Best Free AI Search Visibility Tools in 2026

Foglift is the strongest free fit for teams that want a no-signup AI brand check and a repeatable improvement workflow. The free AI Brand Checker tests buyer-shaped prompts across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overview signals, then returns brand and competitor findings with an action plan. Foglift also includes unlimited five-dimension Technical Audits, AI crawler analytics, and weekly Google AI Overview monitoring for one brand while active.

This distinction matters because buyer discovery is moving into AI answers. Wynter's January 2026 survey of 101 mid-market B2B SaaS CMOs reported that 84% use AI assistants and large language models for vendor discovery. Gartner predicted in 2024 that traditional search engine volume would drop 25% by 2026 as AI chatbots absorb some queries. The Aggarwal et al. KDD 2024 paper introduced GEO-Bench with 10,000 queries and found that source-level optimization can lift visibility in generative engines by up to 40%.

Most listicles that claim to answer this question conflate three different product surfaces under the "free" label. Truly free means a tool delivers a usable result with no time limit and no credit card, financed by an adjacent paid product line. Freemium means a permanent free tier with hard caps, gated to encourage upgrade. Free trial means a time-limited evaluation window that expires or converts according to the vendor's terms. The current OtterlyAI trial lasts 7 days, includes 50 search prompts, 1,000 API calls, 1,000 MCP calls, and requires no credit card. That is a different product surface from Google Search Console's permanent free reporting. This guide labels every entry by the access buyers actually receive.

Foglift is on this list because we built one of the platforms in it. We've slotted ourselves at #1 because the free combined stack (unlimited Technical Audits, Google Search Console integration, AI crawler analytics, weekly AI Visibility Checks in Google AI Overview for one prompt per category while active, on-demand checks, an MIT-licensed open-source CLI on npm, and a Model Context Protocol server on npm) is structurally distinct from Semrush Free's 100-page Site Audit, database-backed visibility snapshot, and Google position tracking. Foglift monitors answer-level Google AI Overview prompts in the same account as crawler analytics and unlimited five-dimension Technical Audits; Semrush brings a broader SEO database and a capped multi-page crawl. For a single one-shot brand snapshot in three engines and nothing more, HubSpot's AEO Grader (#3) is the simpler choice. HubSpot says no account is required. Users enter brand information, then complete a short form to unlock the full report. For site owners who want Google generative-AI impression reporting or Microsoft-ecosystem search analytics, the platform-native tools (Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools) cover that surface for free with site verification. The eleven verified entries are below; the comparison table and runnable evaluation script will let you re-rank against your own priorities.

Foglift's $0 bundle gives one brand active-use weekly Google AI Overview monitoring, unlimited five-dimension Technical Audits, AI crawler analytics, and Google Search Console integration. The $49/month Launch plan adds daily monitoring across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and Google AI Overview plus the REST API, CLI, hosted MCP, local MCP, and recommendations.

If you are past the free-tool evaluation stage, the broader AI search optimization tools buyer guide compares paid monitoring platforms, developer access, citation-source reporting, and pricing. The AI search monitoring tools guide narrows that list to recurring brand-mention tracking.

The no-signup snapshot options, verified August 2

Five current tools accept a brand or domain and return a visibility snapshot without account creation. Their limits are different enough that "free checker" is not one product shape. Foglift's AI Brand Checker returns a multi-engine snapshot and action plan with a 15-check hourly public limit. Its separate Technical Audit measures site readiness, while a free account adds recurring Google AI Overview monitoring and crawler analytics.

How we evaluated and categorized

Five criteria, weighted equally:

1. Honest categorization. Truly free, freemium, or one-shot snapshot. No time-limited trials masquerading as free. Vendors get one slot only and the label is the vendor's own /pricing or product-page wording where it exists. Vendor wording gets priority over listicle-industry interpretation.
2. AI engine coverage. Bonus weight for tools that cover the full five (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, Google AI Overview) inside the free surface. Single-ecosystem tools (GSC for Google, BWT for Microsoft) score on coverage of their own platform.
3. Friction to first result. Whether a buyer can get a usable score with no signup, with a signup form, with site verification, or with vendor-specific account creation. Lower friction scores higher.
4. Verifiability of the free claim. Tools whose free tier we could verify directly against the vendor's own pricing or product page in April 2026 are in the main list. Tools that adjacent listicles claimed had free tiers but where our fresh fetch failed are listed transparently in the unverifiable-claims sidebar rather than dropped silently.
5. Continuous vs one-shot. A free monthly snapshot is structurally different from a permanent monitoring layer. The comparison table calls this out per entry so a buyer treating this as an evaluation budget can pick the right shape.

What the free AI visibility checker queries are really asking

The phrase "free AI visibility checker" bundles three different jobs. Some searchers want an instant URL-level audit with no signup. Some want a brand snapshot across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. Others want recurring monitoring without a paid plan. Treating those as one product category is why free-tool listicles get confusing.

1. Foglift: Freemium (combined free stack)

Foglift sits at #1 because the free surface combines a no-signup AI Brand Checker with unlimited Technical Audits on any URL, a free Foglift account with Google Search Console integration, AI crawler analytics, weekly AI Visibility Checks in Google AI Overview for one prompt per category while active, on-demand checks, one tracked brand and one user, and the open-source foglift-scan CLI on npm under the MIT license plus the foglift-mcp Model Context Protocol server on npm. The hosted Technical Audit evaluates five product dimensions: SEO, AI Readiness, performance, security, and accessibility, with prioritized issues for the URL. The CLI returns the machine-readable scan response and also exposes legacy GEO, AEO, and AI Visibility score fields for compatibility. Those compatibility fields are not additional hosted Technical Audit dimensions. The free Foglift account adds recurring Google AI Overview monitoring, so a single brand can move from a one-shot technical baseline to a weekly visibility signal without a credit card. Full five-engine monitoring starts on the paid Launch tier.

Key specs (free tier)

• No-signup AI Brand Checker: buyer-shaped prompts across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overview signals, with brand and competitor findings plus an action plan; 15 public checks per hour
• Hosted Technical Audits: unlimited, any URL, five dimensions covering SEO, AI Readiness, performance, security, and accessibility
• Free account: 1 brand, 1 user, Google Search Console integration, AI crawler analytics
• AI engines covered (free monitoring): weekly Google AI Overview for one prompt per category
• Open-source CLI on npm: foglift-scan, MIT license, machine-readable scan output with legacy compatibility fields
• Open-source MCP server on npm: foglift-mcp for Cursor, Claude Code, Windsurf
• Paid tiers: Launch $49/mo (4,000 tokens), Growth $129/mo (11,500 tokens), Enterprise $299/mo (27,000 tokens). Verified at foglift.io/pricing, July 25, 2026
• Best for: developers and SaaS teams that want a real evaluation surface (one-shot scoring, ongoing AI Visibility monitoring, and CLI/MCP integration) without paying first

For low-cost monitoring, the first decision is the evaluation shape: no-signup technical checker, one-shot brand report, verified site-owner analytics, recurring single-engine monitoring, or five-engine AI Visibility monitoring. The product names matter only after that split.

2. Semrush Free: Free snapshot, Site Audit, and Google tracking

Semrush Free now overlaps with the free audit and visibility category. Semrush Free includes a database-backed snapshot of AI mentions, citations, cited pages, and AI Visibility Score, plus an AI-readiness Site Audit capped at 100 pages. The free Position Tracking allowance covers up to 10 Google keywords on one site and updates daily; Semrush detects whether those Google results contain AI Overviews. That is recurring Google search monitoring, although it is different from running custom buyer prompts directly against AI answer engines. Without the SEO Toolkit, Position Tracking monitors up to 10 Google keywords daily and detects AI Overview appearances. Custom prompt tracking in ChatGPT Search and Google AI Mode requires the paid AI Visibility Toolkit or Semrush One.

The product choice is therefore about workflow rather than access to a free score. Choose Semrush Free when you want an SEO database, a capped multi-page crawl, and Google ranking context. Choose Foglift Free when you want unlimited five-dimension Technical Audits, server-observed AI crawler analytics, and scheduled answer-level Google AI Overview checks for one brand. At the paid boundary, Foglift Launch costs $49/month for daily monitoring across five engines plus REST API, CLI, hosted MCP, and local MCP. The AI Visibility Toolkit costs $99/month per domain billed annually and tracks 25 custom prompts daily across ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini, and Perplexity.

Key specs (free and paid boundary)

• Free visibility surface: AI mentions, citations, cited pages, and AI Visibility Score from Semrush's prompt database
• Free audit: AI-readiness Site Audit for up to 100 pages
• Free recurring surface: daily Google Position Tracking for up to 10 keywords without the SEO Toolkit, including AI Overview detection
• Paid prompt tracking: 25 custom prompts daily through the $99/month per-domain AI Visibility Toolkit, billed annually
• Paid engines named on the pricing page: ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini, and Perplexity
• Best for: teams that want AI visibility context inside a broader SEO suite

3. HubSpot AEO Grader: Truly free (no account required)

HubSpot AEO Grader is the simplest free option for a single brand snapshot. The grader produces a composite score across sentiment, presence quality, brand recognition, share of voice, and market positioning, plus a written interpretation of what the results mean for your AI representation. There is no per-use cost. HubSpot says no account is required. Users enter brand information, then complete a short form to unlock the full report. The product is a one-shot analysis (HubSpot's own FAQ recommends re-running it monthly since AI models update) rather than continuous monitoring. The engine coverage is ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini; Claude is not analyzed. For an existing HubSpot customer this is also the cleanest read of AI-search-driven brand presence inside an ecosystem they already run their marketing in.

Key specs (free)

• Cost: free, no per-use charge
• Friction: HubSpot says no account is required. Users enter brand information, then complete a short form to unlock the full report.
• AI engines covered: ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini (no Claude, no Google AI Overview)
• Frequency: one-shot snapshot; HubSpot recommends monthly re-runs
• Best for: a single quick brand snapshot in three engines, especially for existing HubSpot customers

4. Profound AEO Report: Truly free (signup required)

Profound publishes a free AEO Report at tryprofound.com/aeo-report that delivers AI Visibility, Source Citations, Brand Sentiment, and Content AEO insights for a single brand. Engine coverage is ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overview. The full Profound platform now has public self-serve pricing: Starter at $99/month billed yearly for ChatGPT tracking only, Growth at $399/month billed yearly for three answer engines, and custom Enterprise packaging for broader engine coverage, API access, SSO, and dedicated support. The free report is the no-cost evaluation surface that maps to the platform's analyzer outputs. For an enterprise marketing team considering Profound as a paid AI Visibility platform, the free report is a low-friction way to see the analyzer output before committing budget. For a smaller team that wants recurring monitoring at the lowest commitment level, check whether a permanent free tier or a $49/month five-engine plan fits better than a $99/month ChatGPT-only plan.

Key specs (free)

• Cost: free
• Friction: brand-information capture before the report displays
• AI engines covered: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overview (no Claude, no Gemini)
• Frequency: one-shot
• Paid tiers: Starter $99/month billed yearly, Growth $399/month billed yearly, Enterprise custom. Verified at tryprofound.com/pricing, July 25, 2026
• Best for: enterprise marketing teams previewing the Profound analyzer before a sales conversation

5. Knowatoa: Freemium (free 60-second audit)

Knowatoa offers a free audit billed at roughly 60 seconds with no credit card, returning a one-shot visibility snapshot across multiple AI engines and surfacing content gaps where competitors are outranking the audited brand. The paid tiers (Starter $59/month, Growth $199/month) add weekly monitoring, dedicated support, and on the Growth tier 7-engine coverage with API access and automated content drafting. The vendor pricing page does not publish per-engine question quotas for the free tier; it is best treated as a single evaluation snapshot. For a lean team considering a paid AI visibility tool in the under-$200/month bracket, Knowatoa's free audit is a low-friction way to see the analyzer's output before paying.

Key specs (free)

• Cost: free; no credit card required for the audit
• Friction: contact-information capture before the audit runs
• AI engines covered: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and adjacent engines per Knowatoa marketing copy
• Frequency: one-shot audit
• Paid tiers: Starter $59/month, Growth $199/month. Verified at knowatoa.com, April 2026
• Best for: teams previewing a paid AI visibility tool in the sub-$200 monthly bracket

6. Geoptie: Freemium (free standalone tools)

Geoptie publishes a set of free standalone tools that map to the components of a paid AI Visibility platform without bundling them into a paid subscription: a GEO Audit (comprehensive website analysis), a Rank Tracker, a Content Checker, a Keyword Finder, a Cannibalization Checker, and a Backlink Finder. The full monitoring platform (covering ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, and Grok with rank tracking, prompt research, and competitor analysis) is on three annually-billed paid tiers. The free standalone tools are useful for a one-time technical check or for spot work, but a buyer who needs continuous AI search visibility monitoring will need to graduate to one of the paid tiers. Geoptie's adjacent listicle coverage in April 2026 was inconsistent. Some sources flagged it as "free open beta," while the vendor's own pricing page surfaces the three paid tiers and a separate set of free standalone tools. We describe the free surface as we found it on geoptie.com directly.

Key specs (free)

• Cost: free for the standalone tools (Audit, Rank Tracker, Content Checker, Keyword Finder, Cannibalization Checker, Backlink Finder)
• Friction: vendor sign-up flow on tools that require a saved project
• AI engines covered (paid platform): ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Grok
• Paid tiers (annual billing): Starter $490/yr (15 prompts, 2 brands), Professional $990/yr (100 prompts, 10 brands), Enterprise $1,990/yr (400 prompts, 50 brands). Verified at geoptie.com, April 2026
• Best for: spot-checking a single page or running standalone audits without committing to a monthly subscription

7. Ahrefs Free AI Visibility Checker: No signup

Ahrefs Free AI Visibility Checker is now a direct no-signup brand checker. Ahrefs checks ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, Google AI Overviews, and Google AI Mode with no signup, no credit card, and unlimited brand checks. The free report limits each section to its top five results.It reports mention frequency, citations, platform distribution, and the top topics associated with the brand. That makes it the broadest no-signup snapshot in this guide by named engine surface. It remains a limited preview rather than a recurring improvement system. Foglift Free adds unlimited Technical Audits, AI crawler analytics, and weekly Google AI Overview monitoring for one brand while active; Launch adds five-engine daily monitoring and API, CLI, and MCP access for $49/month.

Key specs (free)

• Cost and friction: free, no signup, no credit card
• Coverage: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, Google AI Overviews, and Google AI Mode
• Limits: unlimited brand checks; top five results per report section
• Output: mentions, citations, platform mix, and top topics
• Best for: a fast cross-platform brand snapshot without account creation

8. GeoBuddy Free AI Check: Three real-time checks

GeoBuddy Free AI Check is built for a quick live read rather than a database snapshot. GeoBuddy provides three no-signup checks and queries ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity in real time, with results delivered in about 60 seconds.The report includes visibility, sentiment, and competitor comparison. Its four-engine no-signup run is useful when a marketer needs a fast answer before choosing a platform. Foglift is the stronger fit when the same team also needs technical diagnosis, crawler evidence, saved history, and a fix workflow in one account.

Key specs (free)

• Cost and friction: three free checks, no signup
• Coverage: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity
• Execution: real-time queries with results in about 60 seconds
• Output: visibility score, sentiment, and competitor comparison
• Best for: a limited live four-engine spot check

9. Yogoo Free AI Visibility Score: Five-engine snapshot

Yogoo Free AI Visibility Score answers the board-deck version of the question with a single score. Yogoo provides a no-signup visibility score across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews. A free account unlocks the prompt and per-engine breakdown plus ongoing monitoring.The public example also shows category rank and cited competitors. The score is easy to communicate, while the useful diagnostic detail sits behind account creation. Foglift Free starts with a no-signup Technical Audit and then connects one brand to recurring Google AI Overview monitoring, crawler analytics, and prioritized improvements.

Key specs (free)

• Cost and friction: free score without signup
• Coverage: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews
• Account boundary: prompts, per-engine detail, and ongoing monitoring require a free account
• Output: 0 to 100 score, category rank, and cited competitors
• Best for: a compact five-engine benchmark that is easy to share internally

10. Google Search Console: Truly free (verified site owners)

Google Search Console is the platform-native truly-free option for Google generative-AI reporting. Site owners verify ownership of the property (DNS, HTML file, HTML tag, Google Analytics, or Google Tag Manager). In June 2026, Google launched a dedicated Generative AI performance report for a subset of properties. It reports organic impressions from AI Overviews and AI Mode and groups them by page, country, date, or device. Google also keeps those impressions inside the overall Search performance report. The dedicated report currently focuses on impressions; its official documentation does not promise query text, AI citations, clicks, position, CTR, or a URL Inspection view of generative-AI appearances. It also says Search Labs experiments are excluded. Use it as Google's first-party impression source, then use a dedicated AI Visibility platform for ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, or Gemini answer monitoring.

Key specs (free)

• Cost: free, no token quota, no usage cap
• Friction: site-ownership verification (multiple methods supported)
• Coverage: organic impressions from Google AI Overviews and AI Mode
• Generative AI dimensions: pages, countries, dates, and devices
• Limits: subset rollout, sufficient-impression eligibility, 1,000-row table limit, and no Search Labs experiment data
• Freshness: newest data can be preliminary and may change over the next few hours
• Best for: verified site owners who need Google's first-party generative-AI impression data

11. Bing Webmaster Tools: Truly free (verified site owners)

Bing Webmaster Tools is the Microsoft-side companion to GSC, free for verified site owners, with site-ownership verification analogous to Google's. The platform reports Bing search traffic, crawl data, and a sitemap surface; site owners running content that targets the Microsoft ecosystem (Edge default search, Microsoft Copilot grounding) should have it verified. The specific shape of Bing's AI / Copilot performance reporting was not fully verifiable from the public help-center surface during our April 2026 fact-check pass, so we describe the free tier conservatively as "site analytics and crawl reporting" rather than asserting a specific Copilot citation dashboard. Like GSC, the value here is platform-native. Paid tools do not replicate the exact surface Microsoft owns.

Key specs (free)

• Cost: free
• Friction: site-ownership verification
• Coverage: Bing search analytics, crawl data, sitemap submission
• AI / Copilot reporting surface: not fully verifiable from the public help center as of April 2026; check current product page before relying on a specific Copilot dashboard
• Best for: site owners who want Microsoft-ecosystem visibility data alongside their Google data

Comparison table

Four columns: tool, who it's best for, the free surface (truly free / freemium / one-shot), and the paid starting price when one exists. All free-tier limits and paid pricing were verified by direct WebFetch against each vendor's own pricing or product page, with Foglift, Profound, and OtterlyAI pricing rechecked on July 25, 2026 and Semrush's free and paid boundaries rechecked on July 26, 2026. Ahrefs, GeoBuddy, and Yogoo no-signup boundaries were rechecked on August 2, 2026.

How to evaluate the free tier of every tool above without paying anything

The cleanest way to compare free AI search visibility tools is to run a baseline scan against your homepage with each one and compare the outputs. The script below uses the open-source foglift-scan CLI (MIT-licensed, on npm) to save machine-readable output from the scan endpoint with no API key. It deliberately prints the hosted Technical Audit's five product dimensions: SEO, AI Readiness, performance, security, and accessibility. The raw JSON may also contain legacy GEO, AEO, and AI Visibility score fields for compatibility. Run it before completing any of the form-unlocked free reports, so you approach them with prior data and can sanity-check their output against a consistent baseline.

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# evaluate-free-aeo-stack.sh
# Run this first, BEFORE signing up for any free AI search tool.
# Establishes a no-signup baseline you can sanity-check the others against.
# Usage: ./evaluate-free-aeo-stack.sh https://your-site.com

set -euo pipefail
URL="${1:?usage: evaluate-free-aeo-stack.sh https://your-site.com}"
OUT="$(mktemp -d)"

# 1. Save the Technical Audit response for YOUR homepage, no API key, no signup.
npx -y foglift-scan "$URL" --json > "$OUT/aeo.json"

# 2. Print the hosted Technical Audit's five product dimensions, weakest first.
#    Legacy GEO, AEO, and AI Visibility JSON fields are intentionally excluded.
node -e '
  const r = require("'"$OUT"'/aeo.json");
  const s = r.scores || {};
  const d = {
    "SEO": s.seo,
    "AI Readiness": s.aiReadiness,
    "Performance": s.performance,
    "Security": s.security,
    "Accessibility": s.accessibility
  };
  Object.entries(d)
    .filter(([,v]) => typeof v === "number")
    .sort((a,b)=>a[1]-b[1])
    .forEach(([k,v]) => console.log(k.padEnd(28), v));
'

# 3. Now run the same scan against two competitors so you have a benchmark.
for u in https://competitor-a.com https://competitor-b.com; do
  npx -y foglift-scan "$u" --json > "$OUT/$(echo "$u" | tr / _).json" || true
done

# 4. With this data in hand, run HubSpot AEO Grader, Profound AEO Report,
#    and Knowatoa. Verify each tool's output against the
#    five-dimension hosted baseline above. Tools that disagree wildly with the
#    baseline are worth a closer look. Either they're seeing something
#    foglift-scan isn't, or they're surfacing noise.

echo "Baseline + competitor data in: $OUT"
echo "Now run the form-unlocked free tools and compare against this baseline."

The point is not that foglift-scan replaces any of the other free tools. It does not have recurring AI Visibility monitoring on its own; that lives in the hosted Foglift account. It is a no-friction baseline that lets you sanity-check the form-unlocked reports. If HubSpot's AEO Grader and Profound's AEO Report converge on the same weak dimensions the CLI flagged, you have triangulated. If they disagree, either they are seeing engine-specific signals the CLI cannot or they are surfacing noise. Worth investigating either way.

Free trials masquerading as free (deliberate exclusions)

Several tools that appear in adjacent industry listicles labelled as "free" or "freemium" are in fact time-limited evaluation trials. We exclude them from the main list so the categorization stays honest:

• Otterly.ai: The current OtterlyAI trial lasts 7 days, includes 50 search prompts, 1,000 API calls, 1,000 MCP calls, and requires no credit card. Otterly changed the trial duration on July 22, 2026. That is a time-limited evaluation rather than a permanent free tier. Otterly is a strong paid tool starting at $29/month Lite; we do not classify it as free here.
• ZipTie: adjacent listicles describe ZipTie as having a free tier; the vendor's public surface during our April 2026 fetch flagged it as a 14-day trial.
• Morningscore: 14-day evaluation trial rather than a permanent free tier.
• Similarweb: 7-day evaluation trial rather than a permanent free tier.

Tools we tried to verify but could not (transparency)

Per our pre-publication rule, every tool included in the main list has its free-tier specifics verified directly against the vendor's own pricing or product page. Several tools that adjacent listicles flagged as free were not verifiable from their own surface during our April 2026 pass. We list them transparently rather than risk asserting limits that turn out to be inaccurate:

• SE Ranking AI Search Visibility Tool: adjacent listicles claim a free daily-check tier; our fresh fetches against seranking.com's AI Search Visibility URLs returned 404. The product appears to exist (it is referenced from the main SE Ranking site) but the standalone landing page was not reachable. Recommend checking seranking.com directly for the current free-tier shape before relying on it.
• Mangools AI Search Watcher: Mangools' own product page describes a "Start in 30 seconds. No credit card required" signup, but the pricing page during our fetch did not surface specific free-tier brand-prompt limits or tracking-frequency caps. The free tier almost certainly exists; its quotas are not publicly documented in a way we could verify.
• Hall: the vendor URL did not resolve consistently during our April 2026 fact-check. Adjacent listicles describe a Lite plan at 25 questions/month; we cannot confirm against the vendor's own page.
• Amsive AI Visibility Grader: vendor URL returned 404 during our fetch. Adjacent listicles flag it as a free diagnostic checklist; cannot confirm.

We will refresh this section quarterly. If you are evaluating one of these tools, the safest path is to visit the vendor's pricing page directly and verify the current free-tier shape before budgeting around it.

FAQ

Sources & data freshness

Pricing, free-tier limits, and engine coverage were checked against each vendor's own page. Foglift, Profound, and OtterlyAI pricing were rechecked on July 25, 2026; HubSpot's access flow and engine coverage were rechecked on July 25, 2026. Semrush's free snapshot, 100-page audit, 10-keyword Google Position Tracking allowance, and paid custom-prompt boundary were rechecked on July 26, 2026. Ahrefs' no-signup checker, GeoBuddy's three-check allowance, and Yogoo's score-versus-account boundary were rechecked on August 2, 2026. OtterlyAI's trial terms were rechecked from its July 22 help article. Free tiers in this category change more frequently than paid tiers; we re-verify quarterly. Google's Generative AI performance reporting contract was rechecked against its official help and launch pages on July 23, 2026.

1. Aggarwal, Murahari, Rajpurohit, Kalyan, Narasimhan, Deshpande: "GEO: Generative Engine Optimization" (KDD 2024, arXiv:2311.09735). Introduces GEO-Bench (10,000 queries) and shows source-level optimization lifts generative-engine citation visibility by up to 40%.
2. Wynter, 2026 B2B CMO Survey. The January 2026 survey of 101 mid-market B2B SaaS CMOs found that 84% use AI assistants and large language models for vendor discovery.
3. Gartner: "Search Engine Volume Will Drop 25% by 2026, Due to AI Chatbots and Other Virtual Agents" (February 2024 prediction).
4. Google Search Console Help: Generative AI performance report (Search). The report covers organic impressions from AI Overviews and AI Mode, with page, country, date, and device dimensions. It is rolling out to a subset of properties and applies the usual 1,000-row Search performance table limit.
5. Google Search Central Blog: Introducing Search Generative AI performance reports. Google launched the dedicated Search and Discover reports on June 3, 2026 and states that the generative-AI data remains included in the overall performance report.
6. Vendor pricing & product pages: Foglift (foglift.io/pricing), Profound (tryprofound.com/pricing, rechecked July 25, 2026), OtterlyAI (current pricing, rechecked July 25, 2026, and current free-trial terms, updated July 22, 2026), HubSpot (AEO Grader access and report flow), Knowatoa (knowatoa.com), Geoptie (geoptie.com), Ahrefs (Free AI Visibility Checker), GeoBuddy (Free AI Check), Yogoo (Free AI Visibility Score), Google Search Console (search.google.com/search-console/about), Bing Webmaster Tools (bing.com/webmasters/about), and Semrush (free AI visibility features, no-signup checker terms, Position Tracking limits, and AI Visibility pricing). Pricing subject to change; verify against the vendor's own page before relying on the data.
7. Foglift free-tier specifics: rechecked 2026-08-03 from the current product context: the no-signup AI Brand Checker permits 15 public checks per hour; Technical Audits are unlimited; and a free account includes one tracked brand, one user, Google Search Console integration, AI crawler analytics, and weekly Google AI Overview monitoring for one prompt per category. Paid plans add all five tracked engines and higher monitoring cadence.
8. Foglift product and pricing documentation: verified free and paid pricing, engine coverage, monitoring cadence, Technical Audit limits, and developer-access boundaries as of July 31, 2026.

Fundamentals: Learn about GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) and AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) (the two frameworks for optimizing your content for AI search engines).