I Compared 6 AI Visibility Tools: Profound, Otterly, Peec, Semrush & Rankscale vs DIY on an API (2026)

Bottom line up front: AI visibility tools answer one question — when someone asks ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overview, Perplexity or Gemini about your category, does your brand show up? I signed up for the five most-talked-about tools, dug through their live 2026 pricing, and mapped exactly which AI engines each one tracks. Then I priced the sixth option: building the same monitor yourself on an API. There is no single winner — each fits a different budget and team:

• Profound — the enterprise standard (a ~$1B company), deepest analytics, but its first multi-engine plan is $399/mo. Best for large brands with budget.
• Otterly AI — the cheapest polished entry point at $29/mo, tracks the big four out of the box. Best for solo SEOs and small teams.
• Peec AI — clean, European, strong competitor views; from about €89/mo. Best for EU agencies.
• Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit — $99/mo per domain, the obvious add-on if you already live in Semrush. Best for existing Semrush users.
• Rankscale — tracks the most engines and starts at $20/mo, credit-based. Best for breadth on a budget.
• DIY on Serpent API — build the monitor yourself and pay cents per check instead of a subscription. Best when unit cost decides your margin.

The honest summary: if you want a finished dashboard tomorrow and have the budget, one of the five SaaS tools is the right call — pick by price and engine coverage. If you are an agency or SaaS team where cost-per-tracked-prompt compounds into real money, building on an API wins on unit economics. The rest of this post is the evidence, including where the paid tools are genuinely worth it. Every Serpent API figure is verified against our live pricing page; the others against each vendor’s public 2026 pricing.

The six options at a glance

Notice that every row owns a column — cheapest entry (Rankscale), most engines (Rankscale), deepest enterprise analytics (Profound), lowest unit cost (DIY). That is the honest shape of the AI-visibility market in 2026: the right answer depends entirely on what you are optimising for. This is the AI-era version of measuring your brand’s presence in AI answers, and the metrics behind it are covered in AI search visibility metrics.

Pick each one when…

• Pick Profound when you are a large brand that needs the deepest analytics — conversation-level insight, agent/bot traffic analytics, sentiment, 10+ engines — and a four-figure monthly bill is acceptable.
• Pick Otterly AI when you want a clean, affordable tool that covers ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Copilot from $29/mo without a steep learning curve.
• Pick Peec AI when you are a European team that wants a polished competitor-comparison view and prices in euros.
• Pick the Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit when you already pay for Semrush and want AI visibility on the same dashboard as your SEO data.
• Pick Rankscale when you want the widest engine coverage for the lowest entry price and are happy with a credit-based model.
• Build it on Serpent API when cost per tracked prompt decides your unit economics, you want to own the raw data, or you are bundling AI visibility into your own product.

Pricing: the round most people actually care about

These tools price in different shapes — per-prompt allowances, per-domain seats, credit pools — so list prices alone mislead. Here is each one’s real 2026 structure:

• Profound — $99/mo Starter (ChatGPT only, 50 prompts), $399/mo Growth (3 answer engines, 100 prompts, the “real” entry tier most buyers need), then custom-quoted Enterprise for up to 10+ engines, multiple brands, API and SSO. Billed annually; no published price above Growth.
• Otterly AI — $29/mo Lite (15 prompts), $189/mo Standard (100 prompts, adds API and a Looker Studio connector), $489/mo Premium (400 prompts). Gemini, Google AI Mode and Claude are paid add-on engines on top.
• Peec AI — €89/mo Starter (50 prompts), €205/mo Pro, €425/mo Advanced (~$495). Self-serve plans track 3 of 7 engines; each extra engine is a paid add-on.
• Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit — $99/mo per domain as a standalone add-on, or bundled inside Semrush One from $199/mo (which also includes the core SEO toolkit). Enterprise AIO is custom-priced.
• Rankscale — credit-based: from $20/mo Essentials, $99/mo Pro (~4,800 AI responses), $385/mo Growth (adds white-label and REST API), $780/mo Enterprise. Roughly a quarter-credit per engine per prompt.

So self-serve AI visibility runs from $20/mo to about $780/mo depending on prompt volume and engine count. For a single brand tracking a few dozen prompts, $29–$99/mo is the realistic range. For an agency tracking many clients, the per-seat and per-domain math climbs fast — which is exactly the pressure that makes a DIY build attractive.

What each tool actually tracks

“AI visibility” means different engines to different vendors. Here is the coverage that matters:

Two patterns stand out. First, everyone covers ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity — those are table stakes. Second, the cheaper tools gate the rest behind add-ons or higher tiers, while Rankscale includes the widest set on every plan. If you only care about the big three or four engines, you are overpaying for Profound’s enterprise breadth; if you need Claude, Copilot and Grok all in one view, Rankscale (or Profound Enterprise) is where to look. For how these systems decide who to cite in the first place, see how AI search engines choose which sites to cite.

The sixth option: build it yourself for cents per check

Strip an AI visibility tool to its core and it is three things: a scheduled list of prompts, a place to store the answers, and a dashboard. The expensive part is the polish — the underlying signal is cheap if you fetch it yourself.

Serpent API’s AI Ranking API lets you ask, for any prompt, whether and where your brand is cited across four assistants — claude-sonnet-4-6, gpt-5.5, gemini-3.1-pro and sonar-pro — and returns a clean, structured result you can store and chart:

import requests

# One combined check across all four assistants
r = requests.get("https://apiserpent.com/api/ai/rank/all", params={
    "prompt": "best project management software for agencies",
    "brand": "YourBrand",
    "api_key": "sk_live_...",
})
data = r.json()
# -> per-engine: cited (true/false), position, the sources each assistant used,
#    and the clean model name (e.g. "claude-sonnet-4-6")
for engine in data["results"]:
    print(engine["model"], engine["cited"], engine.get("position"))

The economics are the whole point. A combined check across all four assistants costs about 4 cents at the Default rate, dropping toward a fifth of a cent at higher volume. Track 50 prompts daily across all four assistants and that is roughly $60/mo at the Default rate — and a fraction of that at scale — versus $99–$489/mo for a comparable SaaS plan. You trade the finished dashboard for raw data and far lower unit cost. Our cross-engine AI share-of-voice tracker in Python is the full build, and building the same tracker Profound charges $399/mo for is the head-to-head teardown with working code.

For the Google AI Overview block specifically — the SERP-feature side of AI visibility rather than the assistant side — you can pull it straight from the SERP API and pair it with assistant tracking. We compared the providers that actually return it in which SERP APIs return Google AI Overviews.

Free trials & getting started

Peec AI’s no-card 7-day trial and Rankscale’s free website audit are the lowest-friction ways to see your own numbers before paying. If you want to prototype a DIY monitor, Serpent API’s 10 free searches need no card either, and AI Ranking is pay-as-you-go with a $10 minimum and credits that never expire.

Which one should you choose?

Choose Profound if…

You are an enterprise brand that needs the deepest analytics on the market — conversation-level data, agent/bot traffic, sentiment and 10+ engines — and $399/mo (or a custom Enterprise quote) is within budget. It is the most complete tool here, and its $1B valuation reflects how many large brands have decided AI visibility is now a line item.

Choose Otterly AI if…

You want the best value among polished SaaS tools: $29/mo covers ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Copilot, with a clean interface and a gentle learning curve. The cheapest way into a real dashboard.

Choose Peec AI if…

You are a European agency that wants euro pricing, a strong competitor-comparison view and a no-card trial to start. Mind the 3-of-7 engine cap on self-serve plans.

Choose the Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit if…

You already pay for Semrush and want AI visibility next to your keyword and backlink data. At $99/mo per domain (or in the Semrush One bundle) it is the path of least resistance for existing customers.

Choose Rankscale if…

You want the widest engine coverage for the lowest entry price — 17+ engines from $20/mo — and a credit-based model suits your usage. The breadth-per-dollar leader.

Build on Serpent API if…

Cost per tracked prompt decides your margin, you want to own the raw citation data, or you are embedding AI visibility into your own product. You give up a ready-made dashboard and gain cents-per-check economics across Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity.

FAQ

What is an AI visibility tool?

A tool that tracks whether and how your brand appears in AI search answers — ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot. It runs prompts on a schedule, records mentions and citations, measures share of voice against competitors, and shows the sources each AI used. The AI-era equivalent of rank tracking.

What is the best AI visibility tool in 2026?

No single winner. Profound is the most enterprise-complete (and priciest at $399/mo for three engines); Otterly is the cheapest polished entry at $29/mo; Peec AI suits EU teams; Rankscale tracks the most engines from $20/mo; Semrush’s toolkit is the natural add-on for Semrush users. If unit cost matters, a DIY build on an API costs cents per check.

How much do AI visibility tools cost?

From $20/mo (Rankscale) and $29/mo (Otterly) up to $489–$780/mo for top self-serve tiers, with enterprise plans custom-quoted. Profound starts at $99/mo (ChatGPT only) or $399/mo (three engines); Semrush’s toolkit is $99/mo per domain. A DIY build is a few cents per check, no subscription.

Which AI visibility tools track Google AI Overviews?

Profound (Growth and up), Otterly, Peec AI, Semrush and Rankscale all track the Google AI Overview block. You can also pull the AI Overview directly from a SERP API at the SERP-feature level and pair it with assistant tracking.

Can I build my own AI visibility tracker?

Yes — it is scheduled prompts plus storage plus a dashboard. Query brand citations across Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity through Serpent API’s AI Ranking endpoints for cents per check, store the results, and build the view you need. Lower unit cost and full data ownership, in exchange for building the dashboard yourself.

Which AI engines should I track?

Prioritise ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude; add Copilot and Grok for specific niches. Most buyers only need the top four or five — which is where a focused, cheaper setup beats a broad, expensive one.