Best AI visibility tools for small sites (2026)

Start with the free reports from Google and Bing. Otterly's $29 plan is the cheapest daily tracker we checked. If AI search can't reach your pages, fix that first.

AI visibility tools ask ChatGPT, Google, Perplexity, and others a set of questions, called prompts, and record whether the answers name or link your site. They differ in price, how many prompts they track, how many AI engines they cover, and how much they help you fix.

Check the basics before you pay. Google says a page must be indexed and eligible for a snippet to show in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and that nothing more is needed. ChatGPT search, Claude, and Perplexity each use their own search crawler, and a robots.txt rule or firewall can turn it away. A page they can't reach won't be cited, whatever you track.

We make CrawlCoach. It checks those basics and runs a monthly citation check, but it is not a full tracker. The list below says where the others go further.

Tool	Starting price	What it tracks	Best for
Search Console Generative AI report	Free	Impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode, by page	Seeing if Google's AI answers show your pages
Bing AI Performance report	Free	Citations in Microsoft Copilot and Bing AI summaries	Copilot citations
Otterly.AI	$29 a month	15 prompts, daily, on 4 AI engines	The cheapest daily tracker
CrawlCoach	$29 a month; citation checks from $59	AI crawler and page checks; about 10 questions a month on 2 engines	Sites that need pages found and fixed first
Peec AI	$95 a month	50 prompts, daily, on 3 engines you choose	More prompts for a small team
Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit	$99 a month	25 prompts, daily	Teams already on Semrush
Ahrefs Brand Radar AI	From $199 a month	Your prompts, plus Ahrefs' prompt database	Teams already on Ahrefs
Profound	Free 7-day trial, then custom	Up to 9 AI engines on Enterprise	Large brands

1. Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools: Best place to start, and free
Search Console's Generative AI report counts how often links to your pages were shown in AI Overviews and AI Mode, by page, country, device, and date. It shows impressions only, and Google says every site has it since August 31, 2026. Bing's AI Performance report shows citations in Microsoft Copilot and Bing's AI summaries, with the queries behind them. Bing says its data is sampled.
Neither covers ChatGPT. For that, ask ChatGPT with search the questions your buyers ask, and note which sites it links. Answers change between runs, so ask each question more than once.
2. Otterly.AI: Best cheap tracker
Otterly's Lite plan is $29 a month for 15 prompts, tracked daily on ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot. Claude, AI Mode, and Gemini are add-ons. Lite includes citation source tracking, share of voice, sentiment, and crawlability and content audits. Standard is $189 for 100 prompts, and there is a free trial.
15 prompts go fast. Spend them on the questions your buyers ask, not on your brand name.
3. CrawlCoach: Best when Google or AI crawlers can't reach your pages
CrawlCoach checks whether Google and AI search can reach your pages before it asks whether answers cite them. It finds the pages missing from Google, which AI Overviews can't use, and tells you why. Every paid plan checks robots.txt for the AI search crawlers, tests your firewall as OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot, and PerplexityBot, and flags pages whose text loads only with JavaScript and structured data that doesn't parse. Each gap comes with a fix and a check that it worked.
Pro, at $59 a month for 3 sites, and Agency, at $149 for 15, add a monthly citation check: about 10 questions from your Search Console searches or your own list, asked 3 times each of OpenAI with web search and Google Gemini with Google Search. After an AI search fix, it asks about those pages again a few weeks later.
Where it falls short: monthly, not daily, and 2 engines, not 4 or more. It has no sentiment or share of voice reports. If tracking is the job, Otterly or Peec do more of it.
Test whether AI search crawlers can reach your site
Check my site free
4. Peec AI: Best step up for more prompts
Peec's Starter plan is $95 a month, billed monthly, for 50 prompts tracked daily on 3 engines you choose from ChatGPT, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Copilot, Perplexity, Gemini, and others. More engines are add-ons. Pro is $245 for 150 prompts, and there is a free trial.
More than three times Otterly's prompts at the entry plan, for about three times the price.
5. Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit: Best if you already pay for Semrush
The toolkit is $99 a month with 25 prompts tracked day by day on platforms such as ChatGPT and Google AI Mode, plus brand and competitor reports. 50 more prompts cost $60 a month.
6. Ahrefs Brand Radar AI: Best if you already pay for Ahrefs
Brand Radar AI starts at $199 a month and adds research across more than 502 million prompts in Ahrefs' database. Ahrefs Lite, at $129 a month, includes 150 checks on AI prompts, and prompt packages start at $50 a month for 2,500 checks. One check is one prompt, on one platform, in one location.
7. Profound: Best for large brands
Profound doesn't list a self-serve plan. You get a free 7-day trial with 50 prompts a day on ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews, then a custom Enterprise quote with up to 9 AI engines, SSO, and SOC 2.
It is built for large brands, not a small site's budget.

Do you need a tracker at all?

Not to start. If your pages are missing from Google or AI crawlers are blocked, a tracker will report that you are not cited, and stop there. Fix access first, with the free reports and a free crawler check. Pay for tracking when AI answers send you buyers and you want to see the trend each day.

Questions

Is there a free way to check if ChatGPT cites my site?

Yes, by hand. Ask ChatGPT with search the questions your customers ask, and note which sites it links. Ask each question more than once, since answers change between runs. Google's Generative AI report and Bing's AI Performance report are free too, but they cover Google and Copilot, not ChatGPT.

Does Search Console show AI Overviews traffic?

It shows impressions. The Generative AI report counts how often links to your pages were shown in AI Overviews and AI Mode, by page, country, device, and date. Google's help page lists impressions as its only metric.

Do I need llms.txt or special markup to show up in AI Overviews?

No. Google says AI Overviews and AI Mode need no new machine-readable files, AI text files, or special markup. The page must be indexed and eligible for a snippet.

Why don't AI answers cite my site?

Check access first. Is the page on Google? Can OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot, and PerplexityBot reach it past robots.txt and your firewall? Is its text in the server HTML, not only loaded with JavaScript? Our free AI crawler checker tests the crawler part on any page.

Related guides

Sources

Checked on October 25, 2026. Prices and features can change after that date.

The best AI visibility tools for small sites in 2026

1. Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools: Best place to start, and free

2. Otterly.AI: Best cheap tracker

3. CrawlCoach: Best when Google or AI crawlers can't reach your pages

4. Peec AI: Best step up for more prompts

5. Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit: Best if you already pay for Semrush

6. Ahrefs Brand Radar AI: Best if you already pay for Ahrefs

7. Profound: Best for large brands