Best AI visibility and GEO tracking tools, compared
AI assistants have quietly become a recommendation engine. When someone asks ChatGPT for a good accountant in Brisbane, or asks Perplexity which tool does the job, the AI writes one answer and names a handful of businesses. You’re either in that answer or you don’t exist for that question. AI visibility tools, sometimes called GEO trackers, exist to tell you which one you are.
This is the straight comparison: what each tool does, what it costs, who it’s for, and the part most of these lists leave out, which is that a lot of small businesses don’t need one yet. For the groundwork on how AI search actually picks its sources, our GEO playbook covers it in depth. This page is about measuring it.
1. The short answer
You only need one tool, and you only need it once you’ve got something worth measuring. With that said, here’s the pick by situation.
Start with Otterly if you’re a small business or solo operator who wants the cheapest credible way to see whether AI mentions you. Choose Peec if you’re an agency or you’re tracking several brands and want clean analytics to show clients. Step up to Scrunch if you care about how AI crawlers read your site and you need enterprise security. Go to Profound if you’re a larger business tracking multiple markets and languages. And if you already pay for Ahrefs or Semrush, turn on their AI features before buying anything new.
| Tool | Best for | Starting price (USD) | Engines | Updates | Standout |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Otterly | Starting out, solo operators | ~$29/mo (Lite) | 4 | Weekly | Cheapest credible entry point |
| Peec AI | Agencies, multiple brands | ~€85/mo (Starter) | 3 | Near real-time | Clean analytics, fast-growing |
| Scrunch AI | Crawlability + small teams | ~$250/mo (Core) | 4 | ~Every 3 days | AI-crawler view, SOC 2 security |
| Profound | Enterprise, multi-market | ~$99–399/mo (USD) | up to 10 | Frequent | Conversation Explorer, GA4, crawler analytics |
| Ahrefs Brand Radar | Existing Ahrefs users | Add-on to your plan | Multiple | Regular | Rides your existing SEO data |
| Semrush AI Visibility | Existing Semrush users | Add-on to your plan | Multiple | Regular | Folds into the Semrush suite |
Dollar figures are in USD (Peec prices in euros). Prices and limits move fast in this category, so treat the figures as the shape of the market, not a quote, and check the current plan before you buy.
2. Before you pay: check by hand for free
This is the step the tool vendors would rather you skipped. The AI engines are the best tool for auditing your own AI visibility, and they cost nothing.
Open ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google’s AI Mode. Type the ten questions a customer would genuinely ask in your category. “Best [your trade] in [your suburb].” “Who can do [your service] for a small business.” Write down whether you’re named, and if not, who is. That list is your real scoreboard, and it tells you exactly which competitors the engines trust more than you right now. Do it every few weeks and you’ve got a trend, for free.
Read the trend, not one snapshot. AI answers shift from run to run, so the same prompt can name you on Monday and skip you on Tuesday. A single bad reading means nothing. The pattern over a few weeks is the only number worth trusting, however you collect it.
If that half-hour every few weeks starts to feel like a chore, that’s the signal to buy a tool. Not before. A tracker automates this exact task, so its job is to save you the manual checking once you’re actively working on visibility and want the trend without running the prompts yourself.
3. Otterly: best entry point
Otterly is where most small businesses should start. Its Lite plan runs about $29 a month, covers roughly 15 prompts across the four main engines, and updates weekly. That’s enough to watch whether you’re getting named for your most important questions and to see the trend move as you do the work.
It won’t give you the depth a large brand needs, and weekly updates are slower than the pricier tools. But for a business that just wants to know “am I showing up, and is it getting better”, it does the job at a price that doesn’t sting. Start here, prove the category matters for you, then step up only if you outgrow it.
4. Peec AI: best for agencies and multiple brands
Peec is built for people tracking more than one brand, which makes it the natural pick for agencies and marketers. Its Starter plan is around €85 a month for roughly 50 prompts across three engines, with near real-time updates and the cleanest reporting in the group, the kind you can put in front of a client without explaining.
The company has grown fast, raising a $21 million Series A in late 2025, which tells you the agency demand is real. If you’re managing visibility for several businesses and need a tidy share-of-voice chart per client, this is the one to look at.
5. Scrunch AI: best for crawlability and bigger teams
Scrunch adds a layer the cheaper tools don’t: how AI crawlers and agents actually read your site, not just whether you’re mentioned. Its Core plan starts near $250 a month for about 125 prompts across four engines, five seats, and enterprise security including SOC 2 Type II. Data refreshes roughly every three days.
That makes it a fit for slightly larger teams who care about the plumbing as well as the scoreboard, and who need the security box ticked for procurement. For a one-person business it’s overkill. For a growing team that wants to fix the technical reasons they’re not getting cited, it’s worth the spend.
6. Profound: best for enterprise and multi-market
Profound is the enterprise leader, and priced like it. Pricing runs from about $99 a month for a single-engine starter to around $399 for the multi-engine plan, then into custom enterprise pricing. You get tracking across up to ten engines, multiple countries and languages, a Conversation Explorer that shows the real questions people ask in your category, GA4 integration, and analysis of how AI crawlers hit your site.
This is more tool than most small businesses will ever need. It’s built for brands tracking visibility across markets with a team to act on the data. If that’s not you, the money is better spent elsewhere. If it is, it’s the most complete platform here.
7. Ahrefs Brand Radar and Semrush: best if you already pay for one
If you already subscribe to Ahrefs or Semrush, check what their AI visibility features cover before you buy a dedicated tool. Ahrefs Brand Radar and Semrush’s AI visibility toolkit both track AI mentions, and they sit on top of the SEO data you’re already paying for, which means one login and one bill instead of two.
They may not go as deep on AI specifically as a purpose-built tracker like Profound or Peec. But for a lot of businesses, “good enough, and already included” beats “best, and another subscription”. Use what you’ve got first.
8. How to choose
Strip it back to three questions. How many brands are you tracking? One points you at Otterly, several at Peec. How big is the budget and the team? Small means Otterly, mid-market means Scrunch, enterprise means Profound. And do you already pay for an SEO suite? If so, turn on its AI features before adding anything.
Don’t buy the powerful tool first. The expensive trackers are built for teams already acting on the data every day. If you’re not doing the visibility work yet, a $400-a-month dashboard just charts your absence in high resolution. Buy the cheapest tool that answers your question, and trade up only when you’ve outgrown it.
Should you build your own?
You could. The APIs are there, and a scheduled job that runs your prompts through ChatGPT and Perplexity and logs who got named is a weekend’s work for a developer. Whether you should is the question that matters, and the answer is almost always no. The rule we’d apply is core versus context: build the thing that’s genuinely your edge, and buy the plumbing every business needs. A visibility tracker is plumbing. It doesn’t make you different, it only measures whether you are, and a $29 tool already does that well and keeps it running. Put the build effort into the part that’s actually yours, and rent this.
The bottom line
Start with the free check and keep it up: the ten questions across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google’s AI Mode tell you where you stand and cost nothing, and for most businesses that is most of the value. Pay for a tool only when running the prompts by hand becomes a chore, and pay for the cheapest one that answers your question.
One thing to ignore, whoever you talk to: there’s no such thing as a guaranteed AI ranking. The engines don’t have a ranking to sell. What exists is being the clearest, most-cited answer in your category, and a tracker that tells you straight whether you’re getting there.
Questions people ask
- What are AI visibility (GEO) tracking tools?
- They're tools that check whether AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews mention your business when someone asks a question in your category. You give the tool a list of prompts a customer would type, it runs them on a schedule across the AI engines, and it reports whether you were named, whether you were cited with a link, and how often you show up against your competitors. Think of it as rank tracking, but for AI answers instead of the list of blue links.
- Which AI visibility tool is best for a small business?
- For most small businesses, start with Otterly. It's the cheapest credible option at around $29 a month, tracks the main engines, and gives you a share-of-mentions trend without a steep learning curve. Peec (from about €85 a month) is the better pick if you're an agency tracking several brands, and Profound or Scrunch are aimed at bigger teams with bigger budgets. But the honest answer is that many small businesses don't need a paid tool yet. You can check by hand for free first.
- How much do AI visibility tools cost?
- Prices here are in USD unless noted. Entry-level tools start around $29 a month (Otterly Lite, roughly 15 prompts across four engines). Agency-grade tools like Peec start around €85 a month for about 50 prompts. Mid-market tools like Scrunch start near $250 a month. Enterprise platforms like Profound start from about $99 a month, with the multi-engine plan around $399 and custom pricing above that for multi-market, multi-language tracking. Ahrefs Brand Radar and Semrush's AI visibility features are add-ons to those existing SEO subscriptions rather than standalone buys.
- Do I need a GEO tracking tool, or can I check by hand?
- Check by hand first. Open ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI Mode, type the ten questions a customer would actually ask in your category, and note whether you're named and who is. It's free, it takes half an hour, and it's the same thing the tools automate. Buy a tool when checking by hand gets tedious and you want the trend tracked for you, not before. A tracker is a measurement spend, so buy it when you've got something to measure.
- What's the difference between Profound, Peec, Otterly and Scrunch?
- They're the same idea at four price points. Otterly is the affordable entry tool for solo operators and small businesses. Peec is built for agencies and people tracking multiple brands, with clean analytics. Scrunch leans technical, adding how AI crawlers and agents actually see your site, and carries enterprise security like SOC 2. Profound is the enterprise leader, with multi-country and multi-language tracking, analytics integrations, and crawler analysis. The more you pay, the more prompts, engines and depth you get.
- How often do these tools update, and are they accurate?
- Update frequency ranges from near real-time (Peec) to every few days (Scrunch refreshes roughly every three days) to weekly (Otterly). On accuracy, treat any single reading with caution: AI answers vary from one run to the next, so the same prompt can name you on Monday and skip you on Tuesday. The value is in the pattern over weeks, not one snapshot. Look at the trend, not a single bad result.
- Can I build my own AI visibility tracker?
- Technically yes, but for almost every business it isn't worth it. You'd schedule your category prompts through the Perplexity and OpenAI APIs, record each answer, flag whether you and your competitors were named, and pipe it into a dashboard. The off-the-shelf trackers already do this from $29 a month and keep it running, so a custom build only makes sense for a large team with a very specific need the tools don't meet.