Verified pricing
AI visibility tool pricing, verified: what 11 tools actually cost in September 2026
Prefer has the lowest published paid price of the 11 AI visibility tools in this index: $24 a month for Starter, with all five AI engines and 15 AI articles a month included. Across the index, prices run from free to $800 a month. Two tools have genuine free tiers (AthenaHQ, AirOps), paid plans start at $24 to $29 (Prefer, Otterly), most dedicated trackers cluster at $95 to $99 (Peec AI, PromptWatch, Semrush), and enterprise-leaning platforms run $250 to $800. The meter, not the sticker, sets the real cost: a $95 plan can mean three AI models, plus $30 a month for each one you add. And one vendor, Profound, lists no paid price for brands: its brands view offers a free trial or a custom Enterprise quote, and the only $99 and $399 on its page (checked 16 September 2026) are agency prices.
Below: entry, mid and top tiers for every tracked platform, the meter that decides the real cost, and a source link plus verified-on date for every figure. Competitor prices last verified 16 to 23 September 2026, every row dated and linked to the vendor's own pricing page. One of the eleven is our product, and the row says so.
- Lowest published paid entry
- Prefer Starter, $24 a month30 prompts, all five engines, 15 AI articles a month. Two tools start free (AthenaHQ, AirOps); Profound sells only a custom quote.
- Lowest price per tracked prompt
- Prefer, $0.80 per prompt a monthEntry price divided by entry prompts, dollar-priced tiers only. Next: Peec AI $1.90, PromptWatch $1.90.
- Best free way in
- AthenaHQ Essential (free, 300 credits, 5 models)The only usable free tier in the index. Prefer's free audit is a one-off read; its trial is time-boxed.
Fig. 01
Entry-tier monthly price, all 11 tools
PreferThe full table
Monthly billing unless marked. "Per prompt" is the entry price divided by the prompts that tier includes, per month; n/a where no price is published or the meter is credits. "The meter" is what actually limits the plan. Method: Rendered = checked in a rendered browser; Fetched HTML = figures read from the page source (no claims are made about anything absent from those pages).
| Tool | Entry | Per prompt | Mid | Top | Free way in | The meter | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Prefer (our product) tryprefer.com | $24 (Starter) | $0.80 | $129 (Growth) | $399 (Scale); Enterprise custom | Free audit + free trial | Prompts by tier. All five engines and article drafting on every plan; no per-engine add-ons, no credits, no overage billing | Rendered12 September 2026 |
 Otterly.AI otterly.ai | $29 (Lite, 15 prompts, 4 engines) | $1.93 | Standard $189 (100 prompts) | Premium $489 (400 prompts); Enterprise custom, from 1,000 prompts | Free trial | Prompts; Claude, AI Mode and Gemini are paid add-ons ($9 to $439/mo) | Rendered23 August 2026 |
 LLM Pulse llmpulse.ai | 49 EUR (Starter, 50 prompts, 5 models) | EUR 0.98 | Growth 99 EUR; Scale 299 EUR (450 prompts) | Scale++ 1,899 EUR; Partner plans up to 5,999 EUR | 14-day free trial | Priced in euros; shown as listed, not converted. Weekly tracking at these prices; daily tracking is 79, 149 and 449 EUR a month | Rendered19 September 2026 |
 Peec AI peec.ai | $95 (Starter, 50 prompts) | $1.90 | Pro $245 | Advanced $495; Enterprise custom (card says up to 13 models; 14 listed) | Free trial | 3 of 6 models on each plan (on 19 Sep: ChatGPT, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Copilot, Naver AI, Gemini; Perplexity and Claude on Enterprise); each extra model $30, $70 or $140/mo by tier. On 23 Aug the page defaulted to annual display ($80/$205/$420) | Rendered16 and 19 September 2026 |
 PromptWatch promptwatch.com | $95 (Essential, 50 prompts, 4 models, no articles) | $1.90 | Professional $245 (150 prompts, 5 articles) | Business $579 (350 prompts, 10 articles); agency $199 to $799 | 7-day trial (the $0 plan was removed Aug 2026) | Agent credits, article quotas (0/5/10 per mo), 4 of 11 models | Rendered23 September 2026 |
 Profound tryprofound.com | Free trial only (50 prompts, run daily for 7 days, on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews) | n/a | None published for brands | Enterprise custom (up to 9 answer engines) | Free trial, 50 prompts daily for 7 days on three engines | No paid self-serve brand plan: the brands view offers a free trial or an Enterprise quote. The agencies view publishes Agency Growth at $99/mo plus $399/mo per added client workspace | Rendered23 September 2026 |
 Semrush semrush.com | $99 (AI Visibility toolkit, Base, per domain, 25 prompts) | $3.96 | Semrush One (SEO + AI) Starter $199 (50 prompts); Pro+ $299 (100) | Semrush One Advanced $549 (200 prompts); Enterprise custom | 7-day trial (toolkit); free trial on Semrush One Starter and Pro+ | Prompts tracked daily. Two routes: the standalone toolkit, 1 domain on ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Gemini and Perplexity per Semrush's plan comparison (19 Sep), or AI visibility bundled into the Semrush One SEO suite (19 Sep) | Rendered16 and 19 September 2026 |
 Scrunch AI scrunch.com | $250 (Core, 125 prompts) | $2.00 | Agency Core $500 (250 prompts, 3 brand + 3 pitch workspaces) | Enterprise custom (9 engines, AXP) | 7-day trial | Prompts, seats, site audits; Claude and Gemini are Enterprise-only. Structure changed again by 19 Sep (agency track added) | Rendered5 and 19 September 2026 |
 AthenaHQ athenahq.ai | Free (Essential, 300 credits, 5 models); Starter $295 | n/a | Starter $295 (3,600 credits, 11 models) | Enterprise custom | Genuine free tier | Credits (1 = 1 AI response); on Starter, API and extra credits are unpriced add-ons; Enterprise includes API | Rendered16 and 19 September 2026 |
 AirOps airops.com | Free start (Solo, ChatGPT insights only) | n/a | Pro (multi-engine, free start) | Enterprise custom | Free starts on Solo and Pro | Content tasks (35,000 Solo / 100,000 Pro) and prompts; no dollar figure published on any tier | Rendered5 and 23 September 2026 |
 Evertune evertune.ai | $800 (Pro, 100,000 prompts across 11 models) | n/a | Pro $800 (25 articles/mo, daily to monthly tracking) | Enterprise custom (unlimited content, SSO) | Demo-led; no self-serve trial seen | Demo-led enterprise motion; the 100,000 tracked prompts is a bulk bank, not a per-prompt-priced allowance, so no per-prompt figure is computed | Rendered23 September 2026 |
How to read this table
The sticker is not the price; the meter is. The dedicated platforms at $95 to $99 each ration something different: Peec AI includes 3 models on each plan and charges $30 to $140 a month for each extra one (16 September 2026; on 19 September the six to choose from were ChatGPT, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Copilot, Naver AI and Gemini, with Perplexity on Enterprise), PromptWatch tracks 4 of 11 models and includes no articles at entry, and Semrush's $99 AI Visibility toolkit covers a single domain. Comparing entry stickers without the meters is how teams end up surprised at renewal.
Why prices for the same tool disagree across the web. Third-party tables mix monthly and annual billing (an annual-plan Profound figure of $82.50 a month is still quoted for a plan that no longer exists), quote a plan that was withdrawn, or count an add-on as base price. On 23 September 2026 the pages that ChatGPT cites for these questions gave Peec AI's entry as anything from $49 to $95 and Profound's as anything from $79 to $499, and none of them is the vendor's page today. That is why every row here links to the vendor's own pricing URL with the date we read it, and why the per-prompt column is arithmetic on those figures rather than a claim.
Prices in this category change within weeks, which is why every row here carries a date. Profound's brand Starter ($99) and Growth ($399) plans were still on its page on 14 September 2026 and gone by our 16 September check, so the $99 and $399 still quoted widely across this category no longer describe a brand plan. Brands now get a free trial or an Enterprise quote, and the only $99 and $399 left on Profound's page are agency prices. Semrush is easy to misread for a different reason: it sells AI visibility two ways. The standalone AI Visibility toolkit is $99 a month per domain with 25 prompts tracked daily (checked 16 September 2026). The Semrush One bundles add AI visibility to its SEO suite: Starter $199, Pro+ $299 and Advanced $549, with 50, 100 and 200 prompts tracked daily (checked 19 September 2026). If you are holding a comparison table older than a few weeks, assume at least one row in it is wrong.
Few tools in this category publish how much they will write. Across all eleven tools, only three publish a monthly article allowance you can count: $24 Prefer Starter includes 15 articles a month (our product), PromptWatch includes none at its $95 Essential tier and 5 a month at $245, and Evertune's $800 Pro includes 25. AthenaHQ's content agent starts at its $295 tier without a published count, and Profound's agents are credit-metered with no published article count. AirOps generates content but publishes no prices. Otterly, LLM Pulse, Peec AI and Scrunch publish no article allowance at any tier. So the next cheapest plan in this table that states it includes any articles is PromptWatch's, at $245 for 5 a month.
That matters more than the subscription gap. Whatever you pay per article, multiply it by the number you need each month and the writing usually dwarfs the tool. Our cost calculator does that arithmetic with your own rates, and charges you for the time a person still spends editing a draft, because a drafted article is a first draft.
Free means different things. AthenaHQ's free tier is usable indefinitely (300 credits across five models). AirOps' free start is ChatGPT-only insights. Profound's free trial runs 50 prompts daily for 7 days, on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. Everything else is a time-boxed trial, and PromptWatch removed its $0 plan in August 2026.
For what each tool actually does beyond the price, see the ranked best AI visibility tools list, the head-to-head comparisons, and the brand-by-brand alternatives guides.
Questions, asked plainly
How much do AI search visibility tools cost?
From free to $800 a month at the entry tier, verified 16 to 23 September 2026. Prefer's Starter is $24 a month with 30 prompts on all five engines. The dedicated trackers cluster at $95 to $99 (Peec AI, PromptWatch, Semrush's toolkit), Otterly starts at $29 for 15 prompts, Scrunch at $250, Evertune at $800, and Profound publishes no brand price at all. The meter (prompts, models, credits) decides the real bill more than the sticker.
Is there a cheaper alternative to Profound for monitoring AI search visibility?
Every tool in this index with a published price is cheaper than a custom Enterprise quote, and Profound lists no other paid brand plan (its pricing page, rendered 23 September 2026, shows a free 7-day trial and Enterprise). Prefer, at $24 a month, is the lowest published paid entry here and covers five engines; Otterly ($29, 15 prompts, 4 engines) and Peec AI ($95, 50 prompts, 3 models) are the other low entries. If you need Profound's real-user prompt volumes or nine-engine coverage, nothing at these prices replaces that; if you need weekly tracking and the work done, the cheaper tools do.
What is the best AI visibility tool for a small marketing team on a budget?
Prefer, if the team wants tracking and content in one plan: $24 a month buys 30 prompts on all five engines plus 15 AI articles, and there is no engine add-on to price in later. Otterly at $29 is the cheapest sticker but tracks 4 engines at entry with Claude, Gemini and AI Mode sold as add-ons from $9 a month each. AthenaHQ's free tier is the right answer for a team with no budget at all. We are one of the eleven and say so in the table.
What is the cheapest AI visibility tool in 2026?
Prefer has the cheapest published paid plan in this index: Starter at $24 a month, with all five AI engines (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode) and 15 AI articles a month included. Two tools start at zero: AthenaHQ has a genuine free tier (300 credits across five models) and AirOps has a free start (ChatGPT insights only). The next paid entries are Otterly's Lite at $29 with 15 prompts and LLM Pulse at 49 EUR, and most dedicated platforms cluster at $95 to $99 for their entry plan. Prefer is also the only paid plan under $95 in this index that includes article drafting rather than monitoring alone.
What is the cheapest AI visibility tool that also does the work?
Prefer, at $24 a month, with all five AI engines and 15 AI articles a month included. Every other platform in this table that acts on what it finds rather than only reporting it starts far higher: PromptWatch's first plan with articles is $245, Scrunch is $250, AthenaHQ's action tier is $295, and Evertune is $800. The cheaper tools below $95 (Otterly, LLM Pulse) are monitoring-focused, so the work is still yours to do.
Why do AI visibility tools with the same sticker price cost so differently in practice?
Because the meters differ. A $95 plan can include 3 AI models, with each extra one $30 a month (Peec AI Starter, checked 16 September 2026), or 4 of 11 models with no content generation (PromptWatch), and a $99 plan can cover a single domain (Semrush's AI Visibility toolkit). Weekly versus daily tracking, credit systems, article quotas and paid engine add-ons change the effective price more than the sticker does. One vendor, Profound, publishes no paid brand price, so the only way to learn it is to ask for an Enterprise quote. Prefer keeps the meter simple: prompts by tier, with all five engines and article drafting on every plan and no credits or per-engine add-ons.
How were these prices verified?
Prefer read each vendor's public pricing page in a rendered browser on the date shown in its row (some prices only render client-side, so fetched HTML is never enough). Every competitor row was verified between 16 and 23 September 2026: Otterly, PromptWatch, Evertune, AirOps and Profound on 23 September 2026; Semrush One, Peec AI, LLM Pulse, AthenaHQ and Scrunch on 19 September; Semrush's toolkit on 16 September. Prefer's own figures come from the published price list. Every row links to the source page so you can re-check it yourself, and we re-read the pages in our weekly loop.
Do these prices include annual discounts?
No. The table quotes monthly billing wherever the vendor displays it, and says so where a vendor defaulted to the annual display at our check (Peec AI, 23 August 2026). LLM Pulse charges in euros, and the table shows its euro prices as listed rather than converting them. Annual discounts in this category typically run 15 to 17 percent.
Which plans include written content, and at what price?
Prefer's $24 Starter includes 15 articles a month, the lowest-priced plan in this index with a published article allowance. Two other tools publish a countable monthly allowance: PromptWatch includes none at its $95 Essential tier and five a month at $245 (checked August 2026), and Evertune's $800 Pro includes 25. AthenaHQ's content agent starts at its $295 tier with no published count, Profound's agents are credit-metered with no published article count, and AirOps generates content but publishes no prices. Otterly, LLM Pulse, Peec AI and Scrunch publish no article allowance at any tier, so the writing stays with your team.
Which tools include acting on the findings, not just tracking?
Prefer includes drafting from its $24 entry plan and adds off-page execution and per-change verification. PromptWatch (metered articles and agents), AthenaHQ (content agent, on-page and off-page actions from Starter), Profound (content agents), AirOps and Evertune (content generation) also act on what they find. Peec AI, Otterly, LLM Pulse and Scrunch are monitoring-focused.