Cheapest AI Visibility Tools in 2026: 13 Affordable Plans, Priced

Short answer: The cheapest paid AI visibility tool we found is Rankscale Essentials at $204 a year (about $17/month, yearly billing only). On monthly billing, the cheapest are Otterly.AI Lite at $29/month (15 prompts, 4 engines), Kollavo Entry at $49/month (weekly visibility score on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode), Ahrefs Brand Radar custom prompts from $50/month and Knowatoa Starter at $59/month. If you want the most prompts for the money, LLMrefs lists 500 prompts for $79/month with weekly reports. Profound has no published brand plan: you get a free 7-day trial, then a custom Enterprise quote. Every price below was read on the vendor's own pricing page on November 3, 2026.

Cheap is easy to find. Cheap and useful is harder, because the low-end plans differ a lot in how many prompts they run, which engines they check and how often. This guide ranks the affordable options by entry price, then by cost per tracked prompt, and shows what you give up at each level.

The cheapest AI visibility tools, ranked by entry price

Prices are monthly list prices in US dollars unless noted. Some vendors show euro prices to European visitors (Otterly.AI shows €29, Peec AI shows €85 for Starter), so check the currency at checkout.

Two things stand out. First, the floor is low: four tools start under $60/month. Second, the big names are not the cheapest. Semrush starts at $99/month with no free trial on the toolkit, Scrunch at $250/month, and Profound does not publish a brand price at all. Our Profound vs Semrush comparison covers those two in detail.

Cost per tracked prompt: the fairer comparison

A $29 plan with 15 prompts is not cheaper than a $95 plan with 50 prompts once you need more than a handful of questions. Divide each entry price by the prompts it includes:

Rankscale, Ahrefs and Knowatoa are left out because they price by credits, checks or packages rather than a fixed prompt count. Kollavo Entry is left out because it tracks a curated prompt set rather than a fixed count.

Cost per prompt is only fair when the refresh rate matches. A prompt checked daily produces about 30 answers a month; a prompt checked weekly produces about 4. Peec AI makes this explicit: its Starter plan runs 50 prompts on 3 models every day, which it counts as 4,500 AI answers a month. If you only read your report once a week, weekly data may be all you need, and the cheapest plan per prompt makes sense. If you are testing content changes and want to see movement quickly, pay for daily checks.

What you give up on the cheapest plans

The entry plans are cheap because something is capped. Before you buy, check these five limits:

1. Prompt count. 15 prompts (Otterly.AI Lite) covers one product and a few competitor questions. A realistic set across the buying journey is closer to 30 to 50. Use the free prompt generator to see how many you actually need.
2. Engines. Otterly.AI Lite includes 4 engines and charges extra for Claude, Google AI Mode and Gemini. Our Profound vs Otterly.AI comparison adds those up: all seven engines on Otterly Standard come to $416/month. Peec AI lets you pick 3 models per plan. Knowatoa Starter covers ChatGPT, AI Overviews and AI Mode, and its Growth plan ($199/month) covers all 7 of its services.
3. Refresh rate. Weekly is cheaper than daily. AI answers also move a lot between runs: SparkToro found AI tools are highly inconsistent when recommending brands, so a single weekly snapshot can be noise. Judge trends over several weeks, whatever you pay.
4. Projects and countries. Peec AI Starter covers 1 project and 1 country. Scrunch Core covers 1 brand workspace, 1 country and 5 competitors. Agencies with several clients outgrow entry plans fast.
5. Trial and commitment. Rankscale Essentials is yearly only, so the true entry cost is $204 up front. The Semrush toolkit has no free trial. Most others offer 7 days.

Free ways to start

You can learn a lot before paying anything:

A good free baseline is: run the audit, note the 3 to 5 competitors that keep showing up, and list the pages AI cites for them. That tells you whether you need a tracker at all, or whether your gap is mostly on third-party sites, which no tracker fixes by itself. Our guide to AI citation gap analysis walks through that process step by step.

Affordable Profound alternatives

Profound is the tool many teams look at first, but its brand pricing is sales-led: a free 7-day trial, then a custom Enterprise plan with up to 9 answer engines, SSO and dedicated support. If you need a published price, these are the affordable alternatives:

• Under $30/month: Rankscale Essentials ($204/year) and Otterly.AI Lite ($29/month). Best for a solo marketer tracking one brand.
• $49 to $59/month: Kollavo Entry ($49), Ahrefs custom prompts (from $50) and Knowatoa Starter ($59). Kollavo Entry adds share of voice and citation gap alerts; Ahrefs makes sense if you already pay for Ahrefs.
• $79 to $100/month: LLMrefs ($79, 500 prompts weekly), Peec AI Starter ($95, 50 prompts daily), Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit ($99), Rankscale Pro ($99) and Am I On AI Pro ($100). This is the sweet spot for a small marketing team.
• $250/month: Scrunch Core, for teams that want more structure before moving to an enterprise contract.

For a wider list with features, not just prices, see our Profound alternatives comparison and the best Profound alternatives for 2026.

How to pick the cheapest tool that still works

1. Write your prompt list first. Count the questions buyers really ask, across awareness, comparison and purchase. If it is under 20, a $29 to $59 plan is enough. If it is 50 or more, compare cost per prompt, not entry price.
2. Pick your engines. If your buyers use ChatGPT and Google, you do not need to pay for seven engines. If they use Perplexity or Claude, check that the entry plan includes them without add-ons.
3. Decide on daily or weekly. Weekly is enough for monthly reporting. Daily is worth it when you are actively changing content and want to see the effect.
4. Run two trials side by side. Use the same prompts and competitors on two tools for at least a week and compare which sources each one reports.
5. Price your real workload. Add the extra prompts, engines and projects you will need in month three, not just month one. A $29 plan can become a $189 plan quickly.

Where Kollavo fits

Kollavo is not the cheapest tracker on the list, and it is not trying to be. Entry ($49/month) gives you a weekly visibility score on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode, share of voice against your competitors, citation gap alerts, PDF reports and email alerts. Managed ($99/month) adds what trackers do not do: 10 to 15 directory and AI-source submissions a month, a listing kit built once, a live tracker and a monthly report. Both are cancel-anytime, and yearly billing gives 2 months free. See pricing for the full plans.

The reason that matters: a tracker tells you which sources AI cites for your competitors. Getting onto those sources is the part that moves your visibility. Our GEO pricing guide compares what tools, managed services and agencies cost for that work.

FAQ

What is the cheapest AI visibility tool? Rankscale Essentials, at $204 a year (about $17/month, yearly billing only), was the cheapest paid plan we found. On monthly billing, Otterly.AI Lite is the cheapest at $29/month for 15 prompts.

What is the most affordable Profound alternative? For a published monthly price, Otterly.AI Lite ($29), Kollavo Entry ($49) and Knowatoa Starter ($59) are the lowest. LLMrefs ($79) gives the most prompts per dollar, with 500 prompts refreshed weekly.

Is there a free AI visibility tool? Yes, for one-off checks. Kollavo's AI audit and free tools cost nothing, Profound offers a free 7-day trial with 50 prompts a day, and Ahrefs offers a free AI visibility preview. Ongoing daily tracking is paid everywhere we checked.

How much should a small business spend on AI visibility tracking? Most small teams can start at $29 to $100/month. Above that, you are usually paying for more prompts, more engines or more projects. Start with a free audit to see how big your gap is before you choose a plan.

Why do cheap plans cost more per prompt? They include few prompts. Otterly.AI Lite works out at $1.93 per prompt and the Semrush toolkit at $3.96, while LLMrefs, with 500 weekly prompts for $79, works out at $0.16.

Does a cheaper tool track fewer AI engines? Often. Otterly.AI Lite charges extra for Claude, Google AI Mode and Gemini, Peec AI Starter lets you pick 3 models, and Am I On AI Pro covers ChatGPT and Google AI Overview. Check the engine list against where your buyers actually ask.

Sources

Vendor pricing pages, all read November 3, 2026: Rankscale (plans and price listings), Otterly.AI, Kollavo, Ahrefs Brand Radar, Knowatoa, LLMrefs, Peec AI, Semrush Knowledge Base ("AI Visibility Toolkit", pricing section), Am I On AI, Scrunch and Profound. Rand Fishkin and Patrick O'Donnell, "AIs are highly inconsistent when recommending brands or products", SparkToro (January 2026).