
| Citation Tracker | LLM Monitoring | Paid | Brand mentions across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity |
| Reddit Brand Monitor | LLM Monitoring | Paid | Mentions and AI-seeded promotional content detection |
| Hallucination Detection | LLM Monitoring | Paid | Factual errors in AI claims with severity scoring |
| Prompt SOV | LLM Monitoring | Paid | Share of voice vs competitors across AI responses |
| Source Influence Map | LLM Monitoring | Paid | Which domains shape AI narratives in a category |
| Answer Engine Tester | LLM Monitoring | Paid | Per-page citation testing across 4 providers |
| Brand Disambiguation | LLM Monitoring | Paid | Flags when AI engines confuse a brand with a same-named entity |
The free tier covers what most teams need first. Before you worry about what AI says about your brand, you need to confirm AI can reach your brand. Misconfigured robots.txt that blocks AI bots is the single most common reason a site is invisible to LLMs, and it is caught by the Crawl Checker in 5 seconds. Missing llms.txt, broken schema, or pages structured against answer engine patterns all fall into this category.
The paid tier covers what teams need after. Once the technical layer is clean, the next question is what AI is actually saying. That requires querying live LLMs, which requires paid API calls, which requires a paid tier.
Pricing Structure and the Math Behind It
The pricing structure has three tiers, each with clear use cases.
Free (1 audit per domain)
For teams evaluating their AI visibility baseline. Run the 6 technical readiness tools on any public domain. No credit card. Enter your email and domain, verify with a 6-digit code, and Radar runs your free check. The result is an AI Readiness Score plus the top 3 prioritized action items. If the report shows a clean technical layer (which roughly 1 in 5 sites do based on our labs data), the user can move on to the paid tier to see what AI says. If the report shows problems, there is enough context to start fixing without ever paying.
Audit Packs ($5 to $40)
For teams that need audits on demand without a subscription commitment. Three tiers: Single ($5 for 1 audit), Starter ($12 for 3 audits at $4 each), Power Pack ($40 for 10 audits at $4 each). Credits never expire. Best fit for freelancers, small agencies running occasional client audits, or teams who want to re-audit after making fixes.
Pro Retainer ($199 per month, 40 audits)
For agencies billing client retainers or in-house teams running monthly audits at scale. 40 full audits per month, roughly $5 per audit. Adds watched domains with automatic weekly pulse re-scans, which is the one feature the pack tiers do not get. At 40 audits per month, that works out to more than one audit per business day.
Compared to the alternatives
| Platform | Entry Price | What You Get | Gaps |
|---|---|---|---|
| Radar Free | $0 | 6 tools, 1 audit per domain | No LLM monitoring layer (paid) |
| Radar Packs | $5 per audit | All 13 tools, credits never expire | No automated watch re-scans |
| Radar Pro Retainer | $199 per month | 40 audits, weekly pulse re-scans | None |
| AthenaHQ | ~$295 per month (April 2026) | Citation monitoring | Describes AI crawler checks (Sept 2026) |
| Gauge | ~$99 per month (April 2026) | Citation monitoring | Describes AI crawler checks (Sept 2026) |
At launch, Radar Pro Retainer at $199 for 40 audits landed between Gauge and AthenaHQ on price. Both have changed their pricing since, and both now describe AI crawler checks, so see our dated comparison of AI visibility tools before you choose.
Refund Policy and Why We Publish It
Most SaaS refund policies are either absent, buried in terms of service, or written in hostile legalese. Ours is published on the pricing page and directly visible on the user dashboard after purchase. The policy is a hybrid: 14-day window, prorated by unused quota, with an abuse cap.
Within 14 days
- 0 audits used: 100 percent refund, no questions.
- 1 to 30 audits used (under 75 percent of quota): prorated refund of the unused portion. Using 10 of 40 audits gets roughly $149.25 back on a $199 Pro Retainer.
- 31 or more audits used (over 75 percent of quota): no refund. This is the abuse cap. Using 39 of 40 audits and then asking for a refund would be refunded under a pure prorated policy, which invites gaming. The cap removes that incentive.
After 14 days
No refunds except for documented service failures (our API was down, audits did not complete, credit was never granted). These are reviewed manually and almost always result in a credit, not a refund.
We publish the policy this directly because it matters for conversion. The reason SaaS buyers hesitate on a new platform is uncertainty about what happens if it does not work out. A 14-day window with prorated refunds removes most of that uncertainty. The abuse cap protects the business without punishing honest users.
The policy is enforced through Paddle, which acts as our Merchant of Record. Paddle handles payment processing, VAT and sales tax across jurisdictions, and the refund workflow itself. On our side, refunds automatically revoke access for retainers and deduct credits from packs. You never have to email us to get your money back. The automated path is the default path.
Who Radar is For
Radar is built for three groups. If you do not fit one of these, the product may not be for you, and that is fine.
In-house marketing and growth teams
The primary audience. You own the brand, you own the search performance targets, and you are starting to see AI-driven traffic show up in analytics (or conspicuously not show up). You need to know whether your site is even reachable by AI models, what they say when they describe you, and how often you are mentioned next to competitors in sampled AI answers. Radar gives you that picture in one audit, without a dedicated SEO analyst running 13 tools by hand. Free tier answers the technical questions. Paid tier answers the narrative questions.
Agencies billing client retainers
Pro Retainer ($199 per month, 40 audits) is designed for this segment. At $5 per full audit, it is cheaper than running a single hour of an SEO consultant on the same work. Agencies use the watched domains feature to auto-scan their retainer clients weekly and surface score drops before the client does. The implementation prompts (paste into Claude or Cursor) mean junior team members can execute fixes without needing to know what schema.org Organization vs WebSite entity requires.
Founders and solo operators
The $5 Single Pack exists for one reason: to let a founder audit their own site once, see the report, and decide if they care. No sales call, no demo, no credit card for the free tier. We do not want to gatekeep the evaluation step. If you do not convert after seeing the Power Pack value at $40 for 10 audits, you were not going to convert anyway.
“The product sells itself if the free tier produces a real report. The paid tier converts when the free report surfaces gaps that can only be answered by querying live LLMs.”
Pixelmojo
What Changed for Existing Users
Existing free-tier users (anyone who had a platform token from the private beta) are grandfathered. Their historical audit runs stay visible in /platform/account. Future audits run under the new tier logic: 6 free tools, 7 paid tools unlocked by purchase. Re-engagement emails sent to past tokens have been updated to reflect the 6-tool free tier reality.
For the AI Visibility Strategy service, nothing changes. The $4,500 sprint and retainer are unchanged. Radar is the DIY path; the service is the done-for-you path.
What Is Next
The GA bundle is the baseline. The roadmap from here covers three areas.
LLM Answer Diff Pro
The paid tier already includes LLM Answer Diff (side-by-side comparison of how AI models describe a brand between scans, with mention changes and sentiment shifts). The Pro version adds competitor displacement tracking: which competitors gained visibility when yours dropped, and which prompts they now appear in instead of you. This is the first feature gated behind Pro Retainer specifically, not just the paid tier broadly.
Watched domains with weekly pulse re-scan
Pro Retainer subscribers can add up to 10 domains to a watch list. Each Monday, Radar re-runs a lightweight audit, compares scores against the baseline, and emails a change report. Configured and live in the current GA build; users will see it in their dashboard as "Watched domains" with a "Watch this domain" button after any audit.
Agency workspace features
For the Pro Retainer tier serving agencies billing client retainers, we are building client labels, internal notes, and white-label PDF exports (planned, not live yet). Client labels group audits by engagement. Internal notes let teammates annotate findings without exposing them to clients. PDF export with an agency logo removes Pixelmojos branding for client deliverables.
The Pricing Page Has the Full Story
Everything in this post is mirrored on Radar Pricing with the pricing table, feature matrix, FAQ, and refund policy summary. The page is designed to be the single source of truth for what Radar offers and what it costs. If anything on the pricing page conflicts with what is in this post, the pricing page wins. That is the public contract.
Radar GA: Questions Readers Ask
Common questions about this topic, answered.
What is Radar by Pixelmojo?
Radar is a DIY AI visibility audit platform that runs 13 tools in staged batches against a domain. It checks whether AI models can technically crawl, parse, and accurately cite a site, then generates prioritized implementation prompts. As of April 19, 2026, Radar is generally available. Free tier includes 6 technical readiness tools with 1 audit per domain. Paid tier from $5 per audit unlocks 7 more LLM-powered tools.
Why did Radar split into 6 free and 7 paid tools instead of giving everything away?
Unit economics. Seven of Radar tools query live large language models (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity) multiple times per audit. A single citation tracking run makes around 16 LLM API calls. Offering that for free at scale is not viable. The 6 free tools run against the users own site and have near-zero marginal cost. The 7 paid tools run against external LLMs and carry real API costs. The split aligns pricing with actual cost of delivery.
How much does Radar cost?
Free for 1 audit per domain across 6 technical readiness tools. Paid audit packs: $5 for 1 audit, $12 for 3 audits, $40 for 10 audits (Power Pack at $4 per audit). Pro Retainer: $199 per month for 40 full audits with weekly pulse re-scans on watched domains. Credits never expire. Payments processed by Paddle.com as Merchant of Record. 14-day refund policy applies.
What are the 6 free tools?
AI Crawl Checker (17 AI crawlers tested for site access), Robots.txt Analyzer (directive parsing for 16 bots), llms.txt Validator (structure and content scoring), Schema Markup Audit (JSON-LD across 10 types), AEO Page Auditor (answer engine readiness), AI Readiness Score (unified 5-category grade). These run against the users own site, not external LLMs.
What do the 7 paid tools add?
Citation Tracker (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity brand mentions with sentiment), Reddit Brand Monitor (mentions plus AI-seeded content detection), Hallucination Detection (factual errors with severity scoring), Prompt SOV (share of voice vs competitors), Source Influence Map (domains shaping AI narratives), Answer Engine Tester (per-page citation testing), Brand Disambiguation (catches entity collisions). These are the tools that show what AI actually says about a brand.
What is the refund policy?
Hybrid 14-day refund policy with abuse cap. Within 14 days of Pro Retainer purchase: 0 audits used gets 100% refund, 1 to 30 used gets prorated refund, 31 or more (over 75 percent) is not eligible. Audit packs are prorated by unused credits within 14 days. After 14 days, refunds are limited to documented service failures, which are reviewed manually. Refunds processed through Paddle.com.
How does Radar compare to AthenaHQ and Gauge?
At launch in April 2026, AthenaHQ listed around $295 a month and Gauge around $99 a month. Both prices have changed since, and as of September 2026 both describe AI crawler checks too, so compare on prompt volume, engines and pricing model; our dated comparison of AI visibility tools has current prices. Radar entry is $5 per audit with a free first audit. Pro Retainer at $199 per month for 40 audits works out to roughly $5 per full audit.
Who is Radar built for?
Three groups. In-house marketing and growth teams who own brand visibility targets and are starting to see AI-driven traffic in analytics. Agencies billing client retainers who need to run weekly audits at scale (Pro Retainer at $199 for 40 audits works out to roughly $5 per audit). Founders and solo operators who want to audit their own site once and see the report without a demo call or annual contract.
How should I evaluate Radar before buying?
Run the free audit on your own domain. The 6 technical readiness tools will surface crawl policy issues, robots.txt directives, llms.txt quality, schema completeness, AEO readiness, and your overall AI Readiness Score. If the free report surfaces gaps you care about, upgrade to see what AI actually says about your brand via the paid tier. If the free report is clean, you probably do not need the paid tier yet.
Run Your First Audit
Radar is generally available right now. No waitlist, no invite code, no credit card for the free tier. New to the platform? The Radar user guide walks through the free check and the paid audit.
Ready to see how AI models view your brand?
- Run free audit - 6 tools, 60 seconds, any domain
- See pricing - packs from $5, retainer $199 per month
- AI Visibility Strategy - done-for-you service with sprint plus retainer
