LLM visibility tools compared: what each one measures

Most lists of LLM visibility tools rank products. This guide sorts them by what they actually measure, because a mention, a citation and a click are three different things, and no single tool sees all of them.

By AI Search Ranking. Published 6 November 2026. Last updated 6 November 2026. In AI visibility measurement.

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The short answer

LLM visibility tools check what AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews say about your brand. A large language model (LLM) is the system behind each assistant. The tools ask it the questions your buyers ask, record the answers, and count how often you appear.

They fall into three groups. Each one sees something different.

Prompt trackers run a set of questions you choose, on a schedule, and report mentions, position, sentiment and cited sources.
SEO suite add-ons run very large prompt sets built from search data, so you can research a whole market, not just your own list.
First-party reports from Google and Bing show real impressions or citations of your own pages, but only on their own surfaces.

No tool measures everything. The right choice depends on the question you need answered. So this guide compares the tools by what they measure, then shows how to judge any of them before you pay.

Mentions, citations and clicks are not the same

Before comparing tools, separate the three things they report. Most confusion about AI visibility comes from treating them as one number.

Signal	What it means	Who can see it
Mention	The answer names your brand, perhaps as a recommendation	Prompt trackers and SEO suite add-ons
Citation	The answer links to one of your pages as a source	Prompt trackers, SEO suite add-ons, Bing's report
Impression	A link to your page was shown inside an AI answer	Google's and Bing's own reports
Click	Someone followed that link to your site	Your own analytics

A brand can be cited often and recommended rarely, or the reverse. A tool that only counts mentions cannot tell you whether your content is doing the work. A report that only counts impressions cannot tell you what the answer said about you.

Prompt trackers: your questions, on a schedule

Prompt trackers are what most people mean by LLM visibility tools. You write the prompts, choose the competitors, and the tool runs them against each assistant on a fixed cadence.

Peec AI reports four main measures. Visibility is the percentage of AI responses that mention your brand1. Position is your average ranking across those responses1. Sentiment is scored from 0 to 1001. Share of voice compares your mentions with competitors'1. It also ranks the sources most cited for your tracked prompts1. Its page says each metric updates daily per engine, across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews and AI Mode1.

Otterly.AI runs every prompt daily, but not at the same hour each day2. You cannot trigger a run by hand or change the cadence2. It covers ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, Perplexity, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot and Claude2. The product started with weekly monitoring before moving to daily2.

Profound, Scrunch AI and AthenaHQ sit in the same group. AI answers in our test often described them as suited to larger teams. All three came up when we asked AI assistants for recommendations (see our test below). Check their current documentation for engine coverage and run frequency, as both change often across this market.

The strength of a prompt tracker is control. You measure the questions that matter to your buyers, in your market. The weakness is the same. The results are only as good as the prompts you choose. A narrow prompt set can make you look stronger or weaker than you are.

SEO suite add-ons: a whole market at once

The large SEO platforms have added AI visibility to products many teams already pay for. Their advantage is scale. Instead of tracking a few dozen prompts, they hold databases of millions built from search data.

Ahrefs Brand Radar reports share of voice, mentions, citations and impressions against competitors3. Its prompts come from People also ask questions in Ahrefs' keyword index3. Ahrefs says they are asked in the web version of each assistant, without stored user data or prior context, and with no personalisation or filtering3. Coverage includes Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot3. Claude is available only for custom prompts, tracked through the API3. You can also add custom prompts for any question you choose3.

Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit tracks sentiment, share of voice, mentions, citations and competitor gaps4. Its Brand Performance report covers Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini4. It also shows an AI visibility score, but its help page does not explain how that score is calculated4.

These tools are strongest for research: which competitors appear, which domains get cited, which topics you are missing. Because the prompts are generated from keyword data, some will not match how your buyers really phrase a question. Treat their totals as a market view and your own prompt list as the measure of record.

First-party reports: real data, narrow view

Two search engines now report AI visibility directly, and both are free. They are the only sources here that measure real users rather than test prompts.

Google Search Console added generative AI performance reports, announced on 3 June 20265. The Search report shows impressions from AI Overviews and AI Mode, the URLs that appeared, and breakdowns by page, country, device and date5. It does not show queries, clicks, click-through rate, average position or which passage was used5. Google was rolling it out to a subset of site owners at launch5.

Bing Webmaster Tools launched AI Performance in public preview on 10 February 20266. It shows how often your content was cited as a source and how many of your pages were cited each day6. It also lists the grounding queries the AI used to find them6. It covers Microsoft Copilot, AI summaries in Bing and selected partner integrations6. Bing describes the grounding query data as a sample6.

Neither report covers ChatGPT, Perplexity or Claude. Neither tells you what the answer said about you. But both are evidence of real exposure, and they cost nothing to set up. Start here before you buy anything.

How the tools compare

Tool or report	Type	You choose the prompts?	Sees real users?	Main measures
Peec AI	Prompt tracker	Yes	No	Visibility, position, sentiment, share of voice, cited sources
Otterly.AI	Prompt tracker	Yes	No	Brand visibility, checked daily in each assistant
Ahrefs Brand Radar	SEO suite add-on	Optional	No	Share of voice, mentions, citations, impressions
Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit	SEO suite add-on	Optional	No	Mentions, citations, sentiment, visibility score
Google Search Console	First-party report	No	Yes	AI Overviews and AI Mode impressions by page
Bing Webmaster Tools	First-party report	No	Yes	Citations and cited pages in Copilot and Bing

Every row comes from the vendor's own documentation, read on 6 November 2026. Prices are left out on purpose: they changed between the AI answers we checked on a single morning, and vendors revise them often.

On 6 November 2026 we asked ChatGPT the same question three times, from the UK. The question was: "What are the best LLM visibility tools for tracking a brand in AI answers?" We asked Perplexity once. Then we compared the answers with Google's page one for the same search.

Three things stood out.

The shortlist was stable; the order was not. Six tools appeared in every answer. But the first ChatGPT run put Peec AI at the top, and the next two put Profound there. The same question, minutes apart, produced a different winner. Any tool that checks a prompt once and reports the result is reporting noise.

The sources barely overlapped with Google. Across the three ChatGPT answers, none of the cited websites appeared among Google's organic results for "llm visibility tools". Perplexity cited two that did. Ranking on Google page one and being cited by an assistant are related, but they are not the same thing.

Many lists are written by the vendors. Four of the sources Perplexity cited were vendors that list their own product first. On Google's page one for this search and for "ai visibility tools", we counted four more publishers doing the same in their snippets. That is normal marketing, but it means most "best tools" lists are not independent. Read who wrote a list before you trust its order.

The raw answers, sources and counts are saved with this article's research data.

How to judge any LLM visibility tool

Use these questions in a demo or a trial. They separate a reliable measurement from a good-looking dashboard.

Does it run each prompt more than once? Our test shows one run can change the winner. Ask how many runs sit behind each figure, and whether you can see the spread.
Can you read the actual answers? A score without the underlying text cannot be checked. You should be able to open any answer and its sources.
Does it report each assistant separately? ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and AI Overviews draw on different sources. A blended score hides where you are strong and weak.
Does it separate mentions from citations? You want to know both whether you are recommended and whether your pages are the source.
Can you set the country and language? UK answers differ from US answers. Check that the tool runs prompts from the market you sell in.
Can you use your own prompts? Generated prompt sets are useful for research. Your buyers' real questions should be the measure you report on.
Is the scoring method published? If a visibility score is not explained, you cannot compare it with anything else.

Then set the tool beside the free reports. Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools show real exposure; your analytics show real visits. A tracker that says you are winning while those three stay flat is measuring the wrong prompts.

This is also how our generative engine optimisation (GEO) service measures visibility. We use a fixed prompt set, check each assistant separately, run each prompt more than once, and report beside the client's own analytics. The method matters more than the brand of tool behind it.

When you need a paid tool, and when you do not

You may not need one yet. If AI assistants rarely come up in your sales conversations, start with the free reports and a manual check of a dozen buyer questions each month. Record the date, the assistant and the full answer.

A paid prompt tracker earns its cost when you need to report a trend, compare yourself with named competitors, or prove that content changes moved anything. An SEO suite add-on makes sense when you already pay for that suite and want market research rather than a reporting line.

Whichever you choose, the tool only tells you where you stand. Being cited depends on the work behind it, which our guide to generative engine optimisation covers. For Google specifically, our guide to AI Overviews explains how those answers choose their sources, and our page on ChatGPT covers being recommended there.

Common questions

Are there free LLM visibility tools? Yes. Google Search Console shows AI Overviews and AI Mode impressions for your pages5. Bing Webmaster Tools shows citations in Copilot and Bing's AI summaries6. Neither covers ChatGPT or Perplexity, so most teams add a manual check or a paid tracker.

What is the best AI visibility tool? There is no single best one, because each type measures something different. Choose a prompt tracker to report on your own buyer questions, or an SEO suite add-on for market research. Use the free first-party reports alongside either.

How accurate are LLM visibility tools? They measure sampled answers to test prompts, not real conversations. Answers vary from run to run, as our own test showed. Treat their figures as trends across many runs, never as a single exact ranking.

Can I see ChatGPT traffic in my analytics? Often, yes. In our test, the links ChatGPT gave carried a tag naming chatgpt.com as the source. Visits from those links can show up in analytics as referrals, though not every click carries the tag.

Do GEO tools improve visibility by themselves? No. These tools measure and suggest. The improvement comes from the content, the technical access and the third-party sources that assistants rely on.

Where to start

Set up the free reports in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools first. Then write down twenty questions your buyers ask before they choose a supplier, and check them by hand in two assistants. That baseline tells you whether you need a paid tool, and which type.

If you would rather have the measurement and the fixes handled together, talk to us about our GEO service. It starts with that prompt set, checked in each assistant, and a plan to become a source they cite.

What we've seen in real audits

Tracking tools are a useful starting point, but they miss a lot. Checking the prompts by hand, in each assistant, shows far more: which competitors are named, which pages are cited, and how your business is described.

On one site we worked on, the brand was not cited anywhere, in any assistant we tested or in Google's AI Overviews. A tracking score alone would not have explained why. Reading the answers and auditing the site did: the homepage, service pages and other content all quoted different figures for the same things. Once we made those claims consistent across the site, the site started to be cited in assistants and in AI Overviews. In our experience, AI answers avoid sources that contradict themselves, so consistent facts are one of the first things we check.