Best AI Visibility Checkers: Free and Paid Ways to See If AI Mentions You

A client forwarded me a ChatGPT answer last month. Their competitor was recommended three times. They weren't mentioned once. Their organic rankings were fine. Their Google Ads were running. But in AI search, they were invisible. That's the problem a good ai visibility checker is built to solve — and it's why this category of tools went from niche curiosity to must-have almost overnight.

This guide breaks down every meaningful option I've found, free and paid. I'll cover what each tool actually checks, who it's best for, and — honestly — where it falls short. The short version: free tools are great for a one-time snapshot. If you want to track changes and catch shifts before they hurt revenue, you'll need continuous monitoring.

How We Evaluated These Tools

Not every tool calling itself an "AI visibility" product is checking the same thing. I looked at five criteria to make these comparisons fair.

• Engines covered — Does it check ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and Google AI Overviews, or just one?
• SEO + GEO together vs. point solution — Can it connect AI mentions to underlying technical or content signals, or is it monitoring only?
• Reporting and white-label — Can agencies deliver this data to clients under their own brand?
• One-time audit vs. continuous tracking — Is this a snapshot or an always-on signal?
• Pricing model — Flat, per-seat, usage-based, or free?

Free AI Visibility Checkers

Start here. If you've never checked your AI visibility before, a free tool gives you a real answer in under two minutes. No commitment required.

Aergos Free AI Visibility Audit

Aergos is our platform, so take the placement with that in mind — here's exactly what it does and doesn't do.

The free AI visibility audit at aergos.ai/tools/ai-visibility-audit is the fastest on-page readiness check I've seen. You drop in a URL, and it instantly scans your robots.txt, sitemap.xml, and llms.txt — the file that tells AI crawlers how to handle your content — plus a set of on-page basics. No signup. No credit card. Done in seconds.

What it checks: whether your site is technically open to AI crawlers, whether your llms.txt is present and properly formatted, whether your sitemap is findable, and a handful of on-page signals that affect AI citation likelihood. What it doesn't do: it won't tell you if you're actually being cited right now in live ChatGPT or Perplexity responses. That's a monitoring function — covered below in the paid section.

Best for: Anyone who wants a 60-second answer to "is my site even set up to be found by AI?" before investing in ongoing monitoring.

Ahrefs AI Visibility Checker

Ahrefs built a free AI visibility tool that takes a different angle. Instead of auditing your technical setup, it queries AI platforms and reports back on how often a given domain surfaces in AI-generated answers for tracked keywords. It's a sampling approach — it tests a set of prompts and measures share of voice.

The data comes from Ahrefs' own prompt-testing infrastructure, and according to Ahrefs' blog on AI visibility, the methodology is transparent about what it is: a relative benchmark, not a live crawl of every AI response. Useful for a competitive snapshot. Less useful if you need granular tracking across dozens of topics.

Best for: SEOs who already use Ahrefs and want a quick competitive benchmark on AI share of voice without paying extra.

The Manual Prompt-Testing Method

Don't underestimate this. I still do it. Open ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. Ask the questions your customers would actually type: "What's the best [your product category] for [your use case]?" or "Who are the top [your service] providers in [your city]?" Screenshot the results. Note who gets mentioned and where.

It's not scalable. It's not trackable over time. And yes, results vary by session and user, so a single test isn't statistically significant. But it's free, it takes ten minutes, and it tells you immediately whether you're in the conversation at all. Think of it as a sanity check, not a strategy.

Best for: Small business owners or early-stage marketers who want a gut-check before committing to any tool spend.

Paid AI Visibility Monitoring Platforms

Here's the honest gap in every free option: they're point-in-time. AI search results shift constantly. A brand that got cited last week might not get cited this week if a competitor published better content or earned a new authoritative mention. Continuous monitoring is what bridges that gap.

Aergos Platform

The full Aergos platform is where the free audit connects to an ongoing strategy. It tracks brand citations across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and Google AI Overviews — all in one dashboard alongside traditional rank tracking. So you're not toggling between five tools to understand your full search presence.

The part agencies tend to care most about: white-label SEO reports and a branded client portal. You can deliver AI visibility data under your agency's name without building the infrastructure yourself. The platform also runs technical crawls with AI-search-readiness checks — robots.txt, sitemap, llms.txt, Core Web Vitals — plus a Content Studio for briefs and drafts, and competitor AI-citation gap analysis so you can see exactly where rivals are getting picked up and you're not.

Pricing is flat monthly with no per-seat fees, which matters when you're running ten client accounts and don't want to do math every time you add a user. There's also an MCP server integration, so you can drive Aergos reporting directly from Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible workflow.

Best for: Agencies or in-house teams who need classic SEO and AI visibility in one place, want white-label reporting, and don't want separate subscriptions for every data layer.

Profound

Profound positions itself as an enterprise-grade AI search monitoring platform. It's built around the idea of tracking how large language models represent your brand and category — which prompts surface you, what sentiment the AI assigns, and how that compares to competitors. The focus is on brand intelligence at scale.

From what I've seen on the conference circuit, Profound tends to resonate with larger brands and enterprise marketing teams who are already investing heavily in brand measurement. It's not positioned as an SEO tool — it sits closer to the brand analytics category.

Best for: Enterprise brands with a dedicated brand strategy function who want deep AI sentiment and share-of-voice tracking.

Peec AI

Peec AI approaches AI visibility from a share-of-voice angle. It tests a defined set of prompts across multiple AI platforms and tracks how often your brand appears versus competitors. The reporting is clean and the setup is relatively fast compared to heavier enterprise platforms.

The tool is newer, and the feature set is still growing, but it's one of the more approachable paid options if you're a mid-market brand or agency that wants purpose-built AI monitoring without enterprise pricing.

Best for: Mid-market teams and agencies that want dedicated AI share-of-voice tracking at a more accessible price point.

Otterly.AI

Otterly.AI is one of the earlier dedicated players in this space. It monitors brand mentions across AI platforms using a prompt-library approach — you define the topics and questions relevant to your business, and it checks them on a recurring basis. The focus is on consistent tracking over time, not one-time audits.

The interface is practical and the setup doesn't require a technical background, which makes it a reasonable starting point for in-house marketers who are new to GEO (generative engine optimization) and want something they can manage themselves.

Best for: In-house marketers and small-to-mid agencies who want a dedicated, focused AI monitoring tool with a manageable learning curve.

One-Time Audit vs. Continuous Monitoring: What You Actually Need

This is the question worth answering before you spend a dollar. A one-time audit tells you your current state. Continuous monitoring tells you whether that state is changing — and why.

If you've never checked your AI visibility before, start with a free audit. Fix the obvious technical gaps — no llms.txt, blocked crawlers, missing sitemap. That's table stakes. Then decide if ongoing monitoring makes sense for your business model.

Continuous monitoring earns its cost when: you're in a competitive category where AI recommendations drive real purchase decisions, you're running content campaigns and need to know if they're moving the needle in AI results, or you're an agency accountable for AI visibility as part of a client deliverable.

According to SparkToro's research on zero-click search trends, a growing share of searches result in no click at all — the answer is delivered in the interface. AI platforms accelerate that trend. If the AI never mentions you, you're not losing a ranking. You're being written out of the conversation entirely.

How to Choose the Right Tool for Your Situation

Not every buyer needs the same thing. Here's a fast-read map.

• You're a small business owner doing your own SEO — Start with the free Aergos audit and the manual prompt-testing method. That's enough to know if you have a problem worth solving.
• You're an agency managing multiple clients — You need white-label reporting and multi-client monitoring. Aergos was built for that workflow. Peec AI is worth evaluating as a secondary option.
• You're an in-house marketer at a growing company — Otterly.AI or Peec AI give you focused AI monitoring you can manage independently. Aergos makes sense if you want AI visibility alongside your traditional SEO data in one dashboard.
• You're enterprise with a dedicated brand team — Profound's depth on brand sentiment and AI representation at scale is worth a look.
• You already use Ahrefs — Their free checker is a no-brainer first step before committing to any paid tool.

Where to Start Right Now

Here's a simple three-step sequence I'd give any marketer starting from zero.

1. Run the free technical audit first. Go to aergos.ai/tools/ai-visibility-audit, drop in your domain, and find out if your site is even readable by AI crawlers. Fix anything flagged — especially a missing or misconfigured llms.txt.
2. Do a manual prompt test. Open ChatGPT and Perplexity and ask the five questions your best customers would ask. Note who gets mentioned. If it's not you, note who it is.
3. Decide if continuous monitoring is worth it. If your category is competitive and AI recommendations influence buyer decisions, pick a paid platform that fits your budget and workflow. If you're just curious, the free tools are genuinely enough for now.

AI search visibility isn't a future problem. It's a right-now problem for a lot of businesses that haven't checked yet. The good news is that starting is free and takes less time than reading this article.