AI answers are now where many buyers start. G2’s 2026 AI Search Insight Report (March 2026, 1,076 B2B decision-makers in North America, EMEA and APAC) found that 51% of B2B software buyers start their research in an AI chatbot more often than in Google, and 69% chose a different vendor than they had planned because of what an AI chatbot told them. SparkToro’s January 2026 study (2,961 runs of 12 prompts by 600 volunteers) found a less than 1% chance that the same prompt returns the same list of brands twice.
The challenge isn’t whether to track AI visibility. It’s figuring out which of the many tools on the market actually delivers on the promise with honest pricing, verified capabilities, and real guidance on what to do once you have the data.
This guide provides exactly that: specific pricing, capabilities and limits for seven tools, with every rival fact tied to a vendor page or independent source and dated in the Sources list at the end, and an evaluation framework built on what buyers can actually check.
Full Disclosure: This guide is published by ziptie.ai, which ranks itself #1 below. We asked the same questions of ourselves and of every competitor, took rival facts only from vendor pages and independent sources, dated each one, and state the limits of ziptie.ai in its own entry. The ranking is our own judgement, so weigh it accordingly.
Last verified: October 2026. We checked the prices, plans, engines, ownership and funding of the tools in this guide against each vendor’s published pages and independent coverage in October 2026. Vendors change these details often, so confirm current terms on each vendor’s site before you buy. An earlier version of this guide also listed Kai Footprint; we removed it because we could not find a working vendor site to verify its claims.
Quick Comparison
1. ziptie.ai – Best for Agencies and Teams That Want Every Engine Priced Alike and Numbers They Can Check
Overview
ziptie.ai is an AI search visibility platform that can monitor seven AI answer surfaces: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Microsoft Copilot, Bing AI Overview and Google Gemini. Availability depends on the country a project targets, and which engines run is set per workspace. Every engine is priced the same, so the price follows how many engines run, not which ones, and no engine is sold as an add-on. A check costs about a cent, and the price follows how many engines run. Confirm the live figures in the in-product configurator before you buy. We rank ziptie.ai first for the reasons below, and its limits are stated in the same entry.
Key Features
- Seven engines under one pricing rule. Seven is the roster, not what every account runs: the enabled set is configured per workspace and an engine that a country does not support is not checked or billed for that project
- Numbers you can check. The full answer text and the cited sources are stored for every check, so every AI visibility number opens the answers behind it. A failed check is never counted as a zero: it is left out of every rate and shown beside it as a count
- AI answers beside classic search. Google and Bing organic positions for your domain (top 10) are captured alongside the Google AI Overviews and Bing AI Overview checks, and a read-only Search Console connection adds clicks, impressions, CTR and average position. An unmonitored Search Console query can be added to prompt monitoring in one step
- Agency economics. Unlimited seats, projects and competitors, and a white-label client report (agency logo, name and accent colour on a PDF, with an XLSX dataset) on every plan at no extra charge
- Four headline metrics (Citations Rate, Mentions Rate, Sentiment Score and AI Success Score). AI Success Score is a weighted composite of the citations rate, the mentions rate and a 0 to 100 sentiment score weighted by the mention rate. It uses no answer placement, because ziptie.ai reports no rank or position inside an AI answer
- Competitor discovery from the answers themselves. ziptie.ai ranks the domains and URLs the engines cite, shows which of your prompts produced each citation, and reports share of voice as a count share inside your own prompt set
- Interview-built prompt set. A structured onboarding interview with live web research produces a findings dossier, and you review and edit every prompt before it is saved. Targeting is by country, one country per project
Best For
Agencies and in-house SEO and marketing teams that monitor several clients or brands, want one price rule across engines, and need figures they can trace back to the answers behind them.
Why It Ranks First
- Every engine priced alike, with no add-on engines. Seven engines are on the roster and availability depends on country; the price follows how many engines you run, at about a cent a check. Other tools in this guide sell some engines as paid add-ons or cap the engine count per plan
- Numbers a buyer can check. Every AI visibility number opens the answers behind it, failed checks are counted instead of zeroed, and there is no rank inside an AI answer because one answer is one generation. Mentions are extracted automatically, so open the stored answer when a figure matters
- AI answers beside Google and Bing organic positions. Organic positions come only with the Google AI Overviews and Bing AI Overview engines enabled and cover the top 10 only. The Search Console connection is read-only, one property per project, backfills 30 days and is filtered to the project’s country, so its totals will not match Google’s own interface
- Agency economics. Seats, projects and competitors are unlimited. The white-label report is a branded PDF with an XLSX dataset: it has no custom domain, no client portal and no scheduled or emailed delivery, the public share page keeps the ziptie.ai mark, and an agency reviews the AI-drafted text before generating
- A public methodology. How prompts are built, how each check runs and how every metric is computed are written down on the ziptie.ai methodology page, so you can test our claims against how the product works
Limitations
ziptie.ai does not monitor Claude, Grok, Meta AI or DeepSeek, so teams whose customers rely on those engines need another tool for them. It does not measure traffic: there is no traffic attribution and no GA4 or other web-analytics connector, and there is no AI crawler analytics, because ziptie.ai installs nothing on your site. It has no content-gap analysis and no on-page audit; its optional paid Content add-on produces briefs and drafts from topic trends in the sources the engines cite. It has no SOC 2 report yet. Each prompt is captured once per engine in a check cycle, so a single answer is one sample and trends come from repeated checks. Checks run on each project’s daily, weekly or monthly cadence, and there is no run-a-check-now button. We do not cite review-site scores for ziptie.ai.
Verdict
ziptie.ai earns the top spot in this guide for agencies and multi-brand teams that want one price across engines and numbers they can trace to a stored answer. It is not the right first choice if you need Claude, Grok, Meta AI or DeepSeek coverage, traffic attribution, crawler analytics or a SOC 2 report today. We publish this guide and rank ourselves first, so check each claim against the methodology page and the vendor pages in the Sources list.
2. Otterly.ai – Best Entry-Level AI Monitoring Tool for Budget-Conscious Teams and Agencies
Overview
Otterly.ai is one of the lowest-priced entry points in the AI visibility category, offering multi-engine monitoring starting at $29/month (Otterly pricing page, October 2026). It uses a prompt-volume pricing model – you purchase a monthly allotment of tracked prompts and distribute them across AI platforms – giving teams flexible control over costs as their monitoring needs grow. G2’s AI analysis of its reviews shows about 4.7 out of 5 from 54 reviews (April 2026). Gartner named Otterly one of five vendors in its 2025 Cool Vendors for AI in Marketing report (company release, November 2025) and lists it as a Representative Vendor in its March 2026 Market Guide for Answer Engine Visibility Tools. For teams evaluating AI visibility monitoring for the first time, it is a reasonable starting point.
Key Features
- Brand mentions and citation tracking across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot in every plan. Google AI Mode and Gemini are paid add-ons ($9, $59 or $149 a month each on Lite, Standard and Premium), and Claude is a paid add-on ($29, $109 or $439 a month)
- Prompt Research for discovering relevant queries to track across AI platforms
- Brand Visibility Index, sentiment analysis and Recommendations (Recommendations were added in April 2026), plus a GEO Audit that checks crawlability and content, and Agent Analytics for AI crawler and agent logs (Otterly changelog)
- Unlimited countries and languages on its plan cards since 19 October 2026, per an independent pricing tracker (PricingSaaS). Otterly’s own pricing page lists conflicting country limits on its Lite plan, so confirm the Lite limit with Otterly
- Looker Studio connector from Standard and up, PDF reports with an optional logo, and an Agency Partner program with custom branded Looker Studio reports. Otterly does not document a fully white-labelled client portal or custom domain
- Unlimited team members on all plans
Best For
Small marketing teams, agencies managing multiple client brands, and budget-conscious organizations getting started with AI visibility monitoring who need reliable multi-engine tracking without significant upfront investment.
Pricing
- Lite: $29/month (15 search prompts)
- Standard: $189/month (100 prompts, +$99 per additional 100)
- Premium: $489/month (400 prompts, +$99 per additional 100)
- Enterprise: Custom pricing from 1,000 prompts
Annual billing is about 15% cheaper – Premium drops to approximately $422/month (Otterly pricing page, October 2026).
Strengths
- One of the lowest entry prices among the tools here, with a $29/month tier that includes four engines.
- Unlimited team members even on the lowest tier – exceptional value for agencies and teams sharing reports with multiple stakeholders without per-seat charges
- Independent recognition: about 4.7/5 on G2 from 54 reviews (April 2026) and Gartner’s 2025 Cool Vendor listing. The G2 sample is small, so read it as a signal rather than a verdict
Limitations
Google AI Mode, Gemini and Claude tracking are paid add-ons rather than included in base plans, and prompt-based pricing can accumulate quickly for teams tracking high volumes of queries across multiple platforms simultaneously: extra prompts are $99 per 100 on Standard and Premium. Otterly is no longer monitoring only (it added Recommendations in April 2026), but it does not generate or publish content.
Verdict
Otterly.ai is a safe starting point in the category – accessible pricing and solid multi-engine monitoring. Price the add-on engines before you commit, because a team that needs Google AI Mode, Gemini or Claude pays for each on top of the plan.
3. Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit – Best AI Visibility Add-On for Existing Semrush Subscribers
Overview
Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit integrates AI search monitoring directly into the Semrush SEO platform. Engines differ by tool: daily Prompt Tracking covers Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, Gemini and ChatGPT Search, and the weekly Brand Performance report covers Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini (Semrush help pages, October 2026). Microsoft Copilot is not in the toolkit; Semrush Enterprise AIO added it in December 2025. For teams already subscribing to Semrush, it is the most convenient way to add AI visibility without adopting a separate tool. Adobe completed its acquisition of Semrush on 28 April 2026 (reported at about $1.9 billion, $12.00 a share in cash), so Semrush is no longer NYSE-listed. Semrush’s customer FAQ says there are no immediate changes to services, agreements or billing.
Key Features
- AI visibility tracking through daily Prompt Tracking and the weekly Brand Performance report, with Prompt Research to help choose prompts
- AI Visibility Score, sentiment analysis, and narrative analysis for understanding brand perception in AI responses, with AI-generated recommendations in Brand Performance
- Citation detection and trend tracking showing which brand pages AI engines reference and how those citations shift over time
- Full integration with Semrush’s traditional SEO suite – keyword research, site audits, backlink analysis, and competitive intelligence in one workflow
- Unified client reporting combining AI and organic SEO data
Best For
Teams already subscribing to Semrush who want to add AI visibility monitoring without adopting a separate platform – particularly agencies who need unified SEO and AI reporting for clients in one shareable workflow.
Pricing
- AI Visibility Toolkit: $99/month, with one project, one Brand Performance domain and 25 tracked prompts. Each extra domain or location is $99, each extra user licence is $99 and 50 more prompts are $60 a month. There is no free trial (Semrush help page, October 2026)
- SEO plan: $139/month (the classic plans do not include the toolkit)
- Starter (SEO + AI Search): $199/month, 50 prompts tracked daily
- Pro+: $299/month, 100 prompts. Advanced is custom
Prices as shown on Semrush’s pricing page in October 2026. The older Pro, Guru and Business plan names and prices that earlier versions of this guide listed no longer apply.
Strengths
- Unmatched workflow convenience for existing subscribers – correlate AI visibility with organic rankings, keyword clusters, and authority signals without switching tools or reconciling separate data sources
- Prompt Research shows topic volume, difficulty and intent for prompts, which helps with choosing what to track
Limitations
The toolkit is a separate purchase with a small prompt allowance (25 tracked prompts at $99/month), so it gets more expensive once you add prompts, domains or users. AI visibility features are an extension of a traditional SEO platform rather than purpose-built for AI monitoring, and engine coverage differs between the daily and weekly tools. Microsoft Copilot, Claude, Grok and DeepSeek are not listed for the toolkit.
Verdict
If you’re already paying for Semrush, activating its AI Visibility Toolkit is a straightforward decision – the workflow convenience and unified reporting are genuinely valuable. If you’re not an existing subscriber, compare prompts, engines and users against the dedicated tools in this guide before buying it for AI monitoring alone.
4. Profound – Best for Enterprise Organizations Needing Broad Engine Coverage and Security Compliance
Overview
Profound is the enterprise heavyweight of AI visibility tools. Its Enterprise plan covers up to nine answer engines: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, DeepSeek, Claude, Google AI Overviews and Exa Search (Profound pricing page, October 2026). Its Prompt Volumes feature, formerly Conversation Explorer, surfaces the prompts people use in your category. Profound is SOC 2 Type II compliant and lists HIPAA and SSO (SAML or OIDC) on its enterprise page; SCIM provisioning shipped in August 2026. Profound announced a $180 million Series D at a $1.8 billion valuation on 15 September 2026.
Key Features
- Visibility tracking across up to nine AI engines on the Enterprise plan. The pricing page does not list Grok, Meta AI or Bing AI Overview
- SOC 2 Type II compliance, with HIPAA and SSO listed for enterprise buyers
- Prompt Volumes (formerly Conversation Explorer), expanded to 35 countries in August 2026, and documented query fan-outs
- Agent Analytics for AI crawler activity, included on the free Trial
- Competitive benchmarking and citation monitoring with share-of-voice metrics
Best For
Enterprise teams at large organizations that need broad AI platform coverage, enterprise security compliance, and deep analytics for complex multi-brand or global visibility monitoring – particularly those with dedicated AI visibility analysts to interpret comprehensive datasets.
Pricing
- Trial: free for 7 days, with 50 prompts run daily on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews and unlimited seats. SSO and the API are not part of the trial
- Enterprise: custom pricing, up to nine engines
- Agency Growth: a self-serve plan for agencies; see the pricing page for the current figure
Note: the $99 Starter and $399 Growth brand plans that earlier versions of this guide listed no longer appear on Profound’s pricing page (October 2026), which now shows the Trial, a custom Enterprise plan and the agency plan.
Strengths
- Broad engine coverage – up to nine named engines on Enterprise, including Claude and DeepSeek, which tools such as ziptie.ai do not monitor
- SOC 2 Type II compliance makes Profound a clear choice for security-conscious enterprises with strict vendor data requirements
- Prompt Volumes and Agent Analytics add category-level prompt data and AI crawler analytics
Limitations
Profound now sells through custom Enterprise contracts, so a team below enterprise scale has the free 7-day Trial and the agency plan as its self-serve options and must talk to sales for anything else. Its Enterprise plan is built for teams with dedicated analysts, and the price is not published.
Verdict
Profound is the right choice for enterprise organizations that need broad engine coverage and security compliance and are staffed to work with rich datasets. For teams below the enterprise tier, run the Trial first and compare the result with the published-price tools in this guide.
5. PEEC AI – Best Price-to-Feature Ratio for Core AI Visibility Monitoring
Overview
PEEC AI was founded in Berlin in 2025 (Peec, July 2026) and publishes its brand pricing in US dollars. Peec’s own site shows a 4.7 out of 5 G2 rating. It is no longer monitoring only: on 13 October 2026 it shipped Actions (a ranked list of opportunities), a content optimizer that drafts rewrites of existing pages, and an Agent, and it has added GA4 AI referrals (September 2026) and crawler analytics (Crawl Insights).
Key Features
- Brand visibility and mention tracking on three engines per brand plan, chosen from six: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Perplexity, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot
- Competitive tracking and share-of-voice monitoring to benchmark AI visibility against competitors over time
- Citation analysis identifying which specific brand pages AI engines reference in their responses
- Actions, content optimizer and GA4 AI referrals alongside monitoring, with Crawl Insights for AI crawler visits
- Unlimited team seats across all pricing tiers
- 7-day free trial for evaluation
Best For
Cost-conscious mid-market teams who have outgrown basic entry-level tools but don’t need enterprise features or enterprise pricing, and who are happy with three engines per plan.
Pricing
- Starter: $95/month, 50 prompts, 1 country per project
- Pro: $245/month, 150 prompts, 3 countries per project
- Advanced: $495/month, 350 prompts, 3 countries per project
- Enterprise: custom pricing, unlimited countries
Each brand plan includes three engines, daily tracking and unlimited seats, with about 15% off for annual billing. Each extra engine is a monthly add-on ($35 on Starter, $85 on Pro, $165 on Advanced). Prices as listed by Peec in July 2026 and read again off the live page by an independent review on 10 October 2026; confirm current prices on Peec’s site when you sign up.
Strengths
- Published prices and unlimited seats make budgeting simple. On its list prices Peec works out to about $1.90 a prompt per month on Starter, $1.63 on Pro and $1.41 on Advanced, each on three engines (our arithmetic on Peec’s prices)
- An action layer and connected data – Actions, a content optimizer, GA4 AI referrals and Crawl Insights give Peec more than monitoring for its price
Limitations
Brand plans track three engines chosen from six, and each extra engine is a paid add-on, so covering all six engines on Starter would cost about $200 a month if add-ons stack per engine (our arithmetic on Peec’s list prices). Claude, Grok, DeepSeek and other models are upgrade or Enterprise options. Countries per project are capped at 1 on Starter and 3 on Pro and Advanced. One independent review lists Perplexity as an extra model, so check the engine list when you sign up.
Verdict
PEEC AI is a strong mid-market choice for teams that want published pricing, unlimited seats and an action layer without enterprise contracts. Count the engines you need before comparing prices, because the entry plans cover three.
6. Evertune AI – Best for Generating Board-Ready AI Visibility Metrics
Overview
Evertune AI differentiates itself by targeting the executive measurement and reporting use case. Evertune says it samples each prompt 100 times per model, using direct API access to isolate a model’s foundational knowledge and fresh virtual-browser sessions for consumer apps, and claims narrower error margins than single-snapshot tools (Evertune methodology page, October 2026). Its methodology page gives no formula or confidence level for that claim, so treat it as Evertune’s own. Evertune also sells a Content Agent and an Ads Agent, so it is not measurement-only.
Key Features
- Repeated sampling of each prompt (100 samples per prompt per model on Pro, per Evertune) rather than a single snapshot
- Brand recommendation frequency tracking across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Perplexity, Copilot, DeepSeek and Meta. Evertune says it covers 11 models; its site names these nine
- Insights and Action Agent, Content Studio and Ads Agent (the Content Agent produces 25 articles a month on Pro)
- Sentiment and competitive positioning data with cross-LLM comparative analysis
Best For
Organizations where AI visibility data needs to be reported to leadership, boards, or investors, particularly companies where SEO, PR, and executive teams all need access to the same AI visibility measurements in different contexts.
Pricing
- Starter: $60/month (5,000 prompt credits, five models)
- Pro: $800/month billed annually (100,000 credits, 11 models, 100 samples per prompt)
- Enterprise: custom pricing
Prices as shown on Evertune’s pricing page in October 2026. Evertune bills by prompt credits, so check how many credits your prompt set uses at its sampling depth.
Strengths
- Sampling depth – Evertune’s stated approach of 100 samples per prompt per model targets the run-to-run variation in AI answers, which single-snapshot tools do not address
- Wide model coverage – its site names Meta and DeepSeek alongside ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity, reaching engines that several tools in this guide do not track
- Published entry price – a $60/month Starter plan makes a trial of the platform affordable
Limitations
The rigorous-measurement claim rests on Evertune’s own methodology page, which cites its EverPanel with “over 150 million real conversations” but gives no formula or confidence level, so ask Evertune to explain how the panel and the sampling work in writing. The Pro plan is $800 a month billed annually, which is a large step up from Starter.
Verdict
Evertune fills a legitimate niche: organizations that want sampled measurement for leadership reporting and are comfortable with credit-based pricing and annual billing at the Pro tier. Test its claims on the Starter plan before committing.
7. BrightEdge – Best Enterprise SEO Platform with AI Capabilities
Overview
BrightEdge brings enterprise SEO experience to the AI visibility conversation through its AI Catalyst product. According to its AI Catalyst page (October 2026), AI Catalyst tracks ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode and Gemini plus unnamed other AI platforms. BrightEdge builds and tracks the prompts for you, mapped to buyer-journey stage, with persona-based answer variation. Its AI search capabilities are layered onto an established enterprise SEO platform rather than built from scratch for the AI era.
Key Features
- Mentions presence and citations presence with competitive benchmarking by engine
- Sentiment with reasoning and persona variation (practitioner versus decision maker)
- Cited-page data with citation counts, ranking keywords and estimated traffic for pages the engines cite
- Gap briefs comparing your page to the cited page, plus named social platforms, publications and contributors for outreach
Best For
Large enterprise SEO teams with established budgets that want AI visibility inside an enterprise SEO platform they already use or are prepared to buy through sales, with vendor-built prompt sets.
Pricing
Custom enterprise pricing, quote on request. BrightEdge publishes no pricing, and third-party estimates of its contract values are unverified, so we do not repeat them.
Strengths
- AI tracking inside an established enterprise SEO platform, so teams that already run BrightEdge can add AI visibility without a new vendor
- Gap briefs and cited-page data connect AI citations to page-level actions
Limitations
BrightEdge publishes no prices, and its AI Catalyst page does not state whether you can add custom prompts or how often prompts are checked, so ask for the engine list, prompt control and cadence in writing before you buy.
Verdict
BrightEdge is an enterprise choice for organizations that want AI visibility from the vendor they already use for enterprise SEO. For teams evaluating AI visibility on its own, request a quote and compare it with the published-price tools in this guide.
Full Pricing Comparison
Last verified: October 2026. Prices come from the vendor pages listed in Sources and were read between 10 and 22 October 2026. This category evolves rapidly – confirm current tiers directly with each vendor before purchasing. For ziptie.ai, confirm the live figures in the in-product configurator.
Red Flags to Watch For
When evaluating AI visibility tools, these warning signs suggest a provider may not deliver the value it promises:
No distinction between citations and mentions. Tools that only track whether your brand “shows up” without differentiating between being cited as a source (which can drive clicks) and being mentioned in passing (which provides only awareness) are giving you incomplete data.
Numbers you cannot trace. If a vendor cannot show the stored answer and the cited sources behind a figure, you cannot tell a real change from the run-to-run variation of AI answers. A score without the answers behind it is a claim, not evidence.
Failed checks hidden inside the averages. A check that did not return an answer is not a zero. Ask whether failures are left out of the rates and shown as a count, or silently averaged in.
Per-engine add-on pricing. Tools that charge separately for each AI platform create a perverse incentive to under-monitor. Given that the AI platforms your customers actually use should all be covered, pricing that gates core platforms behind add-on fees deserves scrutiny.
Data without any actionability path. If a vendor cannot demonstrate specifically how their data translates into content improvements – not just what the dashboard shows, but what you should actually do – you’re paying for awareness of a problem without a path to solving it.
Entry tiers that are too restrictive to be useful. Some tools offer attractive entry prices that hide severe limitations in prompt volume or platform coverage. Confirm what “entry tier” actually includes before comparing prices across tools.
Questions to Ask When Evaluating AI Visibility Tools
Use these questions derived directly from the evaluation criteria in this guide when assessing any AI visibility tool:
- Can I open the stored answer and cited sources behind any number on the dashboard? Ask for a demonstration on a figure you choose, and ask how a check that fails is counted.
- Which AI platforms do you track, and are any gated behind add-on fees? Get the complete platform list and total cost for the coverage you actually need.
- Do you differentiate between citations (linked references) and mentions (text references)? This distinction matters significantly for understanding whether AI visibility translates to actual traffic.
- How does your tool help me take action on the data – not just see it? Request specific examples of optimization recommendations or prescribed next steps the tool provides.
- How does query discovery work – manual input only, or automated? Manual-only tools limit your monitoring to queries you’ve already thought to check.
- Can you show me exactly which competitor content is being cited, not just that competitors rank better? Granular competitive intelligence enables precise content strategy; vague competitive scores do not.
- What does pricing look like at 2x and 5x my current query volume? Prompt-based pricing can scale unpredictably – understand your growth cost trajectory before committing.
- Where is your methodology written down? A vendor that publishes how prompts are built, how checks run and how each metric is computed lets you test its claims before you pay.
The providers worth your time will welcome these questions and answer them specifically.
How We Ranked These AI Visibility Tools
We assessed each tool against the six criteria below, using vendor pages and independent sources, each dated in the Sources list. We did not rely on forum posts or on comparison pages written by other vendors. These criteria and their weights are our own choice and they favour what ziptie.ai does well, so another publisher might rank the tools differently. Here is what we assessed and why each criterion matters:
Engine Coverage and How It Is Priced A tool that covers fewer engines shows you less of the picture, and a tool that sells engines as add-ons makes you choose which part to see. We assessed how many engines each tool covers, which are included in the base price, and where coverage depends on country.
Numbers You Can Check AI answers vary from run to run, so a figure is only as useful as the answers behind it. We looked at whether each tool stores the answers and sources behind its numbers, how failed checks are treated, whether it reports a rank inside a single answer or a rate across many prompts, and whether its methodology is published.
Classic Search Beside AI Answers Most teams run AI visibility next to their existing search work. We looked at whether a tool brings organic positions or Search Console data into the same view as AI answers, and what limits apply.
Agency and Team Economics Seat, project and competitor limits, and client reporting, decide what a tool costs once several brands or clients use it. We recorded what each vendor publishes about seats, projects and branded reporting.
Actionability – From Dashboard to Action A dashboard that shows declining AI visibility without suggesting what to do is measuring your problem, not helping you solve it. Several vendors in this guide now ship action layers (Peec’s Actions, Otterly’s Recommendations, Profound’s agents), so we looked at what each one actually produces and what it leaves to you.
Pricing Transparency and Value-for-Money Pricing is the most searched comparison dimension for AI visibility tools, yet many tools hide it behind “contact sales” walls. We documented every publicly available pricing tier, add-on cost, and annual discount. Where prompt limits significantly affect usability, we noted them explicitly.
We weighted Engine Coverage and Numbers You Can Check most heavily because they decide whether the data you pay for is complete and trustworthy. The remaining four criteria separated tools within similar tiers. ziptie.ai does not meet every criterion that matters to every buyer, and its limits are listed in its entry above.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an AI visibility tool and why do brands need one in 2026?
An AI visibility tool monitors how your brand, products, and content appear in AI-generated search results across platforms like Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity. These tools are also called GEO tools (generative engine optimization), AEO tools (answer engine optimization), or LLM visibility trackers – the category is new and terminology varies.
The business case is the buyer behaviour described at the top of this guide: G2’s March 2026 survey found that 51% of B2B software buyers start their research in an AI chatbot more often than in Google, and SparkToro’s January 2026 study found that the same prompt almost never returns the same list of brands twice. Without monitoring, brands have no visibility into a channel that is reshaping how customers discover products and services, and a single check proves little: you need repeated checks across many prompts.
How much do AI visibility tools cost?
AI visibility tools range from free trials and entry plans of a few tens of dollars a month to custom enterprise contracts with no published price. Common entry points as of October 2026:
- Otterly.ai: $29/month (15 prompts)
- Evertune AI: $60/month Starter (5,000 prompt credits, five models)
- Semrush AI Toolkit: $99/month (25 tracked prompts)
- PEEC AI: $95/month (50 prompts, three engines)
- Profound: free 7-day Trial, then custom Enterprise pricing
- ziptie.ai: about a cent a check, with the price following how many engines run; confirm the live figures in the in-product configurator
- BrightEdge: custom, no public pricing
Most tools use prompt-volume pricing – confirm what limits apply at each tier before comparing prices, as entry tiers with 15 to 50 prompts may be too restrictive for teams tracking multiple queries or product lines.
Why do AI visibility numbers need to be checkable, and what should I look for?
AI answers vary from run to run, so a number is only as useful as the answers behind it. Look for tools that store the full answer text and the cited sources for every check, count a failed check separately instead of averaging it in as a zero, report rates across many prompts instead of a rank inside one answer, and publish how each metric is computed.
ziptie.ai stores the full answer text and cited sources for every check, leaves failed checks out of rates and counts them, reports no rank inside an AI answer, and publishes its methodology on its methodology page. It captures each prompt once per engine in a check cycle, so one answer is a single sample and trends come from repeated checks. Ask every other vendor the same questions.
Conclusion
The six ranking criteria in this guide – engine coverage and pricing, checkable numbers, classic search beside AI answers, agency and team economics, actionability, and pricing transparency – are a framework you can apply to any AI visibility tool, including options that emerge after this guide is published.
If you run an agency or want one price across engines and numbers you can check, ziptie.ai is built for that, with seven engines priced alike (availability depends on country), organic positions and Search Console beside AI answers, and unlimited seats, projects and competitors. It does not monitor Claude, Grok, Meta AI or DeepSeek and offers no traffic attribution, crawler analytics, content-gap analysis or SOC 2 report yet.
If you’re getting started on a tight budget, Otterly.ai’s $29/month entry point is one of the lowest-risk first steps, as long as four engines are enough for you.
If you’re already paying for Semrush, activate its AI Visibility Toolkit before evaluating standalone tools – the unified workflow convenience is hard to replicate.
If you’re an enterprise team needing broad engine coverage and SOC 2 compliance, Profound’s custom Enterprise plan, with up to nine engines, is built for that.
If you want published prices and unlimited seats for core monitoring, PEEC AI starts at $95/month for 50 prompts on three engines, with extra engines as paid add-ons.
If you need sampled, board-level measurement, Evertune AI describes its approach as 100 samples per prompt per model, with a $60/month Starter plan to test it.
If you’re a large enterprise already buying SEO through sales, BrightEdge’s AI Catalyst adds AI tracking and gap briefs to that relationship. Ask for pricing, the engine list and prompt cadence in writing.
This category changes quickly: prices, plans, engines and ownership moved at several of these vendors between this guide’s first publication and October 2026. Re-check any figure here against the vendor’s own page before you buy.
Sources
Rival facts in this guide come from the pages below, read in October 2026 unless a date is given. Vendor pages are labelled as vendor sources.
- G2, The Answer Economy: G2’s 2026 AI Search Insight Report (independent, March 2026)
- SparkToro, AIs are highly inconsistent when recommending brands or products (independent, January 2026)
- PricingSaaS, Otterly plan card changes (independent, 19 October 2026)
- Otterly.ai, pricing page (vendor, read 22 October 2026), changelog (vendor, read 21 October 2026) and agencies page (vendor, read 21 October 2026)
- G2 AI analysis, OtterlyAI (independent, April 2026)
- GlobeNewswire, OtterlyAI recognized as a Cool Vendor in the 2025 Gartner Cool Vendors for AI in Marketing (vendor release, 4 November 2025)
- Gartner, Market Guide for Answer Engine Visibility Tools (independent, 9 March 2026)
- Semrush, AI Visibility Toolkit help page (vendor, read 22 October 2026), AI visibility data help page (vendor, read 21 October 2026) and pricing page (vendor, read 21 October 2026)
- Semrush, Enterprise AI Optimization adds Microsoft Copilot (vendor, 1 December 2025)
- Adobe, completion of the Semrush acquisition (vendor release via StockTitan, 28 April 2026) and Semrush, customer FAQ on the Adobe acquisition (vendor)
- Profound, pricing page (vendor, read 22 October 2026), enterprise page (vendor, read 21 October 2026), changelog (vendor, entries to 16 October 2026) and Series D announcement (vendor, 15 September 2026)
- Peec AI, instructions page (vendor, last updated July 2026), changelog (vendor, entries 6 July to 13 October 2026) and homepage (vendor, read 21 October 2026)
- Xtrusio, Peec AI pricing plans and prompt limits (independent, read off the live Peec page 10 October 2026)
- Evertune, pricing page (vendor, read 22 October 2026), methodology page (vendor, read 21 October 2026) and homepage (vendor, read 21 October 2026)
- BrightEdge, AI Catalyst page (vendor, read 21 October 2026)
- ziptie.ai, methodology (published by ziptie.ai)
