TL;DR
The AI search visibility category went from "two tools nobody had heard of" in 2024 to a real market in 2026. The shortlist worth comparing:
- Profound. The enterprise option. Strong data, $499+/mo, designed for in-house SEO teams at companies above $20M ARR.
- LLMRadar. The indie/lifetime option. $149 lifetime, BYOK, weekly digest. Built for solo founders and small teams who do not want a subscription.
- AthenaHQ. The agency-friendly option. Multi-brand dashboards, mid-market pricing.
- Gauge. The lightest option. Free tier, narrower feature set, good for first-time evaluation.
- Semrush AI Toolkit. Already bundled with your Semrush subscription if you have one.
Pick by what you actually need from the tool, not by feature count. This article is the honest version.
Table of contents
- What an AI search visibility tool actually does
- Profound, the deep dive
- LLMRadar, the deep dive
- AthenaHQ
- Gauge
- Semrush AI Toolkit
- Comparison table
- Who should buy which
What an AI search visibility tool actually does
In 2025-2026, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity started answering buyer questions directly instead of sending traffic to search results. For a meaningful slice of "discovery" queries, the AI is now the SERP.
That changes the marketing question. Instead of asking "do I rank on Google for X," you ask "when a buyer types my category into ChatGPT, does my brand get mentioned?" Or worse: "does my biggest competitor get mentioned and I do not?"
An AI search visibility tool runs your queries against ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews on a schedule, parses the answers, and tells you:
- Did your brand get mentioned?
- In what context?
- Which competitors got mentioned instead?
- How is the rate changing over time?
- What citations did the LLM use?
That last point is the actionable lever. If you know which pages an LLM cites, you can target those pages with content updates (the "GEO" play).
Every tool in this comparison does the basics. The differences are coverage, pricing model, and who they are built for.
Profound, the deep dive
Profound is the category leader by funding and by mid-market traction.
What it does well:
- Largest query coverage in the category. Tracks ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, and AI Overviews simultaneously.
- Best citation analysis. Surfaces the specific URLs that LLMs pull from when discussing your category.
- Best competitive intelligence module. Tracks not just your brand but a competitor set; surfaces "share of voice" changes.
- Real enterprise polish. SSO, audit logs, white-label reports, API.
What it does not:
- No public pricing under $499/mo. The actual quotes I have seen are $600-$2,000/mo for the configurations in-house teams want.
- No lifetime option. Pure subscription.
- Onboarding is a sales call, not a self-serve trial. The flywheel is built around enterprise procurement, which is fine if you are at that scale and friction if you are not.
- The dashboard is dense. Powerful, but takes a real onboarding to use well.
Who it is for: In-house marketing teams at $20M+ ARR companies, agencies servicing those clients, anyone who needs SOC2/SSO checkboxes ticked.
Who should skip: Solo founders. Indie hackers. Anyone whose "AI search visibility" budget is less than $5,000/year.
LLMRadar, the deep dive
LLMRadar is the one I ship, so let me be upfront about the bias and then describe it honestly.
What it does well:
- One-time price ($149 lifetime) instead of subscription. The math closes in month 1 against any subscription tool.
- BYOK (bring your own key) architecture. You provide the OpenAI / Anthropic / Google / Perplexity API keys. You pay the API cost (a few dollars a month at typical query volumes). I do not mark up tokens.
- Weekly digest email. The default workflow is "read the email Monday morning, act on three things." Most other tools assume you live in a dashboard.
- Tracks brand mentions, competitor mentions, citation URLs, and prompt-level data. The core feature parity with the paid subscription tools is real.
What it does not:
- No real-time alerting. If your brand visibility drops between Monday digests, you find out the next Monday.
- No enterprise polish. No SSO, no audit log, no API. It is a single-user tool.
- No multi-brand dashboard. Each LLMRadar license tracks one brand. Agencies with 20 clients would need 20 licenses, which means the math stops working above ~5 clients.
- BYOK means you have to provision API keys. For technical buyers this is a feature (no markup, no rate-limit surprise). For non-technical buyers it is a barrier.
Who it is for: Solo founders, indie hackers, small marketing teams (1-3 people), anyone who has 1-3 brands to track and hates subscriptions.
Who should skip: Enterprise teams. Agencies above 5 clients. Anyone who needs SSO or audit logs.
AthenaHQ
AthenaHQ is positioned between Profound and the indie tools. Mid-market pricing, multi-brand dashboards, agency-friendly workflows.
What it does well:
- Multi-brand pricing that does not get insane above 5 brands. Better economics for agencies than Profound or LLMRadar.
- Solid citation analysis.
- Cleaner UX than Profound for non-enterprise users.
What it does not:
- Subscription only, mid-market pricing (~$200-$500/mo published).
- Younger product than Profound. Some features still ship in the "beta" tab.
- Smaller raw query volume than Profound on the enterprise tier.
Who it is for: Agencies tracking 5-30 clients, mid-market SaaS teams, founders willing to pay a subscription for less friction than BYOK.
Gauge
Gauge is the lightest tool in the category. Free tier, narrow scope, good for evaluation.
What it does well:
- Real free tier. Limited query volume, but enough to run a one-time visibility check for your brand.
- Simple onboarding. Sign in with Google, paste your brand, see results in 5 minutes.
What it does not:
- The free tier caps fast. Paid tiers are competitive but you are paying for what other tools include at higher tiers.
- Narrower feature set than Profound or LLMRadar.
Who it is for: First-time evaluators who want to know if AI search visibility is even an issue for their brand before spending money.
Semrush AI Toolkit
If you already pay for Semrush, the AI Toolkit is included starting at the Pro tier.
What it does well:
- Already bundled if you have Semrush. No extra subscription.
- Integrates with the rest of the Semrush suite (the AI insights flow into the content workflow).
- Real data coverage. Tracks ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews.
What it does not:
- Not a standalone purchase. You are paying for the full Semrush suite at $140/mo+ to get the AI Toolkit.
- Less depth than Profound on enterprise queries.
- Citation analysis is shallower than the dedicated tools.
Who it is for: Existing Semrush customers, or buyers who want a full SEO suite anyway and treat AI visibility as a bonus module.
Comparison table
Verified May 2026.
| Tool | Starting price | Pricing model | Best for | Skip if |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Profound | ~$499/mo | Subscription, sales-led | Enterprise, agencies at scale | You are pre-Series A |
| LLMRadar | $149 lifetime | One-time, BYOK | Solo founders, small teams | You need SSO or 5+ brands |
| AthenaHQ | ~$200-500/mo | Subscription, self-serve | Mid-market, small agencies | You want one-time pricing |
| Gauge | Free tier | Freemium | First-time evaluation | You need depth |
| Semrush AI Toolkit | $140/mo (bundled) | Part of Semrush | Existing Semrush customers | You only want AI visibility |
Who should buy which
Solo founder, $0-$1M ARR
LLMRadar at $149 lifetime. The math closes against any subscription in month 1. BYOK keeps your API cost honest. Weekly digest matches the cadence you actually need.
Mid-market in-house marketer, $10M-$50M ARR
AthenaHQ or Profound. If you already have Semrush, the AI Toolkit bundled in is enough for the first 6 months while you scope a dedicated tool.
Enterprise, $50M+ ARR
Profound. The SSO, audit, and API surface justify the price. The data depth is best-in-class.
Agency
AthenaHQ if you have 5-30 clients. Profound at scale or if your clients ask for SOC2-grade reporting.
"I just want to see if my brand is mentioned at all"
Gauge free tier. Run one check. If your brand is invisible, escalate to a paid tool. If your brand is mentioned often, monitor quarterly instead of buying anything.
Honest final note
I run LLMRadar. I think it is the right tool for the indie/small-team segment. I do not think it is the right tool for enterprise teams, and the post above is honest about that.
If you are in the indie/small-team segment, the $149 lifetime is the cheapest entry point in the category. If you are not, one of the subscription tools above is the right call.
Originally published on OperatorIQ on 2026-05-26.
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