| Quick answer |
|---|
| For small businesses, start free: Ahrefs’ AI Visibility Checker needs no signup and covers six engines, and Google Search Console has reported AI Overviews and AI Mode impressions since June 2026. When you need tracking over time, Otterly.AI at $29 a month is the cheapest credible paid step. |
| How we compare |
|---|
| Tools are ordered by what a small marketing budget can absorb, starting at zero. Every price below was re-read on the vendor’s own pricing page on 12 September 2026, and figures that come from third parties are labelled as such. We ran no head-to-head lab test: no prompt set was scored across tools here. Every price was re-checked against the vendor’s own pricing page in September 2026, and figures available only from third-party trackers are marked as reported. No vendor paid for placement. |
Table of Contents
Spend nothing first — the free layer is better than it was
Two free sources now answer most of the question, and neither existed in a usable form a year ago. Before you subscribe to anything, run both. Together they take about ten minutes and they will tell you whether you have a visibility problem worth paying to monitor.
Google Search Console added generative AI performance reports on 3 June 2026, alongside Google Search Central’s own documentation on AI features in Search. They isolate impressions from AI Overviews and AI Mode, filterable by page, country, device and date. Read the limitation carefully: it reports impressions only — no clicks, no click-through rate and no query data — so it tells you that you were shown, not what it was worth. Google also notes that a report may be missing because the property is not yet in the rollout or the site has too few AI impressions. For local reviews and posts, see our guide to AI tools for Google Business Profile.
Ahrefs’ AI Visibility Checker covers the other side: what the assistants say when someone asks about your category. Ahrefs’ AI Visibility Checker states no signup, no credit card and no limit on brands checked, across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, AI Overviews and AI Mode. The free result is a preview limited to the top five entries per section, which is enough to establish presence. Semrush runs a comparable free checker.
Best AI visibility tools for small businesses 2026 compared
| Tool | Price | What it tracks | Snapshot or trend | Catch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ahrefs AI Visibility Checker | Free | Six engines including AI Mode | Snapshot | Preview capped at top 5 per section |
| Google Search Console | Free | Your own AI Overviews and AI Mode impressions | Trend | Impressions only — no clicks or queries |
| Otterly.AI Lite | $29/mo | 15 prompts, 4 engines, daily | Trend | Gemini, Claude and AI Mode cost extra |
| Peec AI Starter | ~$95 (€85 (about $96))/mo | 50 prompts, 3 models | Trend | Pricing only via third-party reports |
| Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit | $99/mo per domain | 25 daily-tracked prompts | Trend | Extra users from $45/mo |
The tools in detail
Ahrefs AI Visibility Checker
The best free starting point. Ahrefs states no signup, no credit card and no limit on how many brands you can check, covering ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode. The free view is a preview capped at the top five results per section, which is enough to establish whether you appear at all.
Google Search Console generative AI reports
Free, and it reports on your own site rather than a sample. Google launched generative AI performance reports on 3 June 2026 and finished rolling them out worldwide on 31 August, isolating impressions from AI Overviews and AI Mode, filterable by page, country, device and date. The significant limitation is that it shows impressions only — no clicks, CTR or query data yet.
Otterly.AI
The cheapest credible paid step. Otterly’s pricing page lists Lite at $29 a month for 15 tracked prompts across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot, with daily tracking frequency and unlimited team members. Standard is $189 for 100 prompts and Premium $489 for 400. Claude, Gemini and Google AI Mode are paid add-ons, from $9 to $29 a month at the Lite tier.
Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit
Semrush runs a free standalone AI search visibility checker, and lists a paid toolkit at $99 a month per domain billed annually covering 25 daily-tracked prompts and mentions from ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini and Perplexity. Extra users start at $45 a month, so it gets expensive for a team.
Peec AI
Peec AI is worth knowing about because every tier includes unlimited seats, which suits a small business where three people all want the login. Its prices render in-browser rather than in the page text; trackers report Starter at $95 (€85 (about $96)) a month for 50 tracked prompts on three models, with roughly 15% off annual billing.
What it costs to match the free checker
The free Ahrefs check covers six engines. Otterly’s $29 plan covers four, and sells the rest as separate lines: Google AI Mode at $9 a month, Google Gemini at $9 and Claude at $29 at the Lite tier, as trackers report them, since Otterly’s own page renders these in-browser. So the honest question is not what the entry plan costs but what parity with the free tool costs. Here is the arithmetic, which no vendor sets out for you.
| Coverage | Otterly line items at Lite | Arithmetic | Monthly | Cost per engine |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The 4 engines in the base plan | Lite $29 | $29 ÷ 4 | $29 | $7.25 |
| The 6 engines the free checker covers | Lite + AI Mode $9 + Gemini $9 | $29 + $9 + $9 = $47, ÷ 6 | $47 | $7.83 |
| All 7, adding Claude | the above + Claude $29 | $47 + $29 = $76, ÷ 7 | $76 | $10.86 |
Two things fall out of that. Matching the free checker’s coverage costs $47 a month, not $29 — so what the subscription actually buys is the daily trend line, because the coverage is already available for nothing. And Claude is the expensive engine: it costs as much as the entire base plan and pushes cost per engine up 39 percent, from $7.83 to $10.86. Add it only if you know your buyers use Claude.
One more figure worth having before you upgrade: Otterly’s published tiers work out at $1.93 per prompt on Lite ($29 ÷ 15), $1.89 on Standard ($189 ÷ 100) and $1.22 on Premium ($489 ÷ 400). Moving from Lite to Standard multiplies your bill by six and a half for a two percent discount per prompt, so upgrade because you genuinely need 100 prompts tracked, never for the volume rate.
Where the category stops being small-business priced
It is worth knowing the ceiling so you can ignore it confidently. Scrunch AI lists Starter at $300 a month, or $250 billed annually, for 350 prompts. Profound withdrew its $99 and $399 self-serve tiers in September 2026 and now quotes privately after a free seven-day trial. AthenaHQ lists Starter at $295 a month on credits, with a free Essential tier to test it first.
Those are agency and enterprise products, and their unit economics are genuinely better at volume. For a business tracking one brand in one market, none of them beats a $29 subscription plus two free checkers. If a vendor will not quote you a price without a call, that is your answer about who the product is for.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the best AI visibility tools for small businesses?
Start with the free layer: the Ahrefs AI Visibility Checker needs no signup and covers six engines, and Google Search Console has reported AI Overviews and AI Mode impressions since June 2026. When you need a trend rather than a snapshot, Otterly.AI at $29 a month is the cheapest credible paid tool, with Semrush’s toolkit at $99 a month per domain if your reporting already lives there.
Can a small business check AI visibility for free?
Yes — start with two free checks. Ahrefs’ AI Visibility Checker shows what six assistants say about your brand with no signup, and Search Console’s generative AI report shows your own AI Overviews and AI Mode impressions. Together they establish whether you appear at all; pay only when you need a trend over time.
Is $29 a month worth it for AI visibility tracking?
Only if you will act on a weekly trend. Otterly Lite’s $29 buys 15 prompts tracked daily on four engines — about $1.93 a prompt — and matching the free checker’s six engines costs about $47. If you check once a quarter, the free tools are enough; if you publish regularly and want to see the effect, the subscription earns its keep.
How often do AI visibility tools refresh their data?
Daily on most published plans, but few vendors state it. Otterly documents daily tracking frequency on every tier and Semrush lists daily, weekly and monthly updates. Free one-off checkers such as Ahrefs’ give you a snapshot rather than a series, which is fine for establishing a baseline and useless for spotting a trend. Ask any vendor for the refresh figure in writing before paying.
Which AI engines should small business owners track first?
For a small business, ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews first, then Perplexity. Those cover most assistant-led research in both consumer and B2B categories. Gemini matters mainly if your customers work inside Google Workspace. Watch the commercial detail: Otterly sells Gemini, Claude and Google AI Mode as per-engine add-ons, so each extra engine has its own monthly line item.
Conclusion
The sensible sequence for a small business is: run the two free checks this week, establish whether you appear at all, and only then decide whether $29 a month buys you something the free layer does not. For most single-market businesses the answer is a trend line rather than a snapshot, which is exactly what Otterly Lite provides and the free tools do not.
Then spend the rest of the budget on the pages themselves, because AI visibility tools report a problem they cannot fix. If one person is doing all of this, our round-up of AI tools for marketers covers what else that budget has to stretch across. Our comparison of AI search monitoring tools covers the wider field, how to rank in ChatGPT covers the page-side work, and AI tools for small business covers the rest of the stack.
