- AI visibility tools regularly ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and others a fixed set of questions and count how often your brand shows up in the answers.
- Well-known providers include Otterly.AI, Peec AI, Profound and the AI modules from Semrush and Ahrefs. Entry plans start at about $29 a month.
- The entry price is rarely the real price. With enough test prompts and the key AI systems, you quickly end up at $2,000 to $3,000 a year, plus your own time.
- A tool shows you whether you are missing, but not why or what to change. That is where the real work begins.
What an AI visibility tool actually does
On Google, things are simple: you type in a search term and see where you rank. ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity have no rankings and no Search Console to show you how often you were mentioned. That is exactly the gap AI visibility tools aim to close.
The principle is almost the same with every provider. You store a list of questions your customers typically ask, for example “Which accountant in Chicago specializes in medical practices?”. The tool automatically sends these questions to several AI systems at fixed intervals and analyzes the answers: Is your brand mentioned? In what position? Which competitors appear? And which sources does the AI rely on?
Many individual answers add up to metrics you can compare over weeks. Which metrics those are and how you can check your visibility without a tool, I explain in detail in my article on measuring AI visibility. This article is about a different question: which tool is right for the job, what it really costs you, and whether you need one at all.
Prompt tracking means a tool sends predefined questions, so-called prompts, to AI systems at regular intervals and stores the answers. Because AI answers vary from one time to the next, only repetition over days and weeks gives you a reliable picture. That is why the number of prompts a plan allows is the biggest price driver with every provider.
The best-known tools at a glance
The market has grown fast. Alongside specialized startups, the big SEO platforms now offer their own AI visibility modules too. The overview below shows the best-known providers and their entry plans:
| Tool | Starting at | AI systems in entry plan | Best suited for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Otterly.AI | $29 a month, 15 prompts | ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Copilot; Gemini, AI Mode and Claude as paid add-ons | Solo professionals and small teams |
| Peec AI | about $95 a month, 50 prompts | 3 systems of your choice, more as paid add-ons | Mid-sized companies, multiple countries and languages |
| Profound | $99 a month, billed annually only | Entry plan covers ChatGPT only, three systems from $399 | Larger brands with their own team |
| Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit | about $99 a month per domain | ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Mode | Teams already using Semrush |
| Ahrefs Brand Radar | from $199 a month, on top of an Ahrefs plan | Depends on the package | Teams already using Ahrefs |
Prices excluding tax, based on vendor pages and current industry comparisons, as of October 2026. Peec AI bills in euros; the dollar amount is converted (€1 ≈ $1.12) and rounded. Plans change often, so check the current pricing before you buy.
Two groups are easy to tell apart. Specialized providers like Otterly.AI, Peec AI and Profound focus entirely on AI visibility and often go deeper on features such as source analysis and competitor comparison. The Semrush and Ahrefs modules are mainly interesting if you already use one of these platforms for your SEO and want everything in one place.
The tools in brief
Behind the numbers in the table are quite different approaches. To help you judge which tool might suit you, here are the key points for each provider.
Otterly.AI is based in Austria and has the lowest entry price in this comparison. Even the smallest plan includes ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Copilot. The catch: 15 prompts are only enough for a rough impression. If you want to measure properly, you end up on the Standard plan with 100 prompts for $189 a month. Gemini, Google AI Mode and Claude each come as paid add-ons.
Peec AI is based in Berlin and targets businesses that want to go a bit deeper. The entry plan includes 50 prompts tracked daily and three AI systems of your choice. A plus for international businesses: according to the vendor, additional countries and languages cost nothing extra. The larger plans offer more projects and a Looker Studio integration, which is especially useful for agencies and companies with several brands.
Profound comes from the US and is considered one of the most comprehensive solutions on the market, with a clear focus on larger companies. Its entry plan, however, only covers ChatGPT and is only available with an annual contract. Multiple AI systems come with the Growth plan at $399 a month, also billed annually. For small and mid-sized businesses, that is usually more than they need.
Semrush offers its own module, the AI Visibility Toolkit, covering ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Mode. The big advantage: if you already use Semrush for SEO, you see rankings and AI visibility in one place. Additional domains, users or prompts each cost extra, though, which makes the bill grow quickly.
Ahrefs Brand Radar is an add-on for existing Ahrefs customers. It shows how often a brand appears in AI answers and works with a large, predefined set of questions. You can add your own prompts through extra packages starting at $50 a month. It is mainly interesting for teams already using Ahrefs who do not want yet another vendor.
If you do business in Europe, one more point matters: with Peec AI and Otterly.AI there are two European providers. If GDPR compliance is a priority for you, they are an alternative to the US platforms.
What the prices really mean
At first glance, the entry prices look manageable. Look closer and you quickly see that the cheapest plan is rarely the one you end up using. Three factors drive the cost.
The number of prompts. The smallest Otterly.AI plan includes 15 prompts. That is enough for a first impression, but hardly enough to cover a business with several services, locations or target groups. For 100 prompts, the same provider already charges $189 a month.
The number of AI systems. Many plans include only some of the systems. Gemini, Google AI Mode or Claude cost extra with several providers. With Otterly.AI, these add-ons range from $9 to $439 a month, depending on the plan and the system.
The contract term. Profound only offers its entry plans with annual billing. Otterly.AI and Peec AI give you around 15 % off for annual billing, but lock you in for twelve months.
If you want to track several AI systems with a meaningful number of prompts, you quickly land at several hundred dollars a month. That is not an argument against tools. But it is a good reason to know exactly what you want to measure, and why, before you sign up.
Cost example: what a tool really costs per year
A simple example shows what that looks like in practice. Take an accounting firm with two offices and four focus areas, say medical practices, trades, estate planning and business succession. For each focus area and office it needs a handful of prompts in different phrasings. That quickly adds up to around 60 prompts. It wants to track ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Gemini.
The smallest Otterly.AI plan will not get the firm far, since it only allows 15 prompts. It needs the Standard plan for $189 a month. Gemini is not included there and costs another $59 a month as an add-on. All in, that is $248 a month, or close to $3,000 a year. With annual billing, it drops to about $2,540.
Then there is a cost that appears in no pricing table: your time. Someone has to maintain the prompts, read the results, check anything unusual and turn it into tasks. In my experience, you should realistically plan two to three hours a month for that, so around 30 hours a year. Skip that, and three months later you have a subscription nobody looks at anymore.
| Item | Per month | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| Tool, Standard plan | $189 | $2,268 |
| Gemini add-on | $59 | $708 |
| Tool total | $248 | $2,976, about $2,540 billed annually |
| Your time | two to three hours | around 30 hours |
Example based on Otterly.AI pricing as of October 2026. The time estimate is based on my own experience.
This example is not meant to talk any tool down. But it shows what really matters: for most businesses, the key question is not which tool is best, but whether the investment of money and time pays off for them. And that depends on what happens after the measurement.
What to look for when choosing a tool
Price is only one criterion. In my experience, whether the numbers will actually tell you anything comes down to six points:
- The right AI systems. At a minimum, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews should be covered. Which of these matter most to you depends on your audience.
- Country and language. AI answers vary a lot by country and language. If you want to know how you show up in a specific market, the tool has to query in that market’s language and from that location.
- Competitor comparison. A mention rate on its own says little. Only the comparison with your competitors shows whether a number is good or bad.
- Source analysis. Good tools show which websites the AI cites. That is often the most valuable information, because it reveals where your business needs to be present.
- Data protection and contract. Check where the data is processed, whether a data processing agreement is offered and how long you are locked in.
- Multiple projects. If you run several brands or locations, or manage several clients as an agency, you need separate projects and reports. With Peec AI, for example, the Pro plan includes two projects and the Advanced plan five.
If one of these points is missing, you get numbers, but not the full picture. So make use of the free trials many providers offer, and check these six points before you enter your credit card.
Why two tools show different numbers
Anyone who tests two tools side by side is often in for a surprise: for the same brand and the same prompts, they show different numbers. That is not necessarily an error. It comes down to method.
Some tools query the AI systems through their technical interface, the same access software developers use. Others read the answers the way a user sees them in the regular interface. The two can differ, for example because the regular interface runs a web search more often or uses a different model in the background. That is why some providers explicitly advertise that they read the real interface.
On top of that, answers fluctuate. The same question does not get the same answer in ChatGPT every time. Location, language, phrasing and timing all play a part. A reliable tool smooths this out through many repetitions. For you, that means: focus less on a single number and more on the trend over weeks and the gap to your competitors.
Six common mistakes when using these tools
A good tool is of little use if it is used the wrong way. These are the six mistakes I see most often, and all of them are easy to avoid.
1. Only asking about your own brand. Questions like “What is Company X?” almost always produce good numbers, because the AI has to mention you. The meaningful questions are the ones without your name, the ones a customer asks who does not know you yet: “Who is a good provider for …?”
2. Measuring the wrong location. Many tools default to English and a US location. If your customers are somewhere else, those results are close to worthless. Set the country and language correctly from the start.
3. Not adding competitors. Without a comparison, you cannot tell whether 30 % visibility is a lot or a little. Add three to five real competitors, the ones that actually take customers away from you.
4. Drawing conclusions too early. After one week there is hardly anything to say. Give the measurement at least a few weeks before you make decisions, and then compare the trend rather than individual days.
5. Watching only one AI system. If you only track ChatGPT, you miss that Gemini, Perplexity or Google’s AI Overviews often name completely different providers. Your customers do not all use the same system.
6. Nobody is responsible. The most common mistake of all: the tool runs, the invoice arrives, but nobody checks in regularly and turns the results into tasks. Decide up front who handles the analysis and when.
A tool is like a bathroom scale: it reliably shows you whether something is changing. You still have to lose the weight yourself. If you measure your AI visibility without working on the causes, you are paying every month to watch a gap more and more precisely.
What no tool will tell you
As helpful as the numbers are, every tool reaches its limit at one point: it shows what is happening, but not why it is happening or what you can do about it. In my work, there are four questions no dashboard can answer.
Which questions are the right ones? A tool only measures the prompts you give it. Choose the wrong ones and you measure the wrong thing very precisely. The choice of prompts determines the value of the entire measurement, and it takes knowledge of your customers, your market and how AI systems behave.
Why is your competitor mentioned and you are not? The tool shows the gap, not the cause. Is it missing mentions on other websites, unclear content, obstacles for AI crawlers or missing structured data? Finding that out is analysis work.
Where does wrong information come from? When an AI states outdated prices or a wrong address, there is usually a specific source behind it. Finding and correcting that source is part of the work on your AI reputation.
What exactly do you need to change? In the end, it is not the metric that counts but the action. Content, technical foundations, mentions on other sites, your Google Business Profile: which lever will do the most for you is not in any report.
Part of the technical foundation is the speed of your website, because AI crawlers and AI agents read fast, cleanly built pages far more easily. What that looks like you can see on my own site:
ctseo.de scores 100 % on Google
Speed is not a nice-to-have. Google treats loading time and Core Web Vitals as a ranking factor, and fast sites keep visitors and win more enquiries. What I deliver for my clients you can see right on this page, measured officially with Google PageSpeed Insights. Even AI agents read and use this page flawlessly, a direct advantage for your visibility in AI systems.
Top scores in Google PageSpeed Insights. Values can vary slightly between measurements, feel free to check for yourself.
Tool, check or full service: what fits you?
Whether a tool of your own pays off depends less on the size of your business than on who analyzes the numbers and acts on them. The overview below helps you decide:
| Aspect | Your own tool | Free AI check | Monitoring with support |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | Ongoing, from about $29 to several hundred dollars a month | Free, no obligation | Based on scope, no lock-in contract |
| Prompts | You choose them yourself | I choose them to fit your market | We agree on them together and I keep them up to date |
| Analysis | Dashboard, interpretation is up to you | Personal assessment in a call | Report with clear priorities |
| Causes | Not included | Initial assessment | Always included |
| Implementation | Up to you | Concrete next steps | Done by me if you wish |
| Your time | Regularly, for upkeep and analysis | One short call | Minimal |
Assessment from my own practice, as of October 2026.
For small and local businesses, a tool of your own is rarely the best first step. What counts first is whether you show up at all for your customers’ most important questions, and what is holding you back. That is exactly what my free AI visibility check clarifies, with no subscription and no learning curve.
For marketing teams with their own capacity, a tool can make sense if someone on the team has time to analyze the numbers regularly. Expert support in setting up the prompts and interpreting the results pays off here, so the tool does not keep running unused after three months.
For businesses that want results rather than data, ongoing AI visibility monitoring is the right fit. I choose the tools, maintain the prompts, analyze the results and connect the measurement directly with implementation through Generative Engine Optimization. You get clear priorities, not raw data.
Conclusion: know where you stand before you invest
AI visibility tools make visible what used to be hidden: whether ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity recommend your business. The choice is wide, prices range from about $29 to several hundred dollars a month, and the entry price is rarely the real price. Always factor in your own time.
What matters, though, is not the tool but what you do with the numbers. Before you sign up for a subscription, you should know where you stand today, for which questions you are missing and why. That is exactly what I will gladly show you in my free check. Afterwards you will know whether a tool pays off for you or whether you are better off tackling the causes directly.
Frequently asked questions
Several providers, including Otterly.AI and Peec AI, offer free trials. Permanently free solutions with regular tracking across several AI systems are rare, because every automated query costs the provider money. A trial is good for a first impression; for reliable conclusions you need several weeks of measurement.
The citation rate shows how often an AI names your website as a source when it answers a question. It is different from a plain mention: an AI can name your brand without linking to your site, or use your site as a source without highlighting the brand in the text. Good tools track both separately and show which of your pages are cited most often.
Most specialized tools cover Google AI Overviews, and many also cover AI Mode, sometimes as a paid add-on. For many businesses this is especially important, because Google is still the most common starting point for search and the AI Overviews appear right above the classic results.
That depends on what you offer. As a rough guide from my practice: a handful of prompts per service and target group, in different phrasings. A local business with a few services does well with a few dozen prompts; a company with several locations or product lines quickly needs considerably more.
Many tools analyze sentiment, meaning whether your brand is described positively, neutrally or critically. This analysis is automated, so treat it as an indicator, not a verdict. When something stands out, it is always worth reading the individual answers to understand where a critical portrayal comes from.
There is no single best tool for everyone. What matters is that the tool can query in your market’s language and location, covers the AI systems relevant to your audience and fits your budget. The right choice depends on how many prompts you want to track and who will analyze the results.
Yes, if you set up your prompts accordingly, for example by product category, use case or comparison with competing products. This is especially relevant for online shops, since AI assistants increasingly give concrete buying recommendations. A clean prompt structure is key, so the results can be matched to individual products.
Local questions are harder for tools, because AI answers depend heavily on location. Before you buy, check whether you can set a city or region or whether tracking only works at country level. For local businesses, I therefore like to add targeted checks with a local focus.
An annual plan saves around 15 % with many providers, but locks you in for twelve months. I recommend starting with a trial or a monthly plan and only switching to annual billing once it is clear that the numbers are analyzed regularly and turned into action.
A reliable tool is transparent about how often it queries, from which location and in which language. It lets you view the individual answers in full and shows the cited sources. A tool that only gives you a single number you cannot trace back gives you little to work with. If you are unsure which numbers matter for you, I am happy to go through it with you in the free AI visibility check.