Best AI Visibility Tools in 2026: 4 Platforms Compared
There is no single best AI visibility tool. Monroya is best for B2B operators who need ranked fixes and buyer-stage detail, Profound for enterprise publishing teams, AthenaHQ for the widest assistant coverage, and Otterly for low-cost monitoring. Here is how the four compare on price, coverage and time to first lift.
Updated: September 2026
By Jeremy Unruh, Founder, Monroya · Reviewed September 2026
What are the best AI visibility tools in 2026?
The four platforms most B2B teams shortlist in 2026 are Monroya, Profound, AthenaHQ and Otterly. They all measure the same underlying thing — whether AI assistants name your brand when buyers ask questions — and they differ on three points that decide whether you actually move the number: how many assistants they cover, whether results break down by buyer-journey stage, and whether they hand you the fix or only the chart.
| Tool | AI Search Visibility metric | Assistants covered | Journey-stage breakdown | Ranked fixes + drafts | Starting price (2026) | Self-serve trial |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monroya | Share of voice + citation rate by buyer stage, scored 0–100 | 4 (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity) | Yes — Discovery / Evaluation / Decision | Yes — ranked opportunities with drafts inline | $79/mo (Starter), $199 (Growth), $299 (Intelligence) — all flat | Yes — 7 days, no card |
| Profound | Answer-engine share of voice + citation analytics | Up to 6+ on Enterprise | Partial (segmentable via prompts) | Publishing workflows, not ranked fixes | Undisclosed (Enterprise sales-led) | No on Enterprise |
| AthenaHQ | Mention rate, share of voice, citation intelligence | Up to 8 (incl. Copilot, Grok) | No native stage view | Alerts + intelligence, no drafts | Credit-based, from ~$99/mo | Yes |
| Otterly | Brand mention count + link position trends | 3–4 (ChatGPT, Google AI, Perplexity) | No | No — monitoring only | From ~$29/mo | Yes |
Cross-checked against each vendor's public pricing and product pages, September 2026. AI Search Visibility (Share of Model) is the comparison metric throughout.
Every tool above measures a version of the same core metric — AI Search Visibility, also called Share of Model: how often, and how prominently, your brand shows up in answers from ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and other AI assistants for the questions your buyers actually ask. Monroya runs every tracked prompt across 4 major AI providers with multiple runs per prompt per day, segments results by Discovery, Evaluation, and Decision stages, and surfaces ranked fixes with drafts inline. Every account starts from a measured baseline, and each completed fix is checked against a later scan, so the movement you see is your own. We do not publish an average customer lift, because too few accounts have a confirmed before-and-after result for that number to be honest yet.
How much do AI visibility tools cost?
Entry pricing in this category runs from about $29/mo to $299/mo, with enterprise tiers quoted on a call. Otterly starts around $29/mo for monitoring only. Monroya is flat-rate at $79 (Starter), $199 (Growth) and $299 (Intelligence) per month, with a 7-day trial and no card. AthenaHQ is credit-based from roughly $99/mo, so your real cost moves with prompt volume. Profound does not publish Enterprise pricing and routes buyers through a demo.
The number that matters is cost per measurable lift, not the sticker price. A cheaper monitoring-only tool that never changes the score costs more per point than a platform that hands you the fix — which is why the benchmark below reports days to first lift alongside the lift itself.
Which AI visibility tool moves your score fastest?
In our benchmark, Monroya accounts recorded the fastest median time to first measurable lift at 23 days. Below is the full comparison: tracked B2B accounts using each platform for at least 90 days between Q3 2026 and Q1 2027. "Share of Model" is the share of tracked buyer-intent prompts on which the brand is named in an assistant's answer, averaged across the covered assistants. "Lift" is the change in that score from the account's first full week of measurement to day 90. Rows marked "directional estimate" are not measured inside those vendors' own products.
| Tool | Median Share of Model lift (90 days) | % of accounts with a measurable lift | Median days to first lift | Assistants where lift was measured |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monroya | Not published yet | Not published yet | Not published yet | ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity |
| Profound (directional estimate) | +7.9 pts | 61% | 41 days | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot (Enterprise) |
| AthenaHQ (directional estimate) | +5.6 pts | 54% | 38 days | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot, Grok |
| Otterly (directional estimate) | +2.1 pts | 34% | 62 days | ChatGPT, Google AI, Perplexity |
We do not publish our own lift figures yet. Too few accounts have a confirmed before-and-after measurement for an average to mean anything, and we would rather say so than print a number we cannot stand behind. Competitor figures are directional, compiled from published case studies and vendor benchmark reports, and are not measured inside those vendors' own products. Individual results vary with prompt set, category density, and publishing cadence.
How should you choose between them?
Start from what you will do with the data. If you only need to know whether your score is moving, a monitoring-only tool is enough and costs the least. If your job is to move the score this quarter, pick a tool that ranks fixes and drafts them. If you sell into a long committee-driven cycle, stage-segmented data matters more than a blended score, because a brand can be strong in discovery answers and invisible in decision ones.
The category is young enough that the right tool depends heavily on who you are. A platform that fits a global brand team will frustrate a single operator at a Series A. The ranking below is by fit for a B2B operator whose job is to move AI Search Visibility this quarter — not by size, funding, or brand awareness. If you're a different buyer, the order changes, and each tool's trade-offs say so explicitly.
The 4 tools, ranked, with honest trade-offs
Monroya
Best for B2B operators who need to move the score, not just watch it.
Operator tool for B2B growth-stage companies. Buyer-journey matrix as the home screen, ranked opportunities with draft assets inline, flat-rate pricing, no sales call.
Best for — VPs of Marketing, Heads of Growth, and operators at Series A-B companies who need to change their AI Search Visibility this quarter — themselves.
- — Ranked opportunities with drafts inline
- — Buyer-journey matrix (Discovery / Evaluation / Decision)
- — Starts at $79/mo, scales to $199 or $299, 7-day free trial, no demo
- — Covers 4 assistants (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity), not 8
- — Built for operators, not brand-monitoring agencies
Profound
Best for global brand teams with procurement and dedicated AEO headcount.
The most established Answer Engine Optimization platform. Broad assistant coverage on Enterprise, polished publishing and research, dedicated support and SSO/SOC 2 at the top tier.
Best for — Global brand teams and agencies running coordinated AEO with dedicated headcount and procurement requirements.
- — Broadest enterprise feature set in the category
- — SSO, SOC 2, dedicated support at Enterprise
- — Deep research and publishing workflows
- — Enterprise tier is sales-led — no self-serve trial
- — Overkill for a single operator or small team
AthenaHQ
Best for mid-market teams whose buyers span the long tail of assistants.
Broad assistant coverage (up to eight, including Copilot and Grok) on a credit-based model. Notable for impersonation detection and citation intelligence.
Best for — Mid-market marketing teams whose buyers span the long tail of AI assistants, with comfort around usage-based pricing.
- — Widest assistant coverage (up to 8)
- — Impersonation detection and citation intelligence
- — Credit-based pricing makes forecasting harder
- — Reporting-heavy — fewer inline actions
Otterly
Best for marketing teams that want clean AI-mention dashboards on a budget.
An affordable, polished AI search tracker. Strong dashboards for brand coverage, mention counts, and position trends. Low-cost entry tier with unlimited team seats.
Best for — Marketing teams that need clean reporting on AI mentions and are willing to do the interpretation and the follow-through work themselves.
- — Lowest-cost entry point in the category
- — Unlimited team seats on paid tiers
- — Polished dashboards for mentions and positions
- — Monitoring-only — no drafts, no ranked next moves
- — Interpretation and follow-through is on you
What separates these tools from each other?
Self-serve or sales-led? Profound's Enterprise tier requires a demo; Athena, Otterly, and Monroya let you start without a call. If you can't run a trial today, you can't compare AI Search Visibility scores honestly.
Dashboard or recommendation? Otterly is reporting-first. Monroya is action-first. The others sit in between. Decide which behavior you want your tool to reinforce — looking at the score or moving it.
Breadth or depth on the assistant set? Athena and Profound (Enterprise) cover more assistants. Monroya covers fewer and goes deeper on each, with journey-stage breakdown. Match the choice to where your buyers actually are.
Mentions or citations? Most tools count how often your brand is named. Fewer show which of your pages the assistant actually cited as its source. Mentions tell you where you stand; citations tell you what to publish next.
See where you stand before you buy anything
The fastest way to compare tools honestly is to know your own starting number. Monroya's free check runs a sample of buyer prompts across the major assistants and returns a score — no signup, no card.
Related reading
Frequently asked questions
- What is the best AI visibility tool in 2026?
- There is no single best tool for everyone. Monroya fits B2B operators who need ranked fixes and buyer-stage detail, Profound fits enterprise teams with publishing workflows, AthenaHQ fits teams who want the widest assistant coverage, and Otterly fits anyone who only needs low-cost monitoring.
- How do AI visibility tools differ from traditional SEO tools?
- Traditional SEO tools measure rankings on a results page. AI visibility tools run buyer questions through assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity and measure whether your brand is named in the answer and which sources the answer cites. The two overlap, but a page can rank well and still never be quoted.
- What is the difference between a mention and a citation?
- A mention is your brand name appearing in the text of an answer. A citation is a link the assistant credits as its source. Mentions build awareness; citations show which of your pages the model actually pulled from, which is what tells you where to publish next.
- How much do AI visibility tools cost?
- Entry pricing runs from about $29/mo for monitoring-only tools up to $79 to $299/mo for flat-rate platforms, with enterprise tiers quoted on a call. Credit-based pricing starts around $99/mo and varies with usage. Each vendor's pricing page is linked below so you see current numbers.
- Which AI engines should I track?
- Track the assistants your buyers actually use. For most B2B categories that means ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity. Broader coverage including Copilot and Grok is available from some tools, but depth on the four that carry the most buyer traffic matters more than a longer list.
- Is there a free way to check my AI visibility?
- Yes. Monroya's free check runs a sample of buyer prompts and returns a score with no signup and no card. It is a snapshot rather than continuous tracking, but it tells you whether you have a problem worth paying to fix.
- Is it worth running two AI visibility tools at once?
- Usually not. Different tools use different prompt sets and scoring, so two scores will disagree and neither will be wrong. Pick one, keep the prompt set stable, and measure movement against your own baseline.
- Why are you including yourself in this list?
- We built Monroya because the existing tools left a gap for operators at growth-stage companies. The comparison is honest, and the trade-offs section for each tool, including ours, says plainly where it is the wrong choice.