8 best AI visibility checking tools in 2026: free checkers compared side by side

Here is the short version. The best AI visibility checking tools for a quick, free audit in 2026 are the Ahrefs Free AI Visibility Checker for a no-signup gut check, HubSpot AI Search Grader for a scored snapshot of how ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini describe you, and Amplitude AI Visibility for the biggest free prompt sample. Each one asks AI assistants questions in your category and reports whether your brand comes up, how often, and next to whom.

This guide covers one-off checkers: tools you run in a minute or two to answer "do AI assistants mention us at all?". If you need daily tracking of a fixed prompt set, read our guide to the best AI visibility tracking tools. If you already know you have a gap and want software that tells you what to fix, see the best AI visibility optimization tools. New to the topic? Start with what AI visibility actually means.

Key takeaways

• Run at least two checkers. In one comparison by SUSO Digital, the same brand (Nike) scored anywhere from 48 to 100 depending on the tool, because each tool runs different prompts against different models.
• Prompt count matters more than the score. A checker that runs 20 prompts gives you a much noisier number than one that runs 200. The worked example below shows by how much.
• Free usually means limited. Expect email gates, daily caps or a subset of AI models. None of the eight picks needs a credit card for a first result.
• Ignore "rank position" in AI answers. SparkToro research found AI tools almost never return the same list of brands in the same order, so treat mention rate as the useful signal.

How we ranked them

Nobody at The AI Future ran hands-on tests or took screenshots for this roundup. We compared each checker using its official product page, help docs and pricing pages, plus published independent tests (mainly the scored comparison by SUSO Digital, which also sells one of the tools, so we flag that where it matters), as of late October 2026. We weighed seven criteria:

• Friction: whether you need an account, a work email or nothing at all.
• Model coverage: which assistants it checks, such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot and Google AI Overviews.
• Sample size: how many prompts it runs, and whether it says so.
• Depth of output: mentions, citations, sentiment, competitors and prompt-level detail.
• Method transparency: live queries versus cached or modelled data, and whether the vendor explains it.
• Repeatability: how easy it is to rerun next month, or for a competitor.
• Upgrade path: what the paid version costs if the free check shows a problem.

Prices are in US dollars and come from vendor pages unless we say otherwise. Free limits change often, so check before you rely on one.

Our top picks at a glance

The best AI visibility checking tools in 2026, ranked

Ahrefs Free AI Visibility Checker – best for a fast no-signup check

Ahrefs Free AI Visibility Checker takes a brand name and shows how often ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and Google AI Overviews mention it, with no signup.

Why it stands out

Think of it as a sample pulled from Ahrefs' Brand Radar database. Ahrefs says it queries the assistants with "search-backed prompts", meaning questions derived from real search demand, and its page lists a prompt index of over 496 million monthly prompts. The report gives total mentions, a per-platform split, the top five topics, top five cited domains and top five cited pages. That last part is useful: if your own domain is missing from the cited list, you know where to look.

SUSO Digital scored it 62/100 and called it "the most repeatable tool for quick multi-brand checks", while noting it has no visibility score, competitor view or prompt-level detail. SUSO classed its data as not live, so read it as a recent snapshot rather than what ChatGPT says this minute.

Key features

• No account or email: type a brand name and get results in seconds.
• Broad coverage: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and AI Overviews.
• Cited sources: top domains and pages that appear next to your brand.
• Topic view: the five topics most linked to your brand.
• Works on any name: products, people and competitors, not just your company.

Ahrefs Free AI Visibility Checker pricing: Free checker → Brand Radar prompt packages from $50/month, or full Ahrefs plans from $129/month (checked October 2026). See pricing

Related: Best AI visibility tracking tools

HubSpot AI Search Grader – best for sentiment and reputation

HubSpot AI Search Grader (also called the AEO Grader) is a free, one-time check that scores how ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini represent your brand out of 100.

Why it stands out

Most checkers count mentions. HubSpot's grader also asks what the assistants say. Its score is built from five dimensions: sentiment (the highest weighted), presence quality, brand recognition, share of voice and market position, where it labels you a Leader, Challenger or Niche Player. HubSpot is open about the method: on its AEO product page it says the grader "Runs pre-set queries on your behalf – ChatGPT and Gemini pull from training data; Perplexity from live search."

SUSO Digital rated it 67/100 and picked it as best for PR and comms teams, but flagged that it asks for more inputs (location, products, industry) and does not state its prompt count.

Key features

• Score out of 100: split across five weighted dimensions.
• Sentiment layers: general, by topic and by source credibility.
• Competitive role: Leader, Challenger or Niche Player label.
• Three engines: ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini.
• Export: PDF and shareable link, per SUSO.

HubSpot AI Search Grader pricing: Free one-time grader → HubSpot AEO from $50/month, or $45/month paid yearly, with 25 tracked prompts (checked October 2026). See pricing

Related: Best AI visibility tracking tools · Best AI visibility optimization tools

Amplitude AI Visibility – best for a large prompt sample

Amplitude AI Visibility gives a free report with a visibility score, sentiment, competitor rankings and recommendations across ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews.

Why it stands out

The free report's advantage is sample size. SUSO Digital counted 225 prompts per run, by far the most of any free tool it compared (Mangools was next at 35). Amplitude says more than 27,000 brands had used the free tool and that customers had created over 70,000 reports in its first three months.

The trade-offs: Amplitude's docs describe it as measuring ChatGPT and Google AI Overview only, and the free report is "limited". SUSO scored it 71/100 and noted the results are modelled rather than live queries, with little explanation of method.

Key features

• Big sample: roughly 225 prompts per report, per SUSO.
• Competitor rankings: plus critical topics and related prompts.
• Sentiment: how AI talks about the brand, not just whether.
• Recommendations: personalised fixes in the free report.
• Analytics link: paid users can tie AI referrals to conversions.

Amplitude AI Visibility pricing: Free limited report → included in every Amplitude plan, per its docs; we did not verify Amplitude plan prices (checked October 2026). See details

Related: Best AI visibility tracking tools

Semrush Free AI Visibility Tool – best for a score plus competitors

Semrush Free AI Visibility Tool takes a domain and returns an AI Visibility Score, brand mentions and a breakdown across ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode and AI Overviews.

Why it stands out

Semrush positions the free checker as a front door to its AI Visibility Toolkit. The free result lists your score, total mentions, per-platform split, the pages on your site that drive the most AI citations, topics and prompts where you appear, and an estimated audience. That makes it the most "SEO shaped" of the free checkers.

SUSO Digital gave it 60/100 and reported a cap of three checks per day, no export and no sentiment. If you check many client brands, that cap is the main constraint.

Key features

• AI Visibility Score: one number across platforms.
• Platform split: ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode and AI Overviews.
• Cited pages: which of your URLs AI answers lean on.
• Audience estimate: rough reach through AI search.
• Domain input: works from a URL rather than a brand name.

Semrush Free AI Visibility Tool pricing: Free checker → SEO plan with AI search tracking from $139/month, or $199/month for Starter SEO + AI Search (checked October 2026). See pricing

Related: Best AI visibility tracking tools

SUSO Digital AI Search Visibility Checker – best for a shareable PDF audit

SUSO Digital AI Search Visibility Checker is a free, email-gated audit from an SEO agency that scores your AI visibility and breaks it into six areas, including prompt visibility and presence in training data.

Why it stands out

SUSO says the tool analyses over 100 signals. In its own write-up, it describes 20 live queries across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude, with sentiment, citations, competitors and a PDF emailed to you, plus optional reports every two weeks.

Read the rating carefully. SUSO ranked its own checker first at 80/100 and discloses that it is "our own product". We have not found an independent test that confirms the score, so we place it mid-table: the feature list is strong, but 20 prompts is a small sample (see the worked example below).

Key features

• Live queries: runs prompts on four assistants at check time.
• Six-part breakdown: including industry and prompt visibility.
• PDF report: emailed, easy to forward to a client.
• Sentiment and citations: in the free audit.
• Fortnightly re-runs: optional, without redoing the form.

SUSO Digital AI Search Visibility Checker pricing: Free (email-gated); SUSO sells agency services on request (checked October 2026). See the tool

Related: Best AI visibility optimization tools

Mangools AI Search Grader – best for the widest model mix

Mangools AI Search Grader takes a brand and a niche description, generates prompts and checks them across up to seven models, returning a 0–100 AI Search Score.

Why it stands out

Mangools is the only checker here that looks beyond the big consumer assistants. Its FAQ lists ChatGPT (GPT-5 Nano), Mistral Small and Llama 3.3 for anyone, with DeepSeek V3, Claude (Haiku 4.5) and Gemini (2.5 Flash Lite) unlocked by a free account. The score combines visibility (share of prompts where you appear in the top 20) and average position, weighted by each model's market share. Mangools says a run takes under 60 seconds.

Note the model choice: these are small, cheap API models, not the full versions people use in the ChatGPT app. SUSO scored it 47/100, citing no citations, no competitor view and no export, and recorded Nike scoring 100 here versus 48 elsewhere.

Key features

• Up to seven models: including DeepSeek, Mistral and Llama.
• Niche input: you describe the category, it writes the prompts.
• Weighted score: visibility plus ranking, adjusted for market share.
• Competitor lookups: run any rival brand the same way.
• Quick: results in under a minute, per Mangools.

Mangools AI Search Grader pricing: Free with limits → Mangools SEO plans from $30.50/month, or $18.85/month billed annually, according to SUSO Digital (checked October 2026). See pricing

Related: Best AI visibility tracking tools

Ubersuggest AI Search Visibility – best for local and custom prompts

Ubersuggest AI Search Visibility from Neil Patel checks how often your brand is named and cited for prompts built from your topic, language and location, and lets you edit those prompts.

Why it stands out

Most free checkers pick prompts for you. Ubersuggest shows a "Confirm Your Prompts" step where you can edit each prompt individually before the run, and you set the language and location. For a local business or a brand selling in several countries, that is the difference between a generic answer and a relevant one.

SUSO scored it 57/100. It reported that you need a free account with limited credits, that the tool checks ChatGPT and Gemini, and that paid plans start at $12/month for 10 prompts.

Key features

• Editable prompts: confirm or rewrite each question.
• Language and location: set the market you compete in.
• Competitor view: who appears where you do not.
• Citations: sources behind each answer.
• Topic-first setup: a specific niche gives better prompts.

Ubersuggest AI Search Visibility pricing: Free credits with an account → paid plans from $12/month, according to SUSO Digital (checked October 2026). See the tool

Related: Best AI visibility tracking tools

Am I Visible on AI – best for AI crawler readiness

Am I Visible on AI is a free technical audit that checks whether AI crawlers can reach and read your site, rather than whether assistants mention you.

Why it stands out

This one answers a different question, and it is worth asking first. The tool checks your robots.txt for GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot, looks at headings and semantic HTML, HTTPS and sitemaps, and scans for FAQ, HowTo and Product schema. A site that blocks GPTBot by accident will not be cited in ChatGPT search results no matter how good its content is.

SUSO scored it 44/100 as a visibility checker and was clear that "a high score doesn’t mean you’re actually appearing in responses." Use it as a pre-flight check, then run one of the tools above.

Key features

• Crawler access: GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot in robots.txt.
• Content structure: headings and semantic HTML.
• Technical basics: HTTPS and sitemaps.
• Schema scan: FAQ, HowTo and Product markup.
• Fixes: a short list of actions, per SUSO.

Am I Visible on AI pricing: Free; no paid plans listed (checked October 2026). See the tool

Related: Best AI visibility optimization tools

How to choose the right AI visibility checking tools

Start from the question you need answered, then pick the cheapest tool that answers it.

Check the prompt count before the score

Here is the worked example. Say a checker runs 20 prompts and your brand appears in 7. That is a 35% mention rate. But with 20 samples, the 95% margin of error is about ±21 points (1.96 × √(0.35 × 0.65 / 20) ≈ 0.21), so your true rate could be anywhere from roughly 14% to 56%. Run 225 prompts with the same 35% rate and the margin shrinks to about ±6 points. That is why a 225-prompt report and a 20-prompt report can disagree, and why a 10-point jump on a small checker may be pure noise.

Know whether results are live or modelled

SUSO found that only three of the nine tools it compared query AI systems live; the rest use cached data or estimates. HubSpot says its grader uses training data for ChatGPT and Gemini and live search for Perplexity. Live checks reflect today's answers but vary run to run; modelled checks are steadier but can lag.

Match the models to your buyers

A B2B software brand probably cares most about ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews. A developer tool may care about Claude or open-weight models, which only Mangools covers here. A Microsoft-heavy audience makes Copilot worth checking, which points to Ahrefs.

Check a competitor with the same tool

An absolute score means little. A score next to two rivals, from the same tool on the same day, tells you whether you have a gap. Ahrefs and Mangools make this easy because they accept any brand name.

Where it breaks

AI visibility checkers measure something genuinely unstable. In SparkToro's study with Gumshoe.ai, there was "a <1 in 100 chance that ChatGPT or Google’s AI, if asked 100X, will give you the same list of brands in any two responses," and roughly 1 in 1,000 for the same order. The author concluded that visibility percentage "across dozens to hundreds of prompts run multiple times is a reasonable metric", but that tracking rank position is not.

In practice, that means four failure modes:

• Small samples: 1 to 35 prompts give a directional hint, not a measurement.
• Prompts you did not write: auto-generated questions may not match what your buyers ask.
• Model mismatch: a small API model is not the same as the ChatGPT app with search on.
• Score definitions differ: a 62 on one tool and a 62 on another are not comparable.

Free vs paid: what you actually get

Free checkers answer "where do we stand today?". Paid tools answer "is it changing, and why?". The table sums up the typical split across the picks above.

The cheapest upgrades we found are HubSpot AEO at $50/month for 25 prompts across three engines, and Ahrefs Brand Radar packages from $50/month. If a free check shows you are missing and a competitor is not, that is the point where paying for tracking makes sense. Our AI visibility tracking tool roundup compares those options, and you can also look at Otterly AI alternatives and Peec AI alternatives.

Final verdict

For a first look, run Am I Visible on AI to rule out blocked crawlers, then the Ahrefs checker for a no-signup mention count. Add HubSpot's grader if you care about how assistants describe you, and Amplitude if you want a sample large enough to trust. Use the same tool on two competitors before drawing conclusions. Then repeat the check monthly. If the numbers stay low or swing a lot, move to a paid tracker with your own prompts, and use an optimization tool to work on the gaps. For the strategy side, read our guide to SEO using generative AI.

FAQ

What are AI visibility checking tools?

AI visibility checking tools ask assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity questions in your category and report whether your brand is mentioned, how often and alongside which competitors. Free checkers give a one-time snapshot. Paid trackers repeat the same prompts over time so you can see trends, as Semrush and HubSpot describe on their product pages.

Which is the best free AI visibility checking tool?

For speed, the Ahrefs checker needs no signup and covers five AI surfaces. For sentiment, HubSpot's AI Search Grader scores how assistants describe you. For statistical weight, Amplitude's free report runs around 225 prompts, according to SUSO Digital. Many teams run two of them and compare, since scores differ between tools.

Why do different checkers give my brand different scores?

Each tool runs a different number of prompts, on different models, and defines its score differently. SUSO Digital found Nike scored 48 on one checker and 100 on another. Compare tools on the same metric, ideally mention rate, and always benchmark against a competitor using the same tool on the same day.

How often should I check my AI visibility?

Monthly is a sensible baseline for most brands. Check more often, every week or two, if you are actively publishing content or running PR aimed at AI answers. Because AI answers vary run to run, look at trends across several checks rather than reacting to a single result.

Can I check a competitor's AI visibility for free?

Yes, partly. Ahrefs and Mangools accept any brand name, so you can run a rival through the same check. Semrush, HubSpot, Amplitude and Ubersuggest also show competitors in their results. For a fair comparison, use the same tool, settings and day for both brands.