Best AEO Tracking Tools in 2026: 12 AI Rank Trackers, Free and Paid

How this list was made

We included tools that appear in several published AEO and GEO tool roundups, plus the free checkers from large SEO platforms, because many people searching for an AI rank tracker want to try one before paying. Every price and free option comes from the vendor’s own pricing page on November 2, 2026. Tools change their plans often, so confirm the price before you buy. We did not run a paid head-to-head test of every tool; the table compares what each vendor publishes.

Digraph publishes this page and appears first. Digraph is an AI marketing agency with its own measurement platform, so it competes with the tools below for some buyers.

Free AI visibility tools: what you actually get

Free options fall into three groups. Each answers a different question, and none of them replaces ongoing tracking on its own.

• One-time checkers (Ahrefs, Semrush, HubSpot AEO Grader): enter a brand or domain and get a snapshot of mentions, competitors and cited sources. Good for a first look; they do not show change over time.
• Free plans and trials (AthenaHQ Essential, Digraph’s 14-day trial, Profound, Scrunch, Promptmonitor, OtterlyAI): real prompt tracking with limits on credits, prompts or days. Good for testing whether a tool’s reports are useful before you pay.
• Do-it-yourself (a spreadsheet plus the ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity APIs): free apart from API costs, fully under your control, but you have to build the prompt list, the repeat runs and the reporting yourself.
• Free reports with analysis (Digraph’s free AI visibility report): a person reviews how AI systems describe your brand and lists what to fix first.

Which AI rank tracker fits which team

Price matters less than fit. Start from what you need to decide, then pick the cheapest tool that answers it.

• You only want to know where you stand today: use a free checker from Ahrefs, Semrush or HubSpot.
• You already pay for an SEO suite: add Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit or Ahrefs Brand Radar so search and AI data sit in one place.
• You want weekly tracking for under $100 a month: OtterlyAI, Promptmonitor, Evertune Starter, Peec AI or Digraph Standard.
• You need personas, many brands or many markets: Scrunch, AthenaHQ Starter or Profound Enterprise.
• You want someone to do the work, not just report it: an AI marketing agency such as Digraph, or another agency from our GEO agency comparison.

What an AEO tracking tool should measure

Most tools show a visibility score. The score is only useful if you can see what sits behind it. Check these six points in any trial.

• Mentions and recommendations: does the answer name your brand, and does it recommend it or just list it?
• Competitors: which brands appear instead of you, for the same questions?
• Cited sources: which pages and sites do the answers rely on? These are the pages to improve or get featured on.
• Repeat runs: how many times is each question asked? One run per question is a sample of one.
• Full answers: can you read the exact answer behind each data point?
• Market and language: can you track the countries and languages your buyers use?

Why one check is not enough

AI answers change from one run to the next, even for the same question asked minutes apart. A tool that asks each question once can show your brand as present one week and absent the next with nothing having changed. Look for tools that ask each question several times and report how often you appear, not a single yes or no. Digraph, for example, asks each question up to 250 times; other tools state their own run counts on their pricing pages.

How to track AI visibility for free

If you have no budget yet, you can build a basic AEO tracking routine in an afternoon.

• Write 10 to 20 questions a buyer would ask before choosing a product like yours, such as “best [category] for [use case]”.
• Ask each question in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google (to see AI Overviews), logged out or in a private window, several times each.
• Record in a spreadsheet whether your brand is named, its position in the list, which competitors appear and which sources are cited.
• Run a free checker from Ahrefs, Semrush or HubSpot once a month to compare with your own notes.
• Repeat the same questions every two to four weeks and compare patterns, not single answers.

Tool or agency?

A tracking tool tells you where you stand and which sources AI systems use. It does not write the content, earn the reviews or win the mentions that change the answer. If your team has time to do that work, a tool is enough. If it does not, an agency that tracks and does the work is usually cheaper than a tool plus the hours it creates. Digraph offers both: the platform on its own from $99 a month after a 14-day free trial, or the platform with our team doing the work.

The 12 tools at a glance

Common questions

Sources and methodology

Digraph publishes this guidance and provides AI visibility software. Worked examples are illustrative unless explicitly identified as measured results. A research sample does not establish total market coverage or guarantee future recommendations.

• Ahrefs: Free AI Visibility Checker
• Semrush: AI Search Visibility Checker
• Semrush Knowledge Base: AI Visibility Toolkit
• HubSpot: AEO Grader
• AthenaHQ: Pricing
• OtterlyAI: Pricing
• Promptmonitor: Pricing
• Evertune: Pricing
• Peec AI: Pricing
• Scrunch: Pricing
• Profound: Pricing

See how AI answers describe your brand

Get a free report on how ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews mention, recommend and cite your brand, and what to fix first.

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