# AI visibility workflow selection Choose a workflow for the job after an AI visibility check. Compare candidates with the same questions, budget and acceptance criteria, then retain the evidence supporting your decision. Worksheet version 1.0 · 20 September 2026. Complete one record per candidate. Blank fields request your evidence; this pack does not report vendor account tests or executed pilots. Complete comparison: https://rankecho.io/learn/best-ai-visibility-tools ## 1 Set the decision criteria Use a separate record for each candidate. Agree on the required work and the conditions that would rule a tool out before viewing its scores or sales demonstration. **Buyer and problem** — Record the team, evaluator, decision date, candidate and current workflow. State the decision the software must support and the available staff capacity. [Enter your response] **Required workflow** — Choose the primary job: a snapshot check, repeated monitoring, market research, content production, implementation or client reporting. Name the people responsible for work outside the software. [Enter your response] **Minimum requirements** — List required platforms, countries, languages, exports, access controls, implementation outputs and budget. Mark each requirement mandatory or desirable without assigning an overall score yet. [Enter your response] ## 2 Use the same workload and cost basis A low entry price, one-time trial and ongoing monitoring allowance are different offers. Price the configuration you will use and identify any features unavailable in the evaluation. **Shared prompt panel** — Save exact buyer prompts, brands, platforms, locations, cadence and evaluation dates. For an illustrative panel, 5 prompts x 2 platforms x 1 location x 3 runs = 30 scheduled cells; retain failures as missing observations. [Enter your response] **Full workflow cost** — Record base fee, engine or client add-ons, prompt checks, seats, retained tools, review time and publishing labor. Separate amount due now from monthly equivalent and confirm the cancellation date. [Enter your response] **Trial and quote limits** — Attach the dated plan or quote. Record which requirements can be tested, which need a demonstration and which remain untested. A vendor claim is not a completed acceptance result. [Enter your response] | Requirement | Required evidence | Result | | --- | --- | --- | | Monitoring | Saved prompts, answers, citations and missing cells | Pass / Fail / Untested | | Implementation | Reviewed artifact and named publisher | Pass / Fail / Untested | | Client reporting | Usable export, access and dated context | Pass / Fail / Untested | ## 3 Follow one finding through the workflow Use one permitted example from the shared panel. Evaluate the practical handoff as well as the dashboard, and save the evidence behind each result. **Observation and explanation** — Retain the answer, cited pages, date and configuration. Distinguish a missing answer from a brand omission and a proposed explanation from a demonstrated mechanism. [Enter your response] **Useful action** — Capture what the candidate provides: a recommendation, brief, draft, publishing action or implementation package. Check the sources and record corrections made during human review. [Enter your response] **Publication responsibility** — Identify the reviewer, approver, publisher and rollback method. Record whether publishing is native, an integration or a manual step, and verify the quoted permissions. [Enter your response] **Follow up evidence** — Keep the shipment date, unchanged prompt configuration and later answers. Label the result as an observation; concurrent changes and variable answers prevent a simple causal conclusion. [Enter your response] ## 4 Record a defensible selection Reject or resolve a failed mandatory requirement before comparing convenience features. Untested requirements remain open questions rather than passing by default. **Acceptance and uncertainty** — Mark each requirement pass, fail or untested, linking a quote, demonstration or saved observation. List missing evidence and the person responsible for resolving it. [Enter your response] **Selected option** — Choose keep, supplement, replace or defer. Explain the decision using complete cost and required work; do not infer a guaranteed traffic or citation outcome. [Enter your response] **Review and exit** — Record the approved budget, implementation owner, trial or renewal deadline, export plan and review date. Define what future evidence would change the decision. [Enter your response] ## Complete comparison guide The best AI visibility tool depends on the workflow after measurement. Profound and Gauge can create and publish content; Otterly adds content options; Peec prioritizes customer-executed work; Semrush and Ahrefs emphasize search research; AgencyAnalytics centers agency reporting; RankEcho produces a human-shipped fix package and same-prompt observation record. This guide compares eight products by plan access, execution, and evidence. Original guide update: 2026-09-06. Companion and scoped source recheck: 20 September 2026. The evidence records below retain their individual dates. Confirm current plan, billing commitment and workload in a written quote. Scoped source recheck on 20 September 2026: Profound brand pricing now offers a free Trial with 10 ChatGPT prompts run once and custom Enterprise with daily tracking; request the separate agency offer for client work. Ahrefs index access and weighted custom checks are distinct purchases. AgencyAnalytics AI Tracker is an add-on with weekly checks. The source records for other vendors retain their September 1 dates; obtain current plan and feature quotes before choosing. [Profound brand pricing](https://www.tryprofound.com/pricing) · [Ahrefs pricing](https://ahrefs.com/pricing) · [Ahrefs Brand Radar](https://ahrefs.com/brand-radar) · [AgencyAnalytics pricing](https://agencyanalytics.com/pricing) · [AgencyAnalytics AI Tracker configuration](https://help.agencyanalytics.com/en/articles/14692294-configuring-the-ai-tracker-add-on) ## What is an AI visibility checker? An AI visibility checker answers one question quickly: does this AI engine cite or name my brand for this question? It runs a prompt, reads the answer, and reports whether the brand appeared, which sources were cited, and which other brands were named. A checker is a snapshot. A monitoring tool is the same measurement repeated on a schedule so movement becomes visible. The distinction matters because AI answers vary between runs of the same prompt, so a single check proves an instant rather than a trend. Presence is better understood as a rate across repeated runs than a yes or no. Most teams start with a free checker to find out whether the problem is real, then move to a tracked prompt set once they know which questions they lose. ## Which free AI visibility checkers should you run first? Four free checks cover the common failure modes before any subscription is worth considering. None requires an account. Run the crawler policy check first. If AI crawlers cannot fetch the site, every other signal is irrelevant, and blocking is more common than teams expect because it often happens at the CDN rather than in robots.txt. - Crawler policy check: whether GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and the retrieval crawlers can reach the site - AI citation checker: paste an answer from any engine and see whether it cited the domain, named the brand, or leaned on other sources - Agent readiness check: whether a page is server-rendered, structured, and extractable enough to be quoted - Prompt gap finder: the buyer-intent prompt battery worth tracking for a category - [Run the free checks](https://rankecho.io/tools/ai-citation-checker) - [Crawler policy check](https://rankecho.io/tools/crawler-policy-check) ## How should you compare AI visibility tools? Feature lists converge quickly in this category. Seven questions separate the tools in practice. Execution is not binary. Some products create or publish content, some prioritize work for a human team, and some stay closest to research or reporting. Compare the exact quoted plan, who must approve and ship the work, and what dated evidence remains afterwards. Free audits check Perplexity and Gemini once per prompt. Paid and trialing accounts add ChatGPT, Claude, and Google AI Overviews when configured for the account, for up to 5 engines. Treat a listed engine as plan-specific availability, not a promise that every surface returns an answer on every query. - Engines covered, and whether Google AI Overviews is included or sold as an upgrade - Sampling: how many times each prompt runs, since one run is an instant and not a rate - Prompt-level evidence: the answer text and cited URLs, not only an aggregate score - Source intelligence: which third-party pages the engines cite for your category - Pricing model: flat, per seat, per domain, per engine, or per client - What happens after measurement: an action list, draft, direct CMS publish, or reviewable implementation artifact - What the evidence means: visibility history, citation feedback, project impact metrics, or shipment-linked observations ## AI visibility tools compared Published plan boundaries were checked September 1, 2026 against official vendor pages. Figures and packaging can change; confirm the quote, engine list, integrations, and overages for your account. Disclosure: RankEcho is included in this comparison and is operated by the publisher of this guide. | Tool | Published plan boundary | Execution workflow | Best fit | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | RankEcho | $49 Solo; $149 Growth; $399 Agency monthly | Reviewable answer/schema/FAQ/crawler/source package; human ships; same-prompt observations | Self-serve teams that want an explicit implementation and evidence handoff | | Profound | Free brand Trial: 10 ChatGPT prompts run once; Enterprise custom with daily tracking; agency offer separate | Agents research, draft, optimize, and publish approved content; Aim Projects are Enterprise-only | CMS-connected content operations and enterprise orchestration | | Gauge | $599/mo Growth; Enterprise custom | Action Center, Ask Gauge, Content Engine, and CMS publishing | Teams combining daily visibility with article production | | Otterly.AI | $29 Lite; $189 Standard; $489 Premium monthly | Prioritized recommendations, audits, content creator, and optional marketplace workflows | Published self-serve tiers with execution choices | | Peec AI | $95 Starter; $245 Pro; $495 Advanced monthly | Actions prioritizes owned and earned work; the customer creates or updates the content | Teams that want prioritization while retaining execution | | Semrush AI Visibility | $99/mo per domain billed annually | Visibility research, citation gaps, strategic recommendations, and site checks; Content Toolkit is separate | Teams already using Semrush's wider search stack | | Ahrefs Brand Radar | One index $199/mo; all-platform access $699/mo with 2,500 custom checks; standalone custom prompts from $50/mo | Pre-collected indexes, custom prompts, cited-page research, and source analysis | Search-data research alongside existing Ahrefs workflows | | AgencyAnalytics AI Tracker beta | $25/client base monthly plus $25 per 250 AI Tracker credits monthly | White-label AI visibility reporting with dated history and chart annotations | Agencies that need client reporting and change context | ## Which tools track Perplexity citations? Perplexity is the most legible engine for citation tracking because it displays its sources, which makes it possible to see whether an answer leaned on your page, a review site, a forum thread, or a competitor comparison. Perplexity coverage depends on the quoted plan. Profound’s current brand Trial runs 10 ChatGPT prompts once; Enterprise offers daily tracking with a tailored engine bundle. Check whether each candidate retains cited URLs, source types and repeated observations, and confirm access during the evaluation. ## Which tools track Gemini and Google AI Overviews? Gemini and Google AI Overviews are two different surfaces and several tools cover only one. AI Overviews appear inside Google Search results and do not trigger on every query, so a prompt can return no overview at all, which is a different fact from an overview that omitted your brand. Ask any vendor whether AI Overviews is included on the plan being quoted or sold as an upgrade, and whether the tool distinguishes an absent overview from an overview that excluded you. Aggregated as a single number, those two cases produce a misleading score. ## Where do AI visibility workflows differ after monitoring? Profound Agents and Gauge's Content Engine can take approved work into a CMS. Otterly offers recommendations, content creation, and optional marketplace execution. Peec explicitly leaves content creation and updates to the customer. Semrush packages content optimization separately from its AI Visibility Toolkit, while Ahrefs centers research and AgencyAnalytics centers reporting. Evidence also differs. A visibility chart is useful observation history; citation feedback shows whether generated work later appears; project metrics connect a set of actions with movement; and a shipment-linked same-prompt record ties a human-declared change to later observations. None of these designs establishes causal proof on its own. RankEcho classifies a gap, produces a reviewable implementation package, and re-tests the same prompt configuration after a human records shipment. It does not publish to a customer's CMS, track keyword rankings, or maintain a backlink index. - [Run a free audit](https://rankecho.io/) - [See a complete fix package](https://rankecho.io/sample-fix) ## How much should AI visibility tracking cost? Budget for the buyer questions, platforms, locations and repeat schedule required by your decision. A small panel can test a workflow, but its observations should not be generalized to all searches or buyers. Compare the full configured cost, including add-ons, retained tools and human review or publishing work. A one-time trial cannot substitute for a monitoring history. Enterprise packages can change data access, execution and support as well as capacity; inspect the actual quote. One caution on pricing models: per-seat and per-client pricing compounds for agencies, and per-engine add-ons can double a quoted figure once Google AI Overviews is included. ## How can I track sources mentioned by Perplexity? Repeat an exact prompt under saved conditions and retain the cited URLs from each answer. Confirm Perplexity access on the quoted plan, export fields and how missing responses are counted. RankEcho’s free citation checker classifies the sources in a single pasted answer; it does not run a monitoring panel. ## Are there tools that show both where a brand appears in AI answers and what to do to improve it? Yes. Profound and Gauge document content creation and publishing workflows, Otterly offers recommendations and content options, Peec prioritizes customer-executed actions, and RankEcho generates a human-shipped fix package with later same-prompt observations. Confirm which workflow is included on the quoted plan. ## Is there a free AI visibility checker? Yes. Free checkers cover crawler access, citation classification for a pasted answer, and page-level readiness, with no account required. They give a snapshot rather than a trend, which is enough to establish whether a visibility problem exists before paying for anything. ## What is the cheapest AI visibility tool in this review? The original September 1 review lists Otterly Lite at $29 monthly for ongoing standalone monitoring. Profound now offers a free brand Trial with 10 ChatGPT prompts run once, which is a different workload. AgencyAnalytics AI Tracker requires a base client plan; some paid Ahrefs plans include a small custom-check allowance. Compare a current quote for the same required workload. ## How is an AI visibility tool different from a rank tracker? A rank tracker reports where a URL sits on a results page. An AI visibility tool reports whether a brand is named or cited inside a generated answer, where there is no page two to fall back on. The two correlate weakly, so AI visibility needs its own measurement rather than being inferred from rankings. ## Preserved dated evidence - [Gauge pricing](https://www.withgauge.com/pricing/) — checked 2026-09-01. Gauge lists Growth at $599 per month with a one-week trial, 600 prompts across six core platforms daily, 18 articles per month, and Webflow, Framer, Sanity, and GitHub publishing integrations; Enterprise is custom. Growth allowances, integrations, trial, and Enterprise pricing Official public documentation review; no account-level hands-on test. Confidence: High - [Gauge AI visibility](https://www.withgauge.com/ai-visibility/) — checked 2026-09-01. Gauge documents daily AI-answer visibility tracking, prioritized recommendations, Ask Gauge, and an integrated content workflow. AI visibility and action workflow Official public documentation review; no account-level hands-on test. Confidence: High - [Gauge AI visibility](https://www.withgauge.com/ai-visibility/) — checked 2026-09-01. The reviewed official Gauge pricing and AI-visibility pages do not document a shipment-linked same-prompt evidence ledger. Growth pricing and AI-visibility documentation Negative documentation review across the official pricing and AI-visibility pages in this evidence set; absence from public documentation is not proof that a capability is impossible. Confidence: Medium - [Otterly.AI pricing](https://otterly.ai/pricing) — checked 2026-09-01. Otterly.AI lists monthly Lite, Standard, and Premium prices of $29, $189, and $489. Monthly public plans Official public documentation review; no account-level hands-on test. Confidence: High - [Otterly.AI features](https://otterly.ai/features) — checked 2026-09-01. Otterly.AI documents seven engines overall plus prompt research, content audits, briefs, and prioritized GEO recommendations. Public feature set Official public documentation review; no account-level hands-on test. Confidence: High - [Otterly.AI Content Creator](https://geo.otterly.ai/geo/ai-content-creator/) — checked 2026-09-01. Otterly.AI documents an AI Content Creator that can produce a content brief or a full piece of content with user-selected settings and instructions. AI Content Creator public documentation Official public documentation review; no account-level hands-on test. Confidence: High - [Otterly.AI Marketplace](https://otterly.ai/marketplace/) — checked 2026-09-01. Otterly.AI publishes a marketplace of optional GEO workflows and services that can extend execution beyond the core software. Public Marketplace workflow catalog Official public documentation review; no account-level hands-on test. Confidence: High - [Otterly.AI features](https://otterly.ai/features) — checked 2026-09-01. The reviewed official Otterly.AI features and pricing pages do not document direct CMS publishing or a shipment-linked same-prompt evidence ledger. Public features and pricing documentation Negative documentation review across the official features and pricing pages in this evidence set; absence from public documentation is not proof that a capability is impossible. Confidence: Medium - [Peec AI pricing](https://peec.ai/pricing) — checked 2026-09-01. Peec prices brand plans by prompt and model allowances; the reviewed public tiers show Starter, Pro, and Advanced at $95, $245, and $495 per month. Brand plans; localized prices can vary Official public documentation review; no account-level hands-on test. Confidence: High - [Peec Actions](https://peec.ai/product-actions) — checked 2026-09-01. Peec Actions prioritizes owned and earned opportunities, while Peec states that customers create or update the content themselves. Actions workflow Official public documentation review; no account-level hands-on test. Confidence: High - [Peec for agencies](https://peec.ai/for-agencies) — checked 2026-09-01. Peec documents agency workspaces, pitch projects, reporting integrations, and multi-brand workflows. Agency workflow Official public documentation review; no account-level hands-on test. Confidence: High - [Semrush AI pricing](https://www.semrush.com/pricing/ai/) — checked 2026-09-01. Semrush lists the AI Visibility Toolkit at $99 per month per domain billed annually; additional domains and users are priced separately. AI Visibility Toolkit public pricing Official public documentation review; no account-level hands-on test. Confidence: High - [Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit documentation](https://www.semrush.com/kb/1493-ai-visibility-toolkit) — checked 2026-09-01. Semrush documents 25 daily tracked prompts, prompt research, competitor and sentiment reporting, citation gaps, and an AI Search Site Audit; the Toolkit has no free trial. Toolkit documentation Official public documentation review; no account-level hands-on test. Confidence: High - [Ahrefs pricing](https://ahrefs.com/pricing) — checked 2026-09-01. Ahrefs lists Brand Radar from $199 per month and custom-prompt packages starting at $50. Brand Radar public USD pricing Official public documentation review; no account-level hands-on test. Confidence: High - [Ahrefs Brand Radar](https://ahrefs.com/brand-radar) — checked 2026-09-01. Ahrefs lists an all-model Brand Radar package at $699 and documents pre-collected indexes, custom prompts, AI-generated prompt suggestions, mentions, citations, share of voice, cited pages, source research, and query fanout. Brand Radar product capabilities Official public documentation review; no account-level hands-on test. Confidence: High - [AgencyAnalytics pricing](https://agencyanalytics.com/pricing) — checked 2026-09-01. AgencyAnalytics lists one plan at $25 per client monthly or $20 per client per month billed annually, with annual AI Tracker pricing of $20.83 per month per 250 credits. Base plan and annual AI Tracker add-on Official public documentation review; no account-level hands-on test. Confidence: High - [AgencyAnalytics pricing](https://agencyanalytics.com/pricing) — checked 2026-09-01. AgencyAnalytics documents 85-plus integrations, unlimited data sources, reports, dashboards, staff users, and client users, plus white-label portals, custom domain and email controls, and scheduled reports. Current base-plan reporting capabilities Official public documentation review; no account-level hands-on test. Confidence: High - [AgencyAnalytics AI Tracker](https://agencyanalytics.com/features/ai-tracker) — checked 2026-09-01. AgencyAnalytics AI Tracker beta documents ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini, with citations in white-label reports. AI Tracker open beta Official public documentation review; no account-level hands-on test. Confidence: High - [AgencyAnalytics AI Tracker configuration](https://help.agencyanalytics.com/en/articles/14692294-configuring-the-ai-tracker-add-on) — checked 2026-09-01. AgencyAnalytics documents dated per-prompt response history, before-and-after comparisons, weekly AI Tracker checks, $25 per 250 credits on monthly billing, and a 14-day 250-credit trial. AI Tracker beta cadence, monthly billing, and trial Official public documentation review; no account-level hands-on test. Confidence: High - [AgencyAnalytics AI widgets](https://help.agencyanalytics.com/en/articles/12877937-ai-widgets) — checked 2026-09-01. AgencyAnalytics documents AI Tracker widgets with annotations that let agencies mark events and changes on AI visibility charts. AI Tracker widget and annotation workflow Official public documentation review; no account-level hands-on test. Confidence: High - [AgencyAnalytics AI Tracker](https://agencyanalytics.com/features/ai-tracker) — checked 2026-09-01. The reviewed AgencyAnalytics pricing, AI Tracker, and configuration pages document AI visibility tracking and reporting, not generation of implementation artifacts or a workflow linking a recorded shipment date to a controlled same-prompt re-test. Base plan and AI Tracker public documentation Negative documentation review across the official pricing, feature, and configuration pages in this evidence set; absence from public documentation is not proof that a capability is impossible. Confidence: Medium - [Profound Answer Engine Insights](https://www.tryprofound.com/features/answer-engine-insights) — checked 2026-09-01. Profound documents Answer Engine Insights for daily visibility, citations, sources, sentiment, competitors, Query Fanout, and FactCheck workflows that identify and address inaccurate AI answers. Answer Engine Insights and FactCheck public workflow Official public documentation review; no account-level hands-on test. Confidence: High - [Profound pricing](https://www.tryprofound.com/pricing) — checked 2026-09-01. Profound lists Starter at $99 per month billed annually with ChatGPT, 50 prompts, 100 Agent credits, and one seat; Growth is $399 per month billed annually with ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, 100 prompts, 400 Agent credits, and three seats. Starter and Growth annual billing, engine scope, prompts, Agent credits, and seats Official public documentation review; no account-level hands-on test. Confidence: High - [Profound Agents](https://www.tryprofound.com/features/agents) — checked 2026-09-01. Profound documents Agents that research cited sources, generate briefs and complete drafts, optimize content, and publish approved work through CMS integrations; its documentation says the loop tracks whether outputs earn citations. Agents research, creation, approval, publishing, and citation-feedback workflow Official public documentation review; no account-level hands-on test. Confidence: High - [Profound Aim](https://www.tryprofound.com/features/aim) — checked 2026-09-01. Profound documents Aim Projects that turn opportunities into task plans, hand work to Agents, record project activity, and show visibility and citation movement; the current pricing matrix lists Projects as Enterprise-only. Aim project planning, execution, and impact measurement; availability cross-checked on pricing Official public documentation review; no account-level hands-on test. Confidence: High - [Profound pricing](https://www.tryprofound.com/pricing) — checked 2026-09-01. Profound lists Enterprise at custom pricing with up to nine answer engines, tailored prompt tracking, Projects powered by Aim, API access, SSO, and dedicated support. Enterprise public plan matrix Official public documentation review; no account-level hands-on test. Confidence: High - [RankEcho pricing](https://rankecho.io/pricing) — checked 2026-09-01. RankEcho lists Solo, Growth, and Agency at $49, $149, and $399 per month with a seven-day trial and no per-engine or per-seat fees. Current public plans Official RankEcho pricing page reviewed for published plan names, prices, and limits. Confidence: High - [How RankEcho works](https://rankecho.io/how-it-works) — checked 2026-09-01. RankEcho documents a Find, Fix, Prove workflow with generated implementation artifacts and same-prompt post-ship observations bounded as correlation, not causation. Current public workflow Public RankEcho product documentation reviewed for the Find, Fix, and Prove workflow. Confidence: High ## Related reading - [Best GEO tools: a field guide](https://rankecho.io/learn/best-geo-tools) - [Profound alternative: when RankEcho fits and when it does not](https://rankecho.io/learn/profound-alternative) - [AI citation tracker](https://rankecho.io/compare/ai-citation-tracker) - [AI search visibility optimization](https://rankecho.io/ai-search-visibility-optimization) - [How to allow AI crawlers in robots.txt](https://rankecho.io/learn/how-to-allow-ai-crawlers) ## Product next step Inspect a reviewed change at https://rankecho.io/sample-fix and the Fix Engine at https://rankecho.io/product/fix-engine. Full-page writing is separate and requires a paid base plan plus a content add-on: https://rankecho.io/pricing/content.