AI Search Engine Optimization Tools: 10 Options Sorted by Job
AI search engine optimization tools fall into three groups: SEO suites that added AI tracking (Semrush, Ahrefs, SE Ranking), dedicated AI visibility platforms (Profound, Scrunch, AthenaHQ, Goodie) and tools that also write or publish content (Writesonic, Gauge). Most of them measure how often ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews mention you. Few of them change your site for you, so pick by the job you need done, not by the length of the feature list.
Updated October 21, 2026
The 10 tools at a glance
Prices below are the lowest paid or free tier we could read on each vendor's own pricing page on October 21, 2026. "Not published" means the vendor does not show a number.
| Tool | Group | Main job | Lowest confirmed price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit | SEO suite add-on | Track AI visibility next to your SEO data | $99/month |
| Ahrefs Brand Radar | SEO suite add-on | Brand mentions in AI answers, YouTube and Reddit | Custom prompts from $50/month (free on paid Ahrefs plans) |
| SE Ranking AI Search Toolkit | SEO suite add-on | Prompt tracking with competitor comparison | Not published on the toolkit page |
| Profound | Dedicated platform | Enterprise answer engine monitoring | Free 7-day trial, then custom |
| Scrunch | Dedicated platform | Monitoring plus an AI-ready version of your site | $300/month ($250 billed annually) |
| AthenaHQ | Dedicated platform | Credit-based tracking across many models | Free tier, then $295/month |
| Goodie | Dedicated platform | Tracking plus recommended and executed actions | $295/month |
| Writesonic | Content + tracking | Writing tool with AI search tracking | $79/month, billed annually |
| Gauge | Content + tracking | Daily tracking plus generated articles | $599/month |
| AI Search Optimization (ours) | Done-for-you service | Fixes the issues, then monitors | $299/month |
The last row is our own service. We list it because it does a different job from the software above, and we say where it falls short.
How to read this list
AI search optimization has three jobs, and almost no single product does all three well.
- Measure. Run a set of prompts through AI engines on a schedule and record whether your brand is mentioned, cited or recommended. Every tool here does this.
- Fix. Change the things that stop AI systems from reading and trusting your site: crawler access, schema, an llms.txt file, entity data and missing content. Software can flag these. Someone still has to make the change.
- Publish. Create or rewrite pages so AI answers have something worth citing. A few tools generate drafts. You still need someone to check and ship them.
If you are new to the topic, our guide on how to optimize for AI search covers the fix and publish jobs step by step. If you want to see where your site stands before you pay for anything, run the free AI visibility checker.
1. Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit
What it does: Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit gives your brand an AI Visibility Score, compares sentiment and positioning against competitors, suggests prompts and topics to target, tracks selected prompts day by day and checks your site for technical issues that could block AI crawlers. Its knowledge base names ChatGPT and Google AI Mode as covered platforms.
Who it's for: Teams already living in Semrush who want AI data in the same place as their keyword and site audit data.
Price: $99 per month, per Semrush's knowledge base.
Honest limitation: The documentation names fewer AI platforms than the dedicated trackers below. If Perplexity or Claude matter to your buyers, confirm coverage before you commit.
2. Ahrefs Brand Radar
What it does: Brand Radar tracks how often your brand shows up across AI answers, YouTube and Reddit. Ahrefs lists AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity and ChatGPT, with Claude also shown in the pricing section.
Who it's for: Brands that care about the wider conversation, since Reddit and YouTube threads are often what AI answers pull from.
Price: Custom prompts start at $50 per month and are free on every paid Ahrefs plan from Lite up. The AI Visibility Index starts at $199 per month.
Honest limitation: The prompt allowances on the lower tiers are small (Ahrefs lists 5 AI prompts on Lite), so you get a broad brand view more than deep tracking of your own query set.
3. SE Ranking AI Search Toolkit
What it does: SE Ranking's AI Search Toolkit monitors AI answers for the prompts you track, checks whether your brand or domain is mentioned or linked, shows where you sit among cited sources and compares you with up to five competitors. It covers Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, ChatGPT and Gemini, and keeps history so you can see change over time.
Who it's for: Small teams and agencies that use SE Ranking for rank tracking and want AI answers tracked the same way.
Price: The toolkit page does not list a price. It offers a 14-day free trial.
Honest limitation: Coverage stops at four platforms. Perplexity is not in the listed set.
4. Profound
What it does: Profound monitors how answer engines talk about your brand. Its Enterprise plan covers up to nine engines, including ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, DeepSeek, Claude, Google AI Overviews and Exa Search, with prompts run daily.
Who it's for: Large brands with a team that can act on detailed monitoring data.
Price: A free trial runs 50 prompts daily for 7 days on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. After that, Enterprise pricing is custom.
Honest limitation: There is no published self-serve price, so you cannot budget for it without a sales call. Our Profound review goes deeper.
5. Scrunch
What it does: Scrunch monitors brand visibility and citations across AI search and tracks agent traffic. Its Agent Experience Platform (AXP) generates an AI-friendly version of your site. Covered engines include ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Mode and AI Overviews, and Meta.
Who it's for: Mid-size and larger brands that want monitoring and a technical layer that serves content to AI agents.
Price: Starter is $300 month-to-month or $250 a month billed annually, with 350 custom prompts. A 7-day free trial needs no card.
Honest limitation: The AXP layer serves a separate version of your site to AI systems. It does not fix the content or structure of your actual pages, which still matter for Google and human visitors.
6. AthenaHQ
What it does: AthenaHQ tracks visibility on a credit system where one credit equals one AI response. The Starter plan lists 11 models: ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Mistral, with unlimited topics and prompts.
Who it's for: Teams that want wide model coverage and like paying by usage rather than by prompt count.
Price: A free Essential tier includes 300 credits. Starter is $295 per month with 3,600 credits.
Honest limitation: Credits run down faster the more models and prompts you track, so heavy use means buying add-on credits. See our AthenaHQ review for more.
7. Goodie
What it does: Goodie calls itself an answer engine optimization platform. It runs daily prompts across models, researches the questions customers ask, monitors inaccurate AI claims about your brand, analyzes AI crawler activity on your site, attributes traffic and revenue to AI search and recommends or takes actions such as content, technical fixes and outreach.
Who it's for: Brands that want monitoring and an action layer in one product.
Price: Core is $295 per month with 110 prompts across five engines (ChatGPT, AI Overview, Perplexity, AI Mode, Copilot) and a 7-day free trial.
Honest limitation: Gemini is not in the Core plan's engine list. You need Pro, listed at $999 per month, to add it.
8. Writesonic
What it does: Writesonic started as an AI writing tool and now tracks AI search visibility too. Paid plans track prompts daily on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, and the Growth plan adds sentiment analysis, AI search volume and a trial of its Action Center.
Who it's for: Content teams that want writing and AI tracking in one subscription.
Price: Starter is $79 per month billed annually, with 50 prompts.
Honest limitation: Plans below Enterprise track three platforms. Perplexity, Claude and Copilot are Enterprise only.
9. Gauge
What it does: Gauge runs your prompts daily, checks mentions and citations, and has a content engine that writes and publishes articles based on visibility gaps. Growth includes 18 articles a month and publishes to Webflow, Framer, Sanity or GitHub.
Who it's for: Teams on those publishing platforms that want tracking and a steady flow of drafted content.
Price: Growth is $599 per month with 600 daily prompts on ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Microsoft Copilot.
Honest limitation: Generated articles still need human review, and Google AI Overviews, Gemini and Perplexity are Enterprise only unless you connect your own API keys for Claude or Grok.
10. AI Search Optimization (our service)
What it does: This is us. Instead of software, you get the work done for you. It starts with a free audit. In month one we fix what the audit found: AI crawler access, schema, llms.txt, entity data and content gaps. After that we keep optimizing and monitor up to 50 prompts a month across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews.
Who it's for: Business owners and small marketing teams who would rather pay someone to make the changes than learn a new dashboard.
Price: $299 per month flat, with a 3-month minimum, or $2,990 a year. Sites over 500 pages get a custom quote.
Honest limitation: 50 prompts across four engines is less tracking than the dedicated platforms give you, and there is a 3-month minimum. If you have an in-house team ready to act on data, a software tool may be the better buy. See our AI search optimization services for the full plan.
How to choose
- You already pay for Semrush or Ahrefs: start with their AI add-on. It costs the least extra and keeps data in one place.
- You need deep monitoring across many models: look at Profound, AthenaHQ or Scrunch.
- You want the tool to suggest or produce changes: Goodie, Writesonic and Gauge go furthest here.
- You have nobody to make the changes: a tool will show you the problems every week without solving them. A done-for-you AI SEO agency is the closer fit.
Whatever you choose, read the engine list per plan, not per product. Several vendors advertise eight or more engines but include three to five on their entry plans.
Frequently asked questions
What are AI search engine optimization tools?
They are tools that help your brand show up in answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and similar systems. Most run a set of prompts on a schedule and report whether you were mentioned or cited. Some also suggest fixes or draft content.
Do I need a dedicated tool or is my SEO suite enough?
If you already pay for Semrush, Ahrefs or SE Ranking, their AI add-ons are a cheap way to start tracking. Dedicated platforms like Profound, AthenaHQ and Scrunch usually cover more AI engines and more prompts. Compare the engine list on the plan you would actually buy.
Can an AI search optimization tool fix my site?
Most cannot. They flag issues such as blocked AI crawlers or missing schema, but someone still has to change your site. Tools like Goodie and Gauge go further with actions and generated articles, and a done-for-you service makes the changes for you.
How much do AI search optimization tools cost?
On vendor pricing pages in October 2026, entry plans ranged from free tiers (AthenaHQ, Profound's trial) to $599 a month (Gauge Growth). Semrush's toolkit is $99 a month and Writesonic starts at $79 a month billed annually. Enterprise plans are quoted on a call.
Which AI engines should a tool track?
At minimum ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews, since they reach the most people. Add Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot if your buyers use them. Check that the engines you need are in the plan you are buying, not only in the enterprise tier.
Is a done-for-you service better than a tool?
It depends on who will do the work. A tool is cheaper per prompt tracked and suits teams that can act on the data. A service like ours costs $299 a month and suits owners who want the fixes made without learning a platform.
Sources
See where AI search leaves you out
Run the free AI visibility audit. If you want the fixes done for you, the plan is a flat $299/month.