FrontStat guides

Best AI visibility tools in 2026, by who they are for: free checkers, founder tools and brand platforms

By Alex, maker of FrontStat · Updated 8 October 2026 · 11 min read

There are now more AI visibility tools than there were SEO tools in 2010, and the lists that rank them tend to rank by who paid for the placement. This one groups 15 of them by the question that matters first: who is the tool for? A founder with one product and a $20 budget has a different best tool from an agency tracking 40 brands, and both are different from someone who wants a one-time answer today.

Every fact below comes from each tool's own site, checked on 2 October 2026. Prices move; the groupings do not. FrontStat is one of the tools listed, in the founder group, and the comparison pages linked under each tool show it side by side with that tool.

What an AI visibility tool does

All of them do the same job: put buyer questions to AI assistants, record which products get named and which pages get cited, and report the share that names you, over time. The differences are in four places.

• Which assistants. ChatGPT and Google's AI Overviews are in nearly every tool. Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Copilot, Grok and Google's AI Mode vary, and on several tools Claude or Gemini is an add-on or an upper tier.
• How many questions, how often. From 10 prompts a week to 500 a day. Daily matters more than volume for a single product; answers change from day to day.
• Setup. Some need a URL. Most need you to write or import prompts, add competitors and pick models before the first result.
• Price and who you talk to. From free, to $17 a month, to "contact sales".

AI visibility tools against traditional SEO tools

Two kinds of company sell this. The traditional SEO platforms, Semrush and Ahrefs above all, have added AI visibility tracking to keyword tracking: brand mentions and AI citations across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, Perplexity and Gemini, reported next to rankings, with a free checker in front. The AI visibility platforms built since 2024 do only this: prompt tracking, share of voice against named competitors, citation analysis of which sites the AI models read, and content optimization suggestions from the gap. If your team already pays for an SEO platform, its AI toolkit is the cheap first step. If AI search is the channel you are trying to win, a dedicated tool with daily monitoring and alerts on change is the better fit, and the founder-priced ones below cost less than the toolkit add-on.

Free, one-time checks

For "does ChatGPT name us, today?", with no account. Each gives a single answer and stops; none of these watches the answer change.

• Ahrefs AI Visibility Checker. A free preview of Ahrefs Brand Radar: mentions across AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot, against Ahrefs's own prompt index. Good for a brand that is already known; new products often show nothing because the index has no prompts naming them. Ongoing tracking is through Brand Radar, from $50 a month for custom prompts.
• Semrush AI Visibility Checker. Free, with the same caveat: it reports on Semrush's prompt set. The paid AI Visibility Toolkit tracks 25 prompts daily from $99 a month per domain, with no free trial of the toolkit itself.
• HubSpot AI Search Grader. A one-time grade from a short form: brand sentiment and share of voice on OpenAI, Perplexity and Gemini. Ongoing tracking is HubSpot AEO at $50 a month for 25 prompts.
• FrontStat's free report. Paste a URL. It writes your buyer question from your site, asks ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini with web search on, and shows who each recommends, who it names instead and the pages it cited, plus your launch listings and search rank for your own name. Run it here.

Founder tools: one product, a public monthly price

For a founder or a small team tracking its own product every day, without a sales call.

• FrontStat Pro. $19 a month at the founding price (then $39), 7 days free with no card. Up to 10 buyer questions, written for you from your site and editable, checked every day on ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, all three in the price. Shows who is named instead of you and which sites are cited, emails you the day an answer changes, and includes an MCP server so your own AI agent can read the results. Setup is a URL. Pricing.
• Rankscale. From $17 a month billed yearly (Essentials, 120 credits a month; monthly plans from $99). Seventeen or more engines, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews and AI Mode, on a credit model: each check spends credits, so the schedule and the engine count set the real price. Rankscale vs FrontStat.
• Otterly.AI. From $29 a month (Lite: 15 prompts, 4 AI engines), 7-day trial with no card. ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Perplexity and Copilot in the price; Gemini and AI Mode are $9 a month each and Claude $29 a month as add-ons on Lite. A prompt research tool helps you write prompts. Otterly.AI vs FrontStat.
• Knowatoa. From $59 a month (Starter: ChatGPT, AI Overviews and AI Mode), 7-day trial and a free site check. Claude, Gemini, Meta AI and Perplexity come with the Growth plan. Knowatoa vs FrontStat.
• LLMrefs. $79 a month, one plan: 500 prompts, weekly reports, 11 engines all included (ChatGPT, ChatGPT Search, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Grok, Copilot, Meta AI, DeepSeek). Prompts are generated from your brand, domain and keywords. Weekly rather than daily. LLMrefs vs FrontStat.

Mid-range: teams and agencies

For several products or clients, more prompts, and share-of-voice reporting across a category.

• Peec AI. From EUR 85 a month (Starter: 50 prompts, 3 models, 1 project). You choose 3 of ChatGPT, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Copilot, Gemini and Naver AI; Perplexity is an add-on and Claude is Enterprise only. Strong on competitor share of voice. Peec AI vs FrontStat.
• Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit. $99 a month per domain, 25 prompts tracked daily on ChatGPT Search, AI Mode and Gemini, with reports across ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini and Perplexity. The natural choice if the team already lives in Semrush. Semrush vs FrontStat.
• Trakkr. $100 a month (Growth: 50 prompts, 8 models, daily), 14-day trial with a card. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Grok, DeepSeek and Meta AI. Free tools alongside, such as an AI Site Grader. Trakkr vs FrontStat.
• Am I on AI. $100 a month (Pro: up to 150 prompts on ChatGPT and Google AI Overview), with a free audit and a 7-day trial. Two engines, a lot of prompts. Am I on AI vs FrontStat.
• Searchable. $125 a month (Pro: 100 prompts on ChatGPT, AI Overviews and Perplexity), 14-day trial with no card and a free visibility report. Other models, including Claude, as add-ons. Searchable vs FrontStat.
• Ahrefs Brand Radar. Custom prompts from $50 a month (2,500 checks); the AI Visibility Index is $199 a month, or $699 for all models; paid Ahrefs plans include a few custom prompts. Six engines, Claude on custom prompts. The index needs no setup at all. Ahrefs Brand Radar vs FrontStat.

Brand platforms: enterprise

For brand and content teams with hundreds of prompts, many markets and a procurement process.

• Profound. Custom enterprise pricing after a 7-day trial of 50 preset prompts on ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews. Enterprise covers up to nine engines, including Claude, Perplexity, AI Mode and Copilot, with your own prompts set up through sales. The reference point for the category at the top end. Profound vs FrontStat.
• Scrunch. $250 a month (Core: 125 prompts, 4 models: ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Copilot), 7-day trial and a free audit. Claude, Gemini, AI Mode, Meta AI and Grok on Enterprise. Scrunch vs FrontStat.
• AthenaHQ. $295 a month (Starter: 3,600 credits, one credit per AI answer, 11 models including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, AI Mode and Copilot), with a free plan carrying $25 of credit and a free audit. Credit-based, so the prompt count and schedule set the real spend. AthenaHQ vs FrontStat.

How to choose, in four questions

1. Do you need the answer to change? If one answer today is enough, use a free check and stop. If you are going to fix things and want to know when a fix worked, you need daily tracking.
2. Which assistants do your buyers use? For most software buyers that is ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude. Check whether all three are in the price you are quoted; on several tools above, one of them is an add-on or a higher tier.
3. How many questions do you have? A single product has 5 to 10 real buyer questions. A brand across a category has hundreds. Pay for the number you have.
4. Who do you want to talk to? Some of the best tools above start with a sales call. If you want to be running in a minute, pick one where setup is a URL and the price is on the page.

The founder's answer

If you have one product and want to know every day whether ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini recommend it, who they name instead and what to fix first, at a price you do not have to justify: FrontStat Pro, 7 days free, no card. If you need share of voice across a category for several brands, start with Peec AI or the Semrush toolkit. If procurement is involved, Profound. And whichever you choose, run the free check first; three in four new products find out they score zero, and that number is the one every tool above exists to move.

Questions