The Complete Comparison of AI Search Visibility Tools: The 2026 Buyer's Guide

Short answer: most AI search visibility tools are monitoring layers. They show where your brand appears in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, or AI Overviews, but they stop before revenue. If you need to defend spend, you need visibility plus AI traffic detection and attribution. This guide compares pricing, prompt limits, and platform coverage using vendor pages as of Jan 21, 2026, then gives a checklist for choosing the right stack. It also reflects what research says about what actually changes visibility. The Princeton GEO study accepted to KDD 2024 reports that Generative Engine Optimization can boost visibility by up to 40% in model responses, which is why citation and source coverage matter as much as dashboards (https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.09735). Use this guide to narrow the list in minutes and then verify details through the linked sources.

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TL;DR: Best Fit by Need

Use this to shortlist fast. The categories are more important than feature lists: visibility-only tools track mentions and citations; attribution tools connect AI traffic to revenue; SEO suites add AI visibility as an add-on. If you are cost sensitive, focus on prompt limits and engine coverage. Cost comparison: Loamly at $89/month includes all four platforms (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini) with unlimited seats and attribution—compare that to $99-$295/month for visibility-only tools, then add traffic analytics and attribution separately. If you are enterprise, expect custom pricing and longer onboarding. The bullets below map each need to the tools that best fit it.

• Full-funnel attribution: Loamly is the only platform that combines AI visibility monitoring with AI traffic detection and revenue attribution. Free tier available; $89/month for full attribution. See AI traffic analytics and Attribution.
• Enterprise visibility coverage: Profound or AthenaHQ.
• Budget multi-engine coverage: Rankscale.
• Team-friendly visibility with unlimited users: Peec AI or SE Visible.
• SEO-suite add-on: Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit or Ahrefs Brand Radar.

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How This Guide Was Built

Every price and plan limit below comes from a public pricing page or vendor documentation. If a vendor uses annual billing, I note it. If pricing is custom, I say so. I do not use estimates, and I do not normalize currencies; the table shows each vendor's posted currency. For platform coverage, I only list engines explicitly named on the pricing page. If an engine requires an add-on, it is labeled that way. This is a buyer's guide, not a marketing page, so it prioritizes verifiable numbers over feature claims. I also avoid affiliate links and do not rank based on marketing copy. If you spot a change, the source link next to each tool makes it easy to confirm and update.

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GEO Tools Buyer's Guide 2026: What Actually Matters

Most teams over-index on UI. The real decision is fit: (1) engine coverage that matches your market, (2) prompt volume and refresh cadence, (3) seats and multi-brand support, (4) source and citation visibility, and (5) attribution if revenue matters. Source visibility is not optional. Profound's citation analysis shows Reddit accounts for 46.7% of Perplexity's top cited sources, while Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT concentrate elsewhere, so you need to see which sources drive each platform (https://www.tryprofound.com/blog/ai-platform-citation-patterns). A tool that only counts mentions hides this. If a vendor cannot show citation sources or engine-specific coverage, treat the report as partial. For a practical GEO primer that explains how to structure answers for AI systems, see Generative Engine Optimization.

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Why Citation Sources Matter More Than Mentions

Mentions are a lagging indicator. What drives visibility is where models cite from. The platform citation patterns are not the same: Perplexity's top sources are heavily concentrated on Reddit (46.7% share of its top 10 sources), while Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT show very different source mixes (https://www.tryprofound.com/blog/ai-platform-citation-patterns). If your tool only reports that you were mentioned, you cannot see which sources to invest in. The better question is: which sources did the model rely on, and do you have credible presence there? When you evaluate tools, look for citation source breakdowns, not just rankings. It is the difference between “we appeared” and “we know why we appeared.” Distribution strategy matters as much as on-site structure.

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Prompt Volume Math: What a Plan Actually Buys You

Prompt limits are not a detail; they determine how many categories, products, and intents you can track. Compare a few common entry plans: Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit includes 25 prompts and 300 daily queries for one domain (https://www.semrush.com/kb/1493-ai-visibility-toolkit). Semrush also sells 50 additional prompts for $60 per month as an add-on (https://www.semrush.com/kb/1493-ai-visibility-toolkit). Otterly starts at 15 prompts on Lite and 100 prompts on Standard (https://otterly.ai/pricing). Peec's Starter includes 25 prompts and Pro includes 100 prompts (https://peec.ai/pricing). Scrunch's Explorer plan includes 100 prompts, while Growth includes 700 prompts (https://scrunch.com/pricing/). If you have multiple products or regions, you will hit limits fast. Use prompt limits as your first filter before you compare features.

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Seat and Multi-Brand Limits Change Total Cost

Most buyers underestimate seat pricing. Some platforms are unlimited seats by default, others are tightly capped. Peec lists unlimited seats across its plans (https://peec.ai/pricing). SE Visible explicitly lists unlimited users and multi-brand limits by tier (Core: 5 brands, Plus: 10, Max: 15) with prompt caps alongside (https://visible.seranking.com/). If you need more than 15 brands, expect a custom plan or a different tool. Scrunch lists 1 user license for Explorer and 5 user licenses for Growth (https://scrunch.com/pricing/). If you are a team or an agency, this matters more than price per month. One platform at $99 with one seat can cost more than a $189 plan with unlimited seats once you add users. Use seat limits as a pricing multiplier, not a footnote.

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AI Search Visibility Tools Comparison Table (Pricing + Platforms)

Use the table as a filter, not a final decision. Prices are monthly unless noted and shown in vendor currency. The table lists the minimum plan you can actually start with; add‑ons for Gemini or AI Mode are called out in the snapshots. Cost context: Loamly at $89/month includes all four platforms with attribution—most competitors charge $99-$295/month for visibility alone, then require separate tools for traffic detection and revenue attribution. If your budget is tight, prompt limits and seat caps matter more than most feature checklists. If you already use an SEO suite, an add‑on can be the fastest path, but standalone tools often refresh faster and expose citation sources in more detail. Use the table to narrow to two options, then read the snapshots before you book demos.

Tool	Starting price	Core platforms	Notes
Loamly	Free / $89+	ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini	Only platform with AI visibility + traffic detection + revenue attribution
Profound	From $99/mo (Starter, annual)	ChatGPT (Starter); 3 engines (Growth); 10 engines (Enterprise)	Enterprise AEO monitoring + workflows
Peec AI	EUR 89/mo	ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews	Add Gemini/Claude/AI Mode for extra fee
Otterly	$29/mo	ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Copilot	AI Mode and Gemini are add-ons
Rankscale	$20/mo	ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, AI Mode/Overviews	Credit-based multi-engine coverage
SE Visible	$189/mo	ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, AI Overviews, AI Mode	Unlimited users, multi-brand
AthenaHQ	$295/mo	ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews/Mode, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Grok	Optimization + monitoring
Scrunch	$100/mo	ChatGPT (Explorer) / all LLMs (Growth)	Persona tracking + audits
Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit	$99/mo	ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, AI Mode	AI visibility inside Semrush
Ahrefs Brand Radar	$199/mo per index	ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Copilot	AI visibility inside Ahrefs
Conductor	Custom	AI Search Performance + SEO suite	Enterprise SEO + AEO in one

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Full-Funnel Attribution Checklist

Visibility alone cannot answer ROI. If you need to connect AI exposure to pipeline, use this checklist: verified AI bot detection (RFC 9421 signatures) to avoid false positives; AI-referred human tracking via referrer or UTM; revenue attribution through billing or CRM; and a data handling policy you can pass to legal. Ask whether the product can map AI visits to closed-won revenue, not just traffic. If it cannot connect to Stripe or a CRM, the result is usually a dashboard, not an ROI story.

The reality: Most tools in this guide stop at visibility monitoring. Only Loamly combines AI visibility tracking with AI traffic detection and revenue attribution in one platform. At $89/month (or free for 5,000 credits), it's the only tool that can answer "Did AI visibility drive revenue?" rather than just "Did we appear in AI answers?" Start with AI website traffic analytics, confirm AI traffic detection, and validate Attribution. For security review, read Security & Trust. Most visibility-only tools stop at mentions and cannot answer revenue questions.

"We never buffer, cache, or modify your request bodies or response content. Every byte passes through unchanged." (Security & Trust)

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Competitor Snapshots (Pricing + Strengths)

The snapshots below focus on what a buyer can verify on the vendor's own pricing or documentation. Each section highlights starting price, core coverage, and the practical fit. If a platform adds Gemini or AI Mode as a paid add-on, it is called out. If pricing is custom, it is labeled as custom. I only include claims that are visible on the cited pages, so if a feature is not listed there, it is not included here. Use these as fast filters before you book demos.

Loamly

Loamly is the only platform that combines AI visibility monitoring with AI traffic detection and revenue attribution. The free tier includes 5,000 credits/month forever, and the Grow plan starts at $89/month for 50,000 credits with unlimited workspaces and seats (pricing). All four major platforms (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini) are included by default—no add-ons required. The platform uses RFC 9421 cryptographic signatures to verify ChatGPT Operator traffic, behavioral detection for other AI platforms, and connects directly to Stripe and CRMs for revenue attribution.

Why it stands out: While other tools in this guide focus on visibility monitoring, Loamly is the only one that answers the full question: "Did AI visibility drive revenue?" At $89/month with all platforms included, it's significantly more cost-effective than buying separate visibility tools ($99-$295/month) plus traffic analytics plus attribution. If you need to defend AI visibility spend, Loamly is the only tool that connects mentions to traffic to revenue in one platform. The free tier is generous enough to evaluate on a real site, and there's no credit card required to start.

Best fit: Teams that need to connect AI visibility to business outcomes, not just track mentions. If ROI matters more than dashboards, Loamly is the clear choice. It's also the most cost-effective option if you need both visibility and attribution—you'd pay $189-$295/month elsewhere for visibility alone, then still need separate tools for traffic detection and attribution.

Profound

Profound is built for enterprise visibility programs. Its pricing page lists Starter with ChatGPT only and 50 prompts, Growth with 3 engines and 100 prompts, and an Enterprise tier with 10 engines and custom pricing (https://www.tryprofound.com/pricing). The same page lists a 6‑article monthly optimization workflow in Growth, and Enterprise adds SSO/SAML and wider engine coverage. A launch post states that Starter begins at $99 per month on annual billing (https://www.tryprofound.com/blog/making-answer-engine-optimization-accessible-to-every-business). Profound is best when you need broad engine coverage plus workflows for AEO teams and agencies. It is not the lowest-cost option, but it is one of the most comprehensive in engine coverage and program depth.

Peec AI

Peec is a visibility-first platform with a clean workflow and unlimited seats. Starter is EUR 89 per month for 25 prompts and Pro is EUR 199 per month for 100 prompts (https://peec.ai/pricing). The same page lists 2,250 AI answers analyzed per month on Starter and 9,000 on Pro, with daily prompt runs. Enterprise lists 300+ prompts, SSO, and a dedicated account rep, and the page also lists unlimited countries across plans. It covers ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews as standard, and lists Gemini, Claude, and AI Mode as add-ons for an additional fee. Peec is a solid pick for teams that want visibility tracking without enterprise overhead, especially if you need multiple stakeholders in the tool without per-seat costs.

Otterly

Otterly combines monitoring with GEO audits and add-ons. The pricing page lists Lite at $29 per month with 15 prompts, Standard at $189 per month with 100 prompts, and Premium at $489 per month with 400 prompts (https://otterly.ai/pricing). Core tracking includes ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot, while Gemini and AI Mode are add-ons. The same page lists Gemini and AI Mode add-ons at $9/$59/$149 per month (Lite/Standard/Premium), and 100 additional prompts at $99 per month on Standard and Premium. Otterly is a good fit if you want a low starting price and built-in GEO audits, with the trade-off that broader engine coverage requires add-ons.

Rankscale

Rankscale uses a credit-based model and is the lowest-cost multi-engine option in this guide. Essentials is $20 per month for 120 credits and Pro is $99 per month for 1,200 credits (https://rankscale.ai/pricing). The pricing page also lists “up to 480 AI responses” for Essentials, which gives you a sense of usable volume at the entry tier. Essentials includes 10 free page audits per month and 5 brand dashboard slots. The engine list includes ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode and Overviews, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Grok, and others. If your priority is coverage across many models at the lowest entry price, Rankscale is hard to beat. The trade-off is credit management and a less opinionated workflow.

SE Visible

SE Visible is SE Ranking's AI visibility product. Core starts at $189 per month and includes 450 prompts and 5 brands, Plus starts at $355 per month with 1,000 prompts and 10 brands, and Max starts at $519 per month with 1,500 prompts and 15 brands (https://visible.seranking.com/). All plans list unlimited users, and the page offers a 10‑day free trial. Coverage includes ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, AI Overviews, and AI Mode, with multi-country monitoring across markets like the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain. The pricing page also highlights daily prompt frequency and CSV exports for reporting. It is designed for multi-brand teams and agencies that need larger prompt volumes with many stakeholders.

AthenaHQ

AthenaHQ leans into optimization and multi-engine monitoring. The plans page lists Self-Serve at $295 per month and an Enterprise tier with custom credits and features (https://www.athenahq.ai/plans). Self-Serve includes 3,600 credits, and the page states that one credit equals one AI response. It also lists coverage across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, and Grok, plus on- and off-page GEO analysis. The page advertises a 67% first-month discount on the Self-Serve plan and lists unlimited seats with role-based access control. It also highlights AI blindspot detection and dynamic crawling as core capabilities. AthenaHQ is a strong fit for teams that want monitoring plus optimization tooling and are comfortable with a higher entry price.

Scrunch

Scrunch focuses on personas and audits. Explorer is $100 per month with 100 prompts and ChatGPT only, while Growth is $500 per month with 700 prompts and all LLMs (https://scrunch.com/pricing/). Explorer includes one user license and Growth includes five. Growth lists 5 personas tracked and 10 page audits, and Enterprise adds SSO and API access. The pricing page also highlights citation analytics and sentiment analysis across plans, plus optional agent traffic analytics as an add-on. Growth includes monitoring for all LLMs across persona views. Enterprise also lists multi-brand support and a dedicated support team. Scrunch is best for teams that want persona-based monitoring and deeper auditing workflows, and who can justify higher pricing for those features.

Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit

Semrush sells AI visibility as an add-on. The pricing section lists $99 per month and includes 1 domain, 300 daily queries, and 25 prompts for Prompt Tracking (https://www.semrush.com/kb/1493-ai-visibility-toolkit). The same page lists add-ons at $60 per month for 50 extra prompts and $99 per month for an additional Brand Performance domain. It covers platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and AI Mode per the documentation. The same documentation notes that Visibility Overview and Competitor Research update monthly, Brand Performance updates weekly, and Prompt Tracking updates daily. Prompt Tracking is currently listed for regions like the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Spain, and India. This is the simplest option if your team already uses Semrush, but prompt limits are lower than most standalone tools.

Ahrefs Brand Radar

Ahrefs Brand Radar is an AI visibility add-on inside Ahrefs. The help center lists $199 per month per index or $699 per month for all indexes, plus custom prompt tracking tiers: $50 per month for 2,500 checks, $100 for 7,000 checks, and $250 for 25,000 checks (https://help.ahrefs.com/en/articles/11064852-about-brand-radar). The same page lists coverage for ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, AI Overviews, AI Mode, and Copilot, and notes that AI chatbot sources update monthly. It also notes that indexes in beta are free for paying users until they exit beta. Custom prompt tracking is billed by checks per month, not seats. This is best if you already pay for Ahrefs and want AI visibility embedded in your existing research workflows.

Conductor

Conductor is an enterprise SEO suite that includes AI Search Performance in its Intelligence product. The pricing page shows separate product lines for Creator, Intelligence, and Monitoring, and confirms that list pricing is not published (https://support.conductor.com/en_US/platform-faqs-and-more/pricing-for-conductors-products). The page lists tier names for each product line, including Essentials, Standard, Growth, Professional, and Enterprise for Creator and Intelligence, with Monitoring offering Essentials, Growth, and Enterprise. It also notes that plans scale based on feature depth and usage parameters, and quotes are custom based on configuration and bundle mix. If you need an all-in-one enterprise SEO platform with AI search features and can handle a sales-led process, Conductor fits that profile.

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Pricing Comparison by Use Case

If you want a single-slide answer for your team, use the mapping below. It is deliberately conservative and uses the smallest plan that fits the job. Confirm plan limits on the vendor pages before purchase. If your goal is pipeline attribution, avoid tools that only report mentions. If your goal is competitive benchmarking, prioritize prompt volume and engine coverage, then add attribution later if needed.

• Best full-funnel AI visibility + attribution: Loamly — the only platform that combines visibility, traffic detection, and revenue attribution. Free tier available; $89/month for full attribution. No other tool connects AI mentions to closed-won revenue. Cost comparison: You'd pay $99-$295/month for visibility-only tools, then need separate platforms for traffic detection and attribution. Loamly includes all three at $89/month with all four AI platforms (no add-ons).
• Best enterprise multi-engine coverage: Profound or AthenaHQ.
• Best budget multi-engine coverage: Rankscale.
• Best GEO audits + monitoring: Otterly.
• Best SEO-suite add-on: Semrush or Ahrefs.

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FAQ

Which tool is best if I only need AI visibility monitoring?

Choose based on prompt volume, seat limits, and platform coverage rather than UI. If you need unlimited seats, Peec lists unlimited seats across tiers and tracks ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews by default (https://peec.ai/pricing). SE Visible also lists unlimited users and multi-brand limits by tier, which makes it a strong agency fit when you need to track multiple brands in one workspace (https://visible.seranking.com/). Scrunch is best if you need persona tracking and audits, but its Growth plan is a premium price point (https://scrunch.com/pricing/). Profound and AthenaHQ are heavier enterprise options when you need broader engine coverage and workflows (https://www.tryprofound.com/pricing, https://www.athenahq.ai/plans).

If you might need attribution later: Consider Loamly even if you only need visibility now. At $89/month with all platforms included, it's competitive with visibility-only tools ($99-$295/month), but you get attribution built-in when you need it. Most teams discover they need attribution after seeing visibility data—Loamly is the only tool that doesn't require buying a second platform when that happens. Pick the tool that matches your prompt volume and seat count first, then compare engines.

Do these tools improve visibility or only measure it?

Most tools measure visibility; the lift comes from what you change after you see the data. The Princeton GEO study accepted to KDD 2024 reports that GEO methods can boost visibility by up to 40% in model responses (https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.09735). Some platforms include optimization workflows or content recommendations, such as Profound’s workflows and AthenaHQ’s optimization tooling (https://www.tryprofound.com/pricing, https://www.athenahq.ai/plans). Those features can speed up execution, but they do not replace the work of creating or updating content and citations. The practical expectation is: measurement tells you where you are cited, and GEO execution changes where you are cited. Treat the tool as the diagnostic layer and your content as the intervention.

Why do some tools exclude Gemini or AI Mode by default?

Gemini and AI Mode are often priced as add-ons because they increase prompt volume and compute cost. Otterly lists Gemini and AI Mode add-ons at $9/$59/$149 per month depending on plan tier, which can change total cost quickly (https://otterly.ai/pricing). Peec lists Gemini, Claude, and AI Mode as add-ons without publishing prices on the pricing page (https://peec.ai/pricing). If those engines matter to your category, ask for the add-on pricing before you compare plans. Otherwise, you can end up selecting a plan that looks affordable until you add the engines you actually need. Treat Gemini and AI Mode as mandatory if those platforms drive your traffic. Engine coverage is a first-order requirement, not a nice-to-have.

What does a prompt limit actually mean?

A prompt limit is how many distinct queries a tool will track for your brand. If you sell multiple products, serve multiple regions, or need separate prompts for discovery vs comparison, 25 prompts disappears quickly. Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit includes 25 prompts by default (https://www.semrush.com/kb/1493-ai-visibility-toolkit). Peec’s Starter includes 25 prompts and Pro includes 100 (https://peec.ai/pricing). Otterly’s Lite starts at 15 prompts and Standard includes 100 (https://otterly.ai/pricing). Scrunch’s Explorer includes 100 prompts and Growth includes 700 (https://scrunch.com/pricing/). A 25‑prompt plan often covers only one category and a few competitors. Use these numbers to estimate whether you can cover your core intents without upgrading after the first month.

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Check Your AI Visibility

If you want a baseline before buying, run a free report at loamly.ai/check. It shows whether your brand appears in AI answers and which sources are cited, so you can see if the gap is visibility, traffic, or attribution. Use that baseline to decide: if you have visibility but no traffic, prioritize attribution; if you have no visibility, prioritize prompt tracking and citation coverage. The report takes a few minutes and gives you a concrete starting point, so you can evaluate tools based on your actual gap rather than vendor promises. It is a quick way to ground the decision in data instead of vendor demos, and it helps you validate whether citation sources are aligned with your current content strategy.