This ranking is written for one buyer: somebody starting to measure AI visibility from zero, without an enterprise budget and without an existing SEO suite to bolt onto. If you already pay for Ahrefs or Semrush, your answer is different and it is further down this page.
Which one is yours
The ranking answers what to start with. This answers what fits a situation that is not starting from zero.
You are starting from nothing and want to spend nothing yet
LLM Brand BoostThe only permanent free tier in the set, then $39 for fifty tracked prompts. Disclosure: this is our own tool, scored on the same five criteria as the rest.Visit site
You already pay for Ahrefs
Ahrefs Brand RadarCustom-prompt tracking is bundled into Lite and above, so the marginal cost is nothing until you want the $199 index. Best value per prompt on the list.Visit site
You want the widest coverage you can simply buy
TrakkrEight engines on a published $100 plan, no sales call. The right answer once budget is not the constraint.Visit site
You want the cheapest standalone paid tool
Otterly.AI$29 for four engines and fifteen prompts. Enough to find out whether you are invisible.Visit site
Disclosure: LLM Brand Boost is operated by the same people who publish this site. It is scored on the same five criteria as every other tool here.
The only tool here you can start with for nothing, and the cheapest paid step at $39. Three engines rather than eight - if breadth is what you need on day one, Trakkr is further down and we say so.
The best value per prompt on this list by a distance, and the best data plumbing - but the $50 is an add-on to an Ahrefs plan, so starting from nothing costs about $179.
Cost to start from zero3.0
Tracked prompts per dollar10.0
Engine coverage at that tier9.2
Getting data out9.4
How fast you can be running7.0
Holds up
Included in Lite+ Ahrefs plans
Also tracks YouTube, TikTok and Reddit
Mature API and export
Loses points
Only sensible alongside an Ahrefs subscription
Index tier at $199 is a separate charge
Entry price
From $50/mo custom prompts; $199/mo AI Visibility Index
Engines tracked
7 - AI Overviews, Gemini, Perplexity, ChatGPT, Copilot, AI Mode, Claude
The cheapest published standalone entry at $29, with four engines. Fifteen prompts is enough to learn whether you appear at all and not enough to run a programme.
Cost to start from zero7.5
Tracked prompts per dollar5.0
Engine coverage at that tier6.5
Getting data out8.2
How fast you can be running8.8
Holds up
Lowest published entry price in the category
Four full tiers published, no hidden pricing
Daily tracking on every tier
Loses points
Only 15 prompts at entry
Several engines cost extra
$189 for the tier most teams actually need
Entry price
$29/mo (Lite)
Engines tracked
4 included - ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Perplexity, Copilot; Claude/Gemini/AI Mode as add-ons
Eight engines on a published $100 plan - the widest coverage you can buy without a sales call. The right answer once budget stops being the constraint.
Cost to start from zero5.5
Tracked prompts per dollar4.9
Engine coverage at that tier10.0
Getting data out7.8
How fast you can be running8.5
Holds up
All eight engines on the entry plan
Price published plainly
Scale tier adds API and white-label at $500
Loses points
No perpetual free tier
One brand at entry
Entry price
$100/mo (Growth)
Engines tracked
8 - ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok, Meta AI, DeepSeek, AI Overviews
The striking thing about this category is how little of it is searched for yet. "Generative engine optimization", the phrase the industry has settled on, returns no measurable search volume at all. The terms people actually type are older and blunter: answer engine optimization, AI SEO tools, LLM SEO.
That gap matters when you are buying. The vendors are selling against a vocabulary the market has not adopted, which is part of why so many of them describe what they do differently from one another - and why comparing them on published price and engine coverage is more useful than comparing their feature language.
Published figures from each vendor's own pricing page, checked 6 September 2026. "Not published" means the vendor does not state a price publicly - it is not an omission on our part, and it is scored as such.
What buyers in this category actually search for, per month
answer engine optimization
2400
ai seo tools
2400
llm seo
880
chatgpt seo
390
Google Ads search volume, United States, September 2026. Terms with no measurable volume are left out rather than shown as zero.
What we measured
Cost to start from zero35%
What you actually pay to get your first data, with no existing subscription behind it. A $50 add-on to a $129 suite is a $179 decision, and we score it as one.
Tracked prompts per dollar25%
How many questions you can monitor for what you pay at the entry tier. Prompts are the unit of work in this category and the spread between tools is enormous.
Engine coverage at that tier20%
How many answer engines are covered on the plan you would actually buy - not the enterprise tier used in the marketing.
Getting data out10%
API, CSV export, BI connectors. Matters more later than at the start, which is why it is weighted here the way it is.
How fast you can be running10%
Self-serve signup versus a sales call. A tool you cannot buy today is not a tool you can measure with this month.
Software that tracks whether AI assistants mention or cite your brand when people ask questions in your category, and which sources they pull from. It is measurement first - the optimisation part is what you do with the data.
How much do these tools cost?
Published entry prices run from $29 a month (Otterly.AI Lite) to $100 (Trakkr Growth) and $99 (Profound Starter, ChatGPT only). Several vendors publish no price at all. Figures checked 6 September 2026 - this category re-prices frequently.
What is the cheapest way to start tracking AI visibility?
Free, with LLM Brand Boost's permanent free tier at ten tracked prompts. The cheapest paid step in the category is its $39 Starter at fifty prompts; the cheapest standalone alternative is Otterly.AI at $29 for fifteen. Disclosure: LLM Brand Boost is ours.
Which one tracks the most AI engines?
Rankscale claims 17 or more but does not publish a price. Among tools with a published price, Trakkr covers eight engines on its $100 plan, and Ahrefs Brand Radar covers seven.
Is there a free option?
LLM Brand Boost is the only tool here with a permanent free tier - ten tracked prompts, no time limit. Everything else offers a trial that expires. Disclosure: LLM Brand Boost is operated by the people who publish this site.
Do I need one of these if I already use Ahrefs or Semrush?
Probably not at first. Both bundle AI visibility tracking into plans you may already pay for. Buy a dedicated tool when you need more engines, more prompts, or data the suites do not expose.
What is a prompt, and how many do I need?
A prompt is one tracked question, checked repeatedly over time. Fifteen is enough to learn whether you appear at all. Running a programme against competitors usually takes 50 to 150.
Why do so many vendors hide their pricing?
Because they are selling to enterprise procurement rather than to a marketer with a card. That is useful information: a tool that will not state a price before a call is telling you who it was built for.
Is generative engine optimization the same as SEO?
It overlaps but the retrieval is different. Traditional rankings and AI citations move independently - sites with no organic traffic at all get cited, and sites that rank well often do not. Measuring one does not tell you about the other.
How often do these prices change?
Constantly. The category is roughly eighteen months old and vendors repackage tiers regularly, which is why every figure on this site carries the date it was checked.
How did we score these tools?
Five weighted criteria for one buyer - somebody starting from zero without an enterprise budget: cost to start, tracked prompts per dollar, engine coverage at that tier, getting data out, and how fast you can be running. Built from published pricing, not from trials of every tool. A different buyer gets a different answer, which is what the chooser above is for.